Oyster Reef Ecosystem Tank

OK, so this isn't my oyster reef, but it's a project that I need to finish before I can move onto my larger oyster reef build. I'm making progress with my faux rock wall 3D sytrofoam background, so I thought that I'd share. In the pics below, my work space is my oyster reef aquarium stand :hmm4::headwally:

I painted the last lighter layer of this paint mix. I'm really happy with it so far. It is still a monotone color, although it no longer is the charcoal color of the cement dye, the yellow gives it a greenish gray tint. So for the next layer or two, I plan to add a little brown and maybe green. I don't think that I'll cover the entire wall though, just a dab here and there. I may even focus on a few of the shale layers to add to differentiate some strata, as you might see in nature:
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I really like how using Drylok rather than a layer of dried cement allows you to bring out the detail that you carve. That is a good thing unless you carve a mistake! In this case, the faux fossils that I pressed into the foam show up well. I'm happy that i started with the darkest color first and then added the highlighting, because it really makes the cracks and faux fossils pop.
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I used springs that I had laying around the house to imitate crinoid stem fossils by bending them and pressing them into the foam. I also pressed in small sea shells to imitate brachiopods and other bivalves. The coral that I pressed into the foam turned out nice too. It is subtle, but was enough to break up the flat shiny surface of new foam board. I don't know how much will show up later after algae builds up, but for now, I'm happy with how it turned out so far.
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Kevin,

As always, I enjoy your videos. On your music, what an eclectic mix of jazz and banjo. It for certain woke me up this morning.

The video brought back a memory imprinted from 30 years ago on a Transocean semo-submersible in 100' of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. On the surface, the water was fresh, full of nutrients and very muddy with little light penetration. As a semi-submersible, the rig must remain over the wellhead. In a 3-4 knot current, six 30 ton anchors with another with another 500 tons of anchor chain the rig was prone to be moved off location. As a Subsea Engineer, I was responsible for all well control equipment, riser tensioning system including flex joint on wellhead and ball joint at rig floor. To monitor rig offset from wellhead, I would lower underwater camera till slack in cable indicating that camera frame was landed on BOP frame. I would raise winch cable 5' to look at flex joint angle bullseye. When subsea camera lights were turned on, at max, 5 seconds were available to see flex joint angle indicator before a horde of multicolored squiggly things blocked view.

Didn't I just read a article this morning that Subsea introduced a new camera using Sony's low light sensors pulling in 8k resolution?
 
Thank you Michael!

I sponged on a little brown last night on a few layers to break up the monotone color and display a more stratified effect. I will touch it up a little more perhaps before installing it into the tank this weekend.
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That looks really cool! Any plan for sinking it?

Thank you! Yeah, the structure is filled with river rocks and sealed with spray foam inside, so that might mitigate the tendency to float a little bit. I will use a lot of silicone to glue it to the tank glass, sides, back and bottom. It fits tightly in the tank which I think will help keep it in place. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will work. If it doesn't, I guess the next step after that will be to carve out as much foam from the back as I can. I hope it doesn't come to that though.
 
Thank you Michael. I'm probably being too picky about it because it is all going to be covered in algae some day, LOL.
 
Algae will complete the picture for sure.

Also, I want you to get it done, so you can make progress on: "Current Tank Info: 101g 3'X3'X18" Cubish Oyster Reef Blenny tank, 36"X17"X18" sump"!
 
Thank you Patrick and Heuristic! I'll try and raise them one day, but for now, they're on their own but most likely will become a nutritious meal for someone in the tank!

Wow, Patrick, that must have been a pretty amazing job. What was the weirdest thing you saw on such dives?


On one location, a large Sea Bass (> 500 lbs) took up residency near wellhead in 1000' of water. When the operators representative, Shell "œcompany man", saw this large fish he asked if I could catch it. So, I attached a large shark hook with a chain secured to underwater frame of camera. Using a whole chicken for bait, I lowered camera to wellhead. Half of management on the drilling rig watched Sea Bass demolish our underwater camera and frame at a cost of $50K. Company man signed for cost of new camera system and carried Sea Bass filets home.
 
