--75g Barebottom/Starboard Reef Project--

[Travis]

Don't know about nylon rod. I think extruded would be fine. What is the difference in price?

 

[arconom]

I think I messed up I ordered 3/8 it's about the thickness of a hanger. Maybe I should order 1/2? Man this stinks(

 

[arconom]

Maybe 1/2" might be to thick? I'm so confused. I just want to make sure my rock has support.

 

[WAGERJA]

for the 1/2" its going to stick out of the rock I think 3/8" with be fine... as long as you embed it a good couple inchs...

JMO

-Jay

 

[Lunchbucket]

3/8" should work fine. not like you are hanging a rock at 90 to make a ledge

Lunchbucket

 

[arconom]

Thanks guys

Tonight is the night then.

I will be giving my Liverock there last bath So I will be washing them all off.

Then I will be cutting my Acrylic rod and drilling holes in my big pieces of liverock and placing them in my tank.

During this I will be trying to take lots of pictures.

I have no beer in the house so I will have to make due

 

[Travis]

Yeah man, the 3/8" will be fine.

 

[Deadmullet]

No beer?!!!!!

stop the insanity....

 

[masterswimmer]

3/8" :thumbsup: No worries my friend.

Russ

 

[arconom]

Well about 5 minutes ago I finished. I did everything I planned on doing.

I'm tired so I will leave you all with some pictures.

Take note my rock was cooking for over 9 months. Is there life left on the rock? You bet!


Getting ready

Cooking drum

Life

 

[arconom]

Seperating rock by size so I don't have to go crazy searching.

I drilled all the rock that I planned on using for the base.

I'm sorry but no pictures. The camera batteries went dead

Also I might change some rocks.

 

[masterswimmer]

Erik, boy do I see lots of nice ledges there to mount some sps and clams. Looks great. Can't even see the rods.

Good job, can't wait to see it live and in person.

Russ

 

[elephen]

Whats the major differance between the Bluewave and the PFO?? I know you get more par from the PFO.


Also Travis I know what you mean Zip Ties,Zip locks I love them. I just can't believe you drilled all of those fittings. Also what fittings did you use for the pillers that went under the light diffuser?

Trust me, you'll LOVE the Sunlight Supply Blue Wave 7 ballast. Its the dual HQI ballast. I have a dual 400w hqi and a dual 250w hqi ballast and have had many other ballast in my time and IMO, you can't get a better product than a Sunlight Supply one.

Their cases are also very heavy duty. www.sunlightsupply.com

Oh yeah, you also don't get more par from a PFO. PFO = manufacturer, Blue Wave = brand that Sunlight Supply manufacturers. Check 'em out. The Blue Wave 400w dual hqi ballasts uses the 430w Sun Argo ballast to power it which is basically a HPS ballast but it works great!

You definately wouldn't be disappointed.

 

[Travis]

Trust me, you'll LOVE the Sunlight Supply Blue Wave 7 ballast. Its the dual HQI ballast. I have a dual 400w hqi and a dual 250w hqi ballast and have had many other ballast in my time and IMO, you can't get a better product than a Sunlight Supply one.

What makes the Sunlight Supply ballast any better than any other brand?

Their cases are also very heavy duty.

Yeah, but who makes a magnetic or HQI ballast that doesn't come with a heavy duty case?

Oh yeah, you also don't get more par from a PFO. PFO = manufacturer, Blue Wave = brand that Sunlight Supply manufacturers. Check 'em out. The Blue Wave 400w dual hqi ballasts uses the 430w Sun Argo ballast to power it which is basically a HPS ballast but it works great!

Nope, you aren't going to get more par from a PFO, or any other brand for that matter. They are all going to be pretty much the same. It is the same ballast in every band's enclosure. The 250 watt HQI is the M80 and the 400 watt is the Son Agro.

You definately wouldn't be disappointed.

I don't think he would be disappointed with any brand of HQI ballast.


Sorry to be so "nit-picky". I explained earlier in this thread that an HQI ballast is just that.... an HQI ballast. The only difference is the box that it comes in. And you jump in making the claim that Sunlight Supply has the best one. I agree, Sunlight Supply has a great line of ballasts, but so do a lot of other manufacturers.

 

[Lunchbucket]

why didn't you drill ALL your rock and use some epoxy and the rod to make some interesting rock structures? you had the drill out and the rod? you could have opend up the rockwork sooooooooo much more w/ the rod, a drill, and some epoxy!!!

Lunchbucket

 

[arconom]

The main reason is I'm one of those guys that loves changing my rock work every 3-4 months. It's to early to make a structure permanent. But you are totally right. I could have done some awesome stuff.

It was really alot of work to be done in one night. The hardest part was cutting the rod to size.

Every rock is shaped different. So after drilling I would sit there and have to keep cutting the rod legs to size so that they all were flat

I didn't forsee this part taking as long as it did. Also before I even started the process of cutting and drilling I had to clean all my rock one last time "Ala Bomber method"

 

[arconom]

Nice automated E-mail ROFL

Your photobucket account arconom has exceeded 1000 Megabytes of
bandwidth this month. In order to keep free accounts available and highly
reliable, we cannot offer unlimited bandwidth on free accounts. If you
would like to upgrade to a premium account, please goto

 

[arconom]

Also while doing all the work last night I wanted no rock leaning on any part of glass itself. I wanted to keep a 1" or more buffer between all 4 sides of the glass for flow reasons also for scraping coralline. I will take a new updated picture now.

Also this is not the last stop for my Liverock. In 1-1 1/2 years I will be buying my 120.

 

[Travis]

Did you use epoxy to secure the rods into the rock? What did you use to cut the rods?

 

[tsquad]

Why is the water so cloudy? Everything else looks awesome though, can't wait to see some corals in there.