Dogstar's 20 gallon Odyssey

[dogstar74]

I began with a 90 gallon reef tank which I purchased while in Des Moines IA for Podiatry school. I found that it was a fascinating hobby; however, the constraints of funding were nearly more than I could bear. However, I did manage to keep a rather beautiful tank while out there.

The 90 gallon tank did make it to Utah with great effort. Unfortunately I lost a large emperor angel in the move as well as a mandarin Dragonette. But overall, the tank faired quite well. I was lucky that I could leave the tank in the skilled hands of my wife for 6 months, however during that time, we had a major Aiptasia outbreak. I purchased a Copper Banded Butterfly when I got back and he kept the aiptasia in control, but like most poor CBB, he starved once the food source was exhausted. And without him, the aiptasia went crazy again. Meanwhile I had just received word that I would be moving to Tucson for my Residency training. This was great news, however, I knew that with our limited finances that I would be unable to care for the 90 gal properly, as well as keep it cool enough in Tucson AZ! So we conceded to buy a 20 gallon AGA and sold everything in the tank except some mushrooms and two or three of my favorite pieces of LR. Unfortunately, they were being slowly consumed by the aiptasia

In Tucson, the tank was only serving one purpose, Life support for the Clowns. I had brought with us our two clowns and Lawnmower blenny. By and by the LM blenny wasted and I had to give him to a local fish store in hopes they would find him a good home. I was sad to see him go due to his fun personality. From that time, I just let the tank go to hell! It wasnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t at all like I wanted it, and not having the proper finances was mearly a point of great frustration to me. I slipped into a deep Aquarium depression that only fish people will understand.

Finally after watching the aiptasia take over my little piece of the ocean, I got fed up and started dosing with Joeââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s juice. I must say that I am very impressed with this stuff. It works pretty well, however, to kill off the amount of aiptasia that I had, it would probably poison a small 20 gallon tank. So I didnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know what to do.

I decided to purchase a 5 gallon tank and ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œNukeââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ the live rock. I purchased the 5 gallon tank and bought a bio-wheel filter for it and placed the two clowns in it and a couple of the red mushrooms and some of the purple polyps that I wanted to keep. Unfortunately they didnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t survive, but the clowns and mushrooms did alright. They survived ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œon the ventââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ for nearly 6 months in the 5 gallon. Now I was ready to get the 20 going again.

First step: Nuke the live rock.

I literally cooked the rock in my kitchen oven at 250 degrees for 45 minutes. I would not suggest this to anyone else, unless you want to spend a Saturday with a foul smell in your nose, clothes and house that you cannot get out no matter how many showers you take. YUCK! But it did the job. The rock then sat on my porch in the hot Arizona sun for about two weeks. It did a thorough job of drying it out. I tell you, I was mad at the aiptasia!

 

[dogstar74]

Second step: Research substrates.

I finally settled my bare bottom phobias with a Faux sand bed. I read about mixing epoxy resin with sand to make a solid bottom in the tank. So first I made a mold of the bottom of the tank and added a couple of cutouts for my powerhead and filter towers. I mixed up the resin and poured it into the sand. I used Evirotex lite epoxy available at Michaels craft store for my sand bed. It worked great! It stayed workable for hours! In fact in needs about 5 days to really cure completely. But itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s hard in one day. Here is the sand in the mould.

I was pleasantly surprised that the sharp edges left by peeling off the saran wrap could easily be trimmed with a utility knife. At long last the faux sand bed looked completely natural and I was greatly pleased with it!

Here's how it goes into the tank.

 

[dogstar74]

Third Step: Hide the power heads.

Right at the beginning, I knew one thing that would be important for me, is hiding the hardware. So I came up with a working solution. I had a long square piece of PVC fence post material.

I cut slots in the top for surface skimming, and sanded the outsides for better adherence of the Handi foam. I also scored the outsides with the utility knife to promote adherence as well.

