My 75g Build

[spencermoose]

So I have been meaning to post the progress on my 75 gallon build that I have been working on little by little over the past 3 or so months.

Here are some pics and pretty much the order that I made and did things, ha ha.

Drilling the Tank, Probably the easiest thing that I have done drilling these holes in the glass to hold the bulkheads that I am using beans idea for overflow/standpipes.

 

[spencermoose]

Here is the custom foam rock wall that I made up. Used pond foam, eggcrate, and 1/2" pvc skeleton, covered with crushed coral and sand. It hides the overflow box on the left side and has a piece that comes out from one of the walls on the other... turned out looking great in my opinion.

The Skeleton behind the wall

Adding Foam

Added crushed coral and sand to the structures:

 

[spencermoose]

Building the stand was quite a bit of fun. I incorporated the base so that is has a 30 gallon that will be viewable and I am either going to use as a fuge or have it as a predator tank... i'm thinking the latter. It has a 25g sump in the rear and enough room to hold another 10 gallon that I have laying around that I am thinking of using for a fuge (if I go with the pretator tank idea).

I made the initial frame for all of the tanks to sit on for support as follows.

Then I made a removable skin that fits over the base frame out aspen and some moldings.

 

[spencermoose]

Here is the skin and the base frame side by side before I began staining everything.

Staining the skin and doors.

 

[spencermoose]

I build the stand/base and canapy at a friends house... he let me use his garage since I live in an apartment, what a great friend!

Setting up in apartment.

 

[spencermoose]

Here it is filled with water and the canopy that I just finished building this past weekend. You can see from my previous post the lighting that I am trying out on this tank to see if it works... so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

The lighting - high output CFL's (buld is approximately 5" around and 12" long!).

Views inside the tank. I put up a small mirror on the back of the tank to give a little extra depth perception, plus it hides the pipes and cords that run down the back.

Here are some front shots of the top portion of the stand.

I'll post more pictures as more happens. Tell me what you think so far and add any suggestions if you think there is anything I should be doing differently... or ask questions if there are any for processes, etc through my project!

 

[seesick]

Nice work... I Likee, Likee

 

[edandujo]

Can you give a step by step on how you made the rock, it looks great.

 

[spencermoose]

Thanks!

The rock was actually quite easy to make.

I started off with 1/2" PVC and made the outlines to support the structures and give more character for some of the nooks and cranny's.

Then I zip tied eggcrate to the PVC "posts"

I got some small pieces of base rock that had quite a few holes or creases and then zip tied some to the eggcrate. I was debating on putting quite a bit of base rock to weight it down, but I ended up using silicon to hold the structures in place.

I put the pieces in the tank to make sure that it would be a good fit and that there would be no problems with the structure... Took it out and then...

Then the fun part. Got "Pond foam" from lowes and used it around all the areas of the base rock to cover up all the eggcrate. It is black and states that it is UV safe (not that it really matters much since it was all pretty much covered up). Let it dry hard for about a day. If you use this stuff remember that it expands as it dry's... with some of the larger spots where I forgot about this, I merely pressed down on the foam lightly after it had set for about an hour.

Then I started off using a reef safe expoxy to tack on all the sand and crushed coral. As I was going along, it seemed like the mixture that I was using was only covering a small portion and it was going to cost a great deal in the end... so I thought to myself, the silicon is safe and serves as an adherant, so I used that in most spots and spread it out with a plastic spoon. When I was applying the sand and crushed coral I was working in small patches at a time (approximately 8"x8") and worked the sand and coral into the silicon. After it had dried, in the spots where the silicon was clearly evident, I went back and added some 2 part epoxy and then put sand on top of it to give more of a rock look. I let it cure for about a week while I was working at the job and getting some other things done for the tank (figuring out plumbing).

Then I went and put the pieces back in the tank and actually siliconed them in place (to the bottom and the sides).

One thing that I noticed is that I had one piece that was only eggcrate and the foam with the base rock zipped (it did not have the PVC supports) this piece ended up bowing just tad, but not too much. I think if I did just that on a larger piece that it would have bowed significantly causing some problems.

Total cost in the end was probably around $150.

Once I added the water, I added more base rock as well as some live rock from my other tank (probably around 50lbs)... I will be adding the rest of the rock from my current 30 a little later on.

Does that work for step by step? If you have any questions feel free to ask!

 

[pimpinitup6969]

I like the idea of the removable skin!

 

[Dangerous Ace]

Absolutely beautiful woodwork! Can't wait to see the rockwork when it gets covered in coraline. What brand of 2 part epoxy did you use and did you get it locally?

Brian