Ive been working on this little project for a couple of months now and finally its ready to share.
So here it is. My goal in this project was to:
1. absolute flow through every part of every rock and every part of the tank. there might be 70lbs of rock tops in this 225 gallon tank. There are 12 rocks total in this tank ranging from 3-8 pounds each. Every rock in the tank is 100% visible and every rock is 100% independent, meaning no rocks are actually touching anything but water. No rocks are touching each other. Each rock is suspended by 3/4 acrylic rod and a 3/4" hole drilled into it. I used my existing acrylic rock lift program but had to extend many of the rods for the higher rocks as removing them and replacing under the dsb wasnt going to happen. I did this extension with epoxy and couple inch piece 3/4" pvc. All of the tallest back rocks(4 of them) I can actually spin in place at the extension joint and are somewhat mobile themselves. There is 12-14" of water underneath each of them. I foresee in the future replacing them with smaller rocks to account for coral growth and creating more space.
2. Being as I killed pretty much everything in both display tanks this last summer, it put my frag tank project on hold for a year or two as all my efforts and monies have went into rebuilding both of my systems. So in a sense, this tank is one big frag tank. Every single coral is pegged with 1/8 - 1/16 acrylic rod and is easily removable by simply lifting out of their holes. Every angle on every rock is usable for frag rubble plugs as I have hundreds of holes left for frags that are unused at the moment. In doing this pegging part of the project I went through over 20-20gram tubes of IC gel, a handful of aquamends, and 30 feet of thin acrylic rod
3. Following my theme of not wanting to see any equipment in my displays, I wanted in the FTS of this tank for there to be nothing visible but reef. With the exception of being able to see the spraybars in a couple places I accomplished that as well. Although from a side view and other angles, the rockwork does somewhat resemble a erector set.
which it of course IS.
4. the entire reef from the rocks to the corals to the countless pieces of tonga branch is pegged making everything compeltely interchageable and removable with ease
I created something here ive never seen done before and am very pleased with it. My only regret is that I was having a hard time capturing the openness of the rockwork on film. I used lots of tonga branch creating an incredible look of depth....but unfortunately, this depth only really comes out in person as on film all of the pieces of tonga branch look like they are right next to each other when in fact there is a decent amount of space in between. The tank is 30" wide so where the corals look like theyare right next to each other in the pics...they are not. In the pics every little spot of black you see in between the rock work are not shadows, its the back wall of the tank. Some of the followign pics are going ot be blurry as I am taking angled shots through acrylic in an attempt at showing the depth
yadda, yadda, yadda......here are some pics
the first couple pics are at a angle that can show you the larger rocks suspended by a single 3/4" acrylic rod
So here it is. My goal in this project was to:
1. absolute flow through every part of every rock and every part of the tank. there might be 70lbs of rock tops in this 225 gallon tank. There are 12 rocks total in this tank ranging from 3-8 pounds each. Every rock in the tank is 100% visible and every rock is 100% independent, meaning no rocks are actually touching anything but water. No rocks are touching each other. Each rock is suspended by 3/4 acrylic rod and a 3/4" hole drilled into it. I used my existing acrylic rock lift program but had to extend many of the rods for the higher rocks as removing them and replacing under the dsb wasnt going to happen. I did this extension with epoxy and couple inch piece 3/4" pvc. All of the tallest back rocks(4 of them) I can actually spin in place at the extension joint and are somewhat mobile themselves. There is 12-14" of water underneath each of them. I foresee in the future replacing them with smaller rocks to account for coral growth and creating more space.
2. Being as I killed pretty much everything in both display tanks this last summer, it put my frag tank project on hold for a year or two as all my efforts and monies have went into rebuilding both of my systems. So in a sense, this tank is one big frag tank. Every single coral is pegged with 1/8 - 1/16 acrylic rod and is easily removable by simply lifting out of their holes. Every angle on every rock is usable for frag rubble plugs as I have hundreds of holes left for frags that are unused at the moment. In doing this pegging part of the project I went through over 20-20gram tubes of IC gel, a handful of aquamends, and 30 feet of thin acrylic rod
3. Following my theme of not wanting to see any equipment in my displays, I wanted in the FTS of this tank for there to be nothing visible but reef. With the exception of being able to see the spraybars in a couple places I accomplished that as well. Although from a side view and other angles, the rockwork does somewhat resemble a erector set.
which it of course IS.4. the entire reef from the rocks to the corals to the countless pieces of tonga branch is pegged making everything compeltely interchageable and removable with ease
I created something here ive never seen done before and am very pleased with it. My only regret is that I was having a hard time capturing the openness of the rockwork on film. I used lots of tonga branch creating an incredible look of depth....but unfortunately, this depth only really comes out in person as on film all of the pieces of tonga branch look like they are right next to each other when in fact there is a decent amount of space in between. The tank is 30" wide so where the corals look like theyare right next to each other in the pics...they are not. In the pics every little spot of black you see in between the rock work are not shadows, its the back wall of the tank. Some of the followign pics are going ot be blurry as I am taking angled shots through acrylic in an attempt at showing the depth
yadda, yadda, yadda......here are some pics
the first couple pics are at a angle that can show you the larger rocks suspended by a single 3/4" acrylic rod
