MarineGirl411
New member
The 180 was amazing! I cannot wait to see this one filled up with corals and fish. =)
Mike's 300 Double-D
- Thread starter prop-frags
- Start date
prop-frags
SPS Slave
Thanks for stopping in and sharing the kind words!
Thanks Lynn. We're gonna need some of those sweet frags you have. We picked up some coral crack from Joe - once things settle down a little, we'll need to talk about getting some of your nice stuff!
Thanks MG! We are really excited to have it up and running after all these months of planning and installation.
:fish1: :fish2:
The last couple of days have been quite busy.
Here's the rundown of what we've accomplished since Friday:
- Got all the lighting electronics installed into the stand, and finalized the wiring in the light rack and canopy.
- Reworked the left side aquascaping
- chopped down some of the bigger colonies down to more managable pieces
- got the 125 holding tank emptied out!
- Did some preliminary coral placement
- Read the camera book a little bit
- Drank a couple cold Sam Adams Noble Pils
And here are the fruits of our labors:
A couple of macro shots:
We are looking for another piece of live rock for the left side tree. We took out the big chunk of concrete-looking piece...it just didn't fit with the overall look we are going for, so we will just have to be patient and search for just the right stuff.
Thanks for tuning in! :beer:
Last edited by a moderator:
Mike it really looks great. So glad it has gone pretty smooth for you, even though i know it was a lot of hard and stressful work. Sweet reward at the end though. LMK when you want some frags. I have some nice high end ones that will look sweet in the tank. I am going to give you a free frag as a new aquarium warming gift. Cant wait to see it in person. We will probably be going to Joe's next weekend so i wll give you a call to see if we can swing by.
Lynn and Anna
Lynn and Anna
Dante_JoseCuerv
New member
@OP, what kind of strainer is that for the CL and where can I get one? I'm gonna be doing a very similar build to you in about a month or so and I really liked your CL setup.
prop-frags
SPS Slave
Thank you, Chris; that is a great complement coming from you! And yes, we have a ways to go - we just started seeing the diatom bloom last night, so we are going to have a cycle. We just hope it isn't too stressful on the livestock.
Thanks upnext. The OM4 takes up a lot of room. That is the downside to them...We're really liking the spa flex though, which provides the flexibility to get at some of the tight spots under the stand.
Indeed Rich! We have spent several hours in front of the display doing just that! Thanks for keeping an eye out on us and chiming in!
We used about 80 pounds, Chris, but it's not enough. We barely have 3/4 to one inch across the tank. My guess is in order to get 1.5" would require about 200 lbs.
:lol: @ Sam - so true! Just like Rich said to just sit in front and enjoy, but it's hard to wind down the "install machine"! There is always something else!
Yep - you know you guys are always welcome to come by! I'll PM ya with the phone number. You probably recognized that nice purple monti!!
Thanks Jon. We need to get a couple months of settling in and fine-tuning, but yeah we are looking forward to having RRC over for a party!
Hi Dante. It is a 2" pump strainer. The thing is huge, but eliminates the dangerous suction that can trap smaller animals or fish that don't swim so well like our radial leather jacket. Let us know how we can help with your build...
Dante_JoseCuerv
New member
Thanks a bunch prof-frags. I'll pm you if I have any questions. I'm just trying to figure out how I want everything set up.
/end hijack.
/end hijack.
crvz
Team RC
nah, you'll be alright. just be ready for some water changes. those diatoms are more likely to be from the silicates coming in from the new glass/plumbing than from a nutrient cycle. Once those silicates are consumed, the diatoms will fade away.
Whitebread
resident stalker
+1
Mike and Terry! Looks Inspiring! Rock work is Incredible, kudos for beautiful scape. Can't wait to see it in person. You gotta get some FTS over on RRC. I was thinking the 'boys will be boys' thread needs an April update. Then jumped over here, curious how things were going, really glad I did. Great job to both of you, really nice! :thumbsup:
PSU REEFER
New member
Looking great Mike. What type of sand did you finally decide to go with?
prop-frags
SPS Slave
Thanks Chris - you're spot on. We've been doing 10% water changes to beat back the cycle impacts. It's looking pretty ugly right now, but just gotta keep the skimmer running kinda wet and buying more buckets of TM...
Thanks Richard. We're expecting 3 more peices of live rock that will hopefully fit in just like we want so we can finish up the aquascaping and then start our final coral placements.
Thanks Rob. We wound up with a mix of 80lbs of the caribsea west carib reef, and I used about another 20 lbs of live sand from our curing tub. 100 lbs isn't enough (we still have some bare spots) so we are going to put in another 80-100 lbs. Probably going to get the seaflor special grade.
110galreef
New member
Awesome build! Love the cabinet! Can't wait to see the growth of the tank!
prop-frags
SPS Slave
Thanks! We're very happy with the build so far!
prop-frags
SPS Slave
OK, We've been just incredibly busy but thought we drop a few quick updates in so you guys can see how things are unfolding.
Once we started kicking back and watching the tank, we became increasingly dissatisfied with the aquascaping on the left side. The right side had turned out so well, that it "raised the bar". So we burned a couple of weekends between chores and errands just trying to improve it some. Finally, Terry said "you know that the whole thing has to come out." Groan. Yes, she was right.
So, we pulled out the left side and went to work on rebuilding the left "tree". The design principles haven't changed - we still wanted interesting textures and the bonsai tree look with multiple levels. We ordered a couple more pieces of live rock, and shopped all the LFS's. Problem was, we just couldn't find the pieces that we needed. Thus came the research on what method to use to fabricate the branches that have that look we wanted.
We landed on hydraulic cement. We ran several tests for construction techniques, for strength, and changes to the water (pH, etc.). This took an awfully long time. On top of that, I needed to go out of town on business. While I was away, Terry took all that we had learned through our experimentation and built this:
This pic doesn't do justice to all the work that went into this. Most of these pieces had to be fabricated using fiberglass rods, epoxy, hydraulic cement, etc. Needless to say, I was very happy to come home and have this ready to go. So we've been busy over the past two weekends getting the aquascaping finished and the corals placed. Here's a look at where we stand so far:
Left side:
Right side:
FTS:
We have a lot more to post about in terms of other things we've done....
Just have to find the time to take pics and document our work.
Once we started kicking back and watching the tank, we became increasingly dissatisfied with the aquascaping on the left side. The right side had turned out so well, that it "raised the bar". So we burned a couple of weekends between chores and errands just trying to improve it some. Finally, Terry said "you know that the whole thing has to come out." Groan. Yes, she was right.
So, we pulled out the left side and went to work on rebuilding the left "tree". The design principles haven't changed - we still wanted interesting textures and the bonsai tree look with multiple levels. We ordered a couple more pieces of live rock, and shopped all the LFS's. Problem was, we just couldn't find the pieces that we needed. Thus came the research on what method to use to fabricate the branches that have that look we wanted.
We landed on hydraulic cement. We ran several tests for construction techniques, for strength, and changes to the water (pH, etc.). This took an awfully long time. On top of that, I needed to go out of town on business. While I was away, Terry took all that we had learned through our experimentation and built this:
This pic doesn't do justice to all the work that went into this. Most of these pieces had to be fabricated using fiberglass rods, epoxy, hydraulic cement, etc. Needless to say, I was very happy to come home and have this ready to go. So we've been busy over the past two weekends getting the aquascaping finished and the corals placed. Here's a look at where we stand so far:
Left side:
Right side:
FTS:
We have a lot more to post about in terms of other things we've done....
Just have to find the time to take pics and document our work.
Last edited by a moderator:
Similar threads
