Anyone do a canyon in their rockwork?

[fishguy306]

Several years ago I stumbled across a website that amazed me with its reef pictures. The website is http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_gallery.htm (I know that the owner is a member here. I hope me posting the link is ok, if not I would be happy to take it down). In any case, I loved the canyon look that this tank had, seemingly going back forever. But, I had never done a reef tank, much less a tank I could ever do something like this in.

Fast forward to now. I recently bought a tank on craigslist with the dimensions of 4'x5'x27". Yup, 5' front to back. I've always been a freshwater guy, so this seemed like the perfect tank for me to do freshwater stingrays in. But then, browsing RC last night, seeing all of the big, beautiful tanks, I was reminded of the canyon look I had loved so much. I realized that it could work in this tank.

The downside is, I still have never owned a reef tank. So if I do this, it will be my first. I am still in the considering it stage at this point, however a reef is calling my name. Does anyone have any pics of reefs set up in this style? I would love to see some more examples, there has to be others.

Also, can anyone give me an estimate on cost to get this up and running? I know that would be tough, depending on the equipment I would like to use, hoever if you were planning, what would you do? Prices cannot be too over the top however. My fiance and I are buying a house at the moment, so obviously this get the back burner, spare cash only. Every time I have ever planned for a reef, it's been in a nano. Tank has a built in coast to coast overflow, as well as holes drilled for closed loops.

Sorry about the book. Let me know if you would like to see some pics, I have a couple I can put up.

 

[Guillaume]

Hi, that sort of canyon should not be hard to do. It is just a matter of playing with a nice amount of rocks. Just search for "rockwork" in the search engine.

You have a nice tank size and can do a lot of things with it. Now for the budget, as you said, I depend on what you want. I would say keep the idea to start and stay simple in term of equipement an grow slow (over several years). You will learn with time and on each equipment you have and add to the kit. I would suggest you read in the DIY or the General interest or Newbee forums on people that have tank building projects. You could see what they list has equipment and figure a price. But you may need to start at least with a couple of thousands. The used equipments forum section may be very interesting for you to start.

About the canyon, I did one in my tank, more intended as a refugium for fishes between piles of rocks than as a real canyon. You will see part or it in the picture bellow. Not really the same than the link you provided though. I'm on a new tank project where I plan to do a real canyon, just to remind me some great diving experiences and add protection to fishes.

G

 

[dave.m]

For your sized tank the math is pretty easy. Plan on $5000 and expect $10,000 in the long run.

Dave.M

 

[finrod2]

I'm setting up a 240 right now. I've bought a bunch of stuff used but still will have about $9K into it before fish, inverts! I did go LED so that was $2k just for lighting but in the long run pays for itself in bulbs and electricity