Lets do this - 225+ reef bar

[mcliffy2]

patience, I'm headin out the door now to entertain a friend in town. Tomorrow, Eric (glassbox-design) is coming over and we are transferring the livestock and aquascaping.

 

[Jflip2002]

Aw yes! If this friend in town is female, I request more mermaid pics lol. Youre just gonna use all the rock from your .5 cylinder tank?

 

[mcliffy2]

Well, its been a loooong weekend. Lets just say, I hate plumbing....and I really hate leaks. I must be the worlds worst plumber, because its been turn on return pump, find leak, seal it up, in the process create new leak, repeat....

now the bright side, the transfer of livestock seems to have gone smoothly, no losses as of yet...the aquascaping is done I think...I can't look at it from the front because my old tank is sitting in front of it. A guy is coming to buy it and haul it away tomorrow, so I'll get some shots then. Thanks to Eric (glassbox-design) for lending his eye to the aquascape, I think it came out awesome. And now, from what I could take on the side and behind my old tank, time for a few preview pics

 

[erics3000]

Wow looking good...You were working this weekend ....

 

[Ansphire]

man this looks awsome.. love the aquascaping.

also, I like the way you handled that dude crazy bout your girl.. I would have told him off...

enjoy and keep on sharing.

 

[ReefEnabler]

:beer:

looks great Cliffy! Cant wait for a FTS :dance:

 

[Jflip2002]

Awesome lookin. I knew I kept checking back in for a reason! You used new sand I imagine? And what grade/coarseness did you use? It seems like I either go with too large of a pebble, or too fine that keeps getting blown around.

Looks awesome, again.

 

[shuskins]

that looks good. hopefully that guy doesnt get as excited about those pics as he did about your girl in the tank..... or we are gonna have another page of buttons being stuck on his keyboard and spam on the RC lol

 

[mcliffy2]

Thanks everyone, I'm really liking the open scape

Now the plumbing, ugh...still am having leaks...I'm thinking I may have to tear down the plumbing and just redo it all, seems like whenever I fix one problem, I create another....for now I've got the 3 vortechs running and my Tunze 9010 set up as a HOB skimmer, so it should be good while I rework it.

jflip, I used carib sea live sand, forget the exact variety, but it is the kind that is 1-2 mm, and from what I hear doesn't blow around much. My sandstorm pretty much cleared up in a day, so it seems like it is working well.

ansphire - well, I figured he could just be a young kid or something, so best not to make a big deal out of it. I like her too after all

 

[Jflip2002]

Lol for some reason Id rather come on here and look at tanks, than browse the ladies online.

 

[Jflip2002]

nice. You didnt use live sand did you, you used the dry stuff?

 

[Aaronovky]

yeh i know form first hand whats is like to do that with the plumbing i tried to do that with my shower and wherever i put the silicone it sprung a leak next to it.
SO ANNOYING!!!!!

 

[mcliffy2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12521744#post12521744 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jflip2002
nice. You didnt use live sand did you, you used the dry stuff?

No it was live sand. I think it helped keep the cycling to a minimum on my last tank, so paid the extra few dollars for the live stuff.

 

[benf]

When u get time, post a pic from a distance showing the bar area.

Nice setup!

 

[kar93]

Tanks looking great! :thumbsup: FTS?

 

[Jflip2002]

cliffy, I hear it makes your tank cycle. The live stuff, isnt so "live" they say. And the bacteria dies off from that, causing a cycle. With dry sand, they say theres nothing to die off, rather just the sand to gain 'life'.

 

[glassbox-design]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12520490#post12520490 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mcliffy2

Looks great Mike :thumbsup:

 

[mcliffy2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12522715#post12522715 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jflip2002
cliffy, I hear it makes your tank cycle. The live stuff, isnt so "live" they say. And the bacteria dies off from that, causing a cycle. With dry sand, they say theres nothing to die off, rather just the sand to gain 'life'.

I've heard that as well...but at the same time, I used it before and had no detectable cycle, so I stuck with it.

 

[mcliffy2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12522708#post12522708 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kar93
Tanks looking great! :thumbsup: FTS?

Gotta get the old tank out of the way first. A guy is supposed to buy it today...my priority otherwise is plumbing.

 

[mcliffy2]

And so the plumbing saga continues...after staying up til 5 am saturday and 2 am yesterday, I still have leaks. I put my Tunze 9010 in the tank as a HOB skimmer, so there is some oxygenization and a little skimming, and I think I'm going to need to just tear down the plumbing and start from scratch. This time, no plex pvc (the 1.5" flex just doesn't work well) and I'm going to ditch the ball and gate valve in line with each other on the drains. I think all the short pieces required for this create a bunch of week joints due to short runs of pvc. I'm going back to KISS (keep it simple stupid) as much as possible.