Upon long hours of research, and deep soul searching, I decided that Handi-foam had been used successfully in othersââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ tanks and I was willing to use chemical means to achieve what I wanted. Along this same school of thought I decided early on to paint the towers with Krylon spray paint to hide the bright white pipes as well as to help the towers blend more naturally into the same color as the rocks. It worked better than what I had ever hoped!

But at first, they were quite worrisome. The initial coat of handi-foam fell off, and showed poor adherence. I had to quickly pick it up by hand and smear it onto the towers. All the while it was breaking down and looking more tarry than foamy. I was so depressed. (I used a latex glove, and would never recommend anyone try this without a glove on!)

As my father would say about my dates when I was younger,"any old barn looks good with a new coat of paint" And it never rang truer than with this project. The foam did what it was meant to do, and fortunately, stuck to the pipe well after the initial fall. And this Krylon spray paint nearly identically matches the baserock's real color! See! not too bad eh?

 

[dogstar74]

Fourth step: Arranging the aquascaping.

Well I had enjoyed the faux sand bed technique so much that I mixed up a slurry of some more sand and piped I through a ziplock bag with the corner cut. I used it to bond the base rock pieces together in a stable configuration. It worked perfectly, and the towers are so perfectly awesome that I couldnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t ask for a better aquascaping!

Fifth step: Curing the rock.

After all the rock still had all the bodies and protoplasm of the animals which were nuked! So Had to fill the tank with water and allow it to cycle. A short 2 week cycle just about killed me with Anticipation!

 

[dogstar74]

Sixth step: Finished!

Upon confirmation of cycle ending due to Ammonia and Nitrate levels at <10. I was confident to move the clowns out of the ICU and off the Vent and into the new20 gallon. I hope they love their new digs as much as I do!

Future:

I am researching VHO and MH lighting right now for the 20. I would like to steer toward a LPS tank with some softies. I am running skimmerless, but would like to hang another filter on the back and make a refugium, so long as there arenââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t any cords, or pipes visible in the main display.

Thank you for reading all this. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

 

[dogstar74]

???Why won't the pic show!?

 

[eidillitih]

cool, man I like that powerhead tower.

 

[dogstar74]

I'll try this again. Thanks for the kind words.

 

[Reefcherie]

I tried to help but I wasn't successful getting this picture to show inline either....just for a hoot, try changing the name of the picture to not have the exclamation point in it after "done" and see if that does the trick.

Reefcherie
RC Moderator

 

[dogstar74]

I'll try! thank you.

 

[dogstar74]

And for the last time.

 

[Reefcherie]

Ta da!! Congrats! :dance:

 

[Che]

Looks Cool! You should do the whole back of the tank with the handi foam. The powerhead towers look great. Will coralline grow on the handi foam pieces and faux sand?

 

[danferd2002]

Very nice and clean set-up

 

[dogstar74]

Reef Cherie, thanks for the input, it worked to take out the punctuation.

Che, I thought about doing the whole backdrop with the handi-foam, however both my wife and I decided that the blue really sets off the rest of the LR and we like the coloration.

Danferd, thanks

 

[00nothing]

great looking tank once the coralline develops and the tank matures it will be awesome

 

[dogstar74]

I know, I can't wait! It's like haveing a blank canvas in front and a whole pallet of colors ready to go, now you only have to decide what to paint.!

 

[sumyungviet]

just a thought, since the sandbed is solid, it will not stay that color once coraline sets in if your looking for a ''sandbed'' look... its going to be covered in coralline just like the rocks and towers will.

 

[dogstar74]

Perhaps, I don't think this is a bad thing though. And if it does, I can always make a new one in about 5 days and drop it in. . I can also take it out and scrub it with a brush to remove the coraline too. It still looks better than a bare bottom, and it's more managable than a shallow sand bed.

 

[Timbor]

Just one thought,
Are you worried what might happen to the Krylon paint after a few months in saltwater? I would think it might not be very good for the tank to have paint chips floating around....

Any thoughts?

Tim