When water depth exceeded 1000’, we went from guideline underwater cameras to guildlineless combined with dynamic positioning. Oceaneering supported deepwater operations with a 10,000’ working depth ROV. On one location, when lowering blowout preventer stack and marine riser which exceeded 1,000,000 pounds, we shut down operations for two hours, at an hourly rate of $20K, to make large Jew Fish get off the wellhead.

We grilled some of the Jewfish that we caught.
 
That must have been an amazing experience Patrick...just to see a Jewfish even. I am amazed also that they are found that deep.

One of my biggest concerns with the background is the amount of foam that I used and the risk that the entire thing will float up to the top after I fill the tank with water. To mitigate those risks, I filled the structure with river rocks and used spray foam to fill in the gaps. The foam will help bind all of the foam boards together along with the glue and plastic popsicle sticks that I used for the internal structure. The river rocks were to offset the buoyancy that the extra foam might cause. Also, the structure is big enough that it fits tightly in place under the frame of the tank. The junctions of the three foam sections also are shaped in such a way as you can't just pull them straight out. I plan to use a ton of silicone to affix this background to the tank glass underneath, on the sides and on the back of the background structure. The Drylok application made the fit even tighter. It fits so tightly that I can't pull it straight out to the front of the tank. I think that it might not need the silicone to stay in place, but I'm not going to take a chance on not using the silicone.

Last night, I fit the structure into the tank. The tight fit discussed above created another problem. Not only will it be challenging to apply the silicone neatly, but I had to really push to get it into place. The tight squeeze caused about a quarter sized spot of Drylok to chip away at the junction of the center and right sections. I'm going to pull it out and repaint that spot, but if it happens in during the final installation, then I'll just have to do an in-tank touch up. I'd rather not do that, but....I gotta get it done.

Here's what it looks like from the left side, you can't see the spot that chipped away. The spots that you see are just a reflection off of the glass.
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You can see where the paint chipped away near the top of the junction of the middle and right sections, leaving the pink foam exposed. It should be easy to fix, so I'm not that worried about it.
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Thank you Patrick!

The naked gobies laid eggs. Now, all three species are spawning. Here is a video of a male naked goby (Gobiosoma bosc) guarding eggs, but most of the eggs have already hatched:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPNWufLGpPE

At the same time, the male skilletfish is also guarding eggs. If you look closely, around the 7 second mark, you can see a baby fish swim toward the surface:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGmWMK9WRQQ&t=2s

There are fish fry swimming at the water's surface just about every day now. I believe that the ones currently swimming around are naked gobies, but it is very hard to tell them apart. These seem a lot skinnier with smaller heads than the ones that I caught on video previously.

I picked up a breeder cage from a LFS the other day so I can try to see if I can keep them alive. I need to find another way to hang it from the tank because the metal hanging devices that came with it will most likely rust.
 
Your system is a “la natural”, I love it. The fact that you collect such neat things and bring them into your ecosystem by itself is a milestone. Getting past the larvae stage is the challenge.

I have fifth generation marine mollies in outside mariculture tanks buried in the ground. Green Mollies are caught in the wild in both fresh and marine environments. Tomorrow, I go collecting with the grandkids in down town Austin on Lady Bird Lake, which is the Colorado River. Would you help a brother out with the “grass shrimp” video you did and provide a link. I lost the original you linked me. The kids would enjoy seeing it. I am not sure who the biggest kid is.

Kevin,
Thanks again for this thread and for your contribution to the hobby.
Laissez les bonne temps roulee,
Patrick
 
Thank you my brother. PaulB says that where he lives on Long Island, “the grass shrimp are so thick that they take turns to get in the water”. To make that type of a claim sounds like a Texacan,
 
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