Biecacka/Corey,
On the external surface there are patches of acrylic that have little cracks just below the surface. I've been told it's the acrylic drying out and it can't be fixed. Currently there are about 4 patches that are 2x2 to 3x3 and they keep getting bigger.
The tank builder who built this tank used a crap piece of acrylic for the front panel. He had to replaced my 360 under warranty and when he built the 400 he didn't do a great job.
Saf1 - There are many different types of damsels in the tank. The ones I think you are talking about with the Red tail are Fiji Blue Damsels and the tails are super bright orange. There are 3 or 4 of these damsels in the tank. They were sitting in tiny cubes at a local wholesale shop for almost 16 months. After watching them for over a year I offered to give them a good home and home they came. They are bright, they are pretty, they get lots of compliments. One is noticeably larger than two others and I think its egg bound. It seems to kind of have a nesting area. I don't know much about damsel spawning behavior but many of the damsels in the tanks have their own nooks, cave, holes they call home.
The back wall of the tank is full of life. There are thousands of polyps and hundreds and hundreds of stalks of xenia. When I built the tank I mounted flat slab rock onto the back wall of the tank. So when I break the tank down I will pop the rocks off the back wall. If I can remove the slab rocks and quickly mount them to the back of the new tank and keep the surfaces moist I will probably only lose 5-10% of the life on the back of the tank.
Question 2 - What happens when the light goes out.... The lights go from bright to dark over about 90 minutes. And the 120+ fish do pretty much vanish as the lights go down. Some fish like the wrasses can find a spot and create a little cocoon to sleep in. The tangs and angels all vanish into the rock work. Sometimes at night if I come down with the flashlight I will find the pipefish out and cruising about. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of the Golden Angels and sometimes the Multibar is cruising at night. But most of the fish go away and if not sleep sit very very still in the same place for very long periods of time.
CHSUB - The Xenia is really flourishing. I know for many people it's a horrible weed issue that they hate. For me it's a sign of success. To grow something, anything so prolificly (sp?) is an accomplishment. And I think having all the back areas of the tank full of life really adds a lot of dimension to the tank. The rock work on the right side of the tank and the middle sits in the middle of the tank (from front to back) between that rock work and the back wall of the tank is a gap of 4 to 12". If you stand at the right end of the tank and look down the back of the tank - there is more coral, more life, and more diveristy than in most aquariums. There are large acro colonies, monti colonies, hammer colonies, duncan colonies, alveaporas and more growing in this back area that is totally hidden when you look at the tank from the front. Because of the depth and dimensions it's impossible to get a photo that shows all that is there. But it's a remarkable assortment of life with it's own group of fish that are never seen from the front... But back to your question about the xenia. The Xenia does every now and then encroach in my SPS areas. Every 2 weeks I remove in excess of 100 stalks of xenia. Sometimes I can peel it off the rock work and keep it in check. When it gets some place I don't want I rip the stalk off and then use a razor blade to scrape any remains. And when little patches show up close to the corals where using a razor isn't an option I have started using Kalkwasser Paste. I mix Kalk and water and use a plastic syringe for the Aptasia, and one day I tried dropping the paste on the problem xenia patches and it melts them away.
And all the Xenia I rip out I don't kill. My frag tank I have lost some control of. The Xenia is covering litteral square feet of the tank on the sides and bottoms. It's a fight to keep it off the frag racks. But everything I pull either is given away for free to any local reefer who wants some, or I trade it in at a local fish store for credit.
Saf1 - The slumped glass projects were done at a local glass shop. Full sheets of glass are laid ontop of a mold, then go into an oven and slow baked and then slow cooled. Some of the pieces we tempered after slumping depending on what I was using them for. I don't know about the metric ton of bottles. I never did anything with different pieces of glass. I have done a little bit of work with the dichroic glass and using a Kiln joining pieces of glass together but those were always little things. I don't know how it would work with big large items. I am not sure how much strength there is when the different pieces slump together.
And yes you did see some Tortoises. I rescued and raised some Sulcata tortoises. It started with rescuing two and then at one point I had 7 and then I was down to 2 for about 15 years. I raised them from 12 lbs to 175 and 160 lbs. They were destructive beasts and just demolished my flower beds, my sprinklers, my frag tank plumbing, my guest house water line over and over and over again. The breaking point was when they sheared a 1/2" gas line sticking out of the ground for my fire pit. Snapped a 1/2" galvanized pipe off!!! 24 hours the gas just pumped into the back yard. When we discovered it I gave up. I had tried everything to keep the tortoises corralled away from the house and guest house but they always out smarted me with their brute strength. While we were repairing the gas line (and a $800 gas usage bill) they caught the copper water line going into the guest house, ripped it out of the stucco wall (2' worth) and pulled about 8' of 3/4" copper line up into the air that had been buried 20" underground for 10+ years. --- They were just too much for me. So I found them a new home and have no regrets.
Dave B
