Show me your Pillar's

[DanConnor]

I guess you could call this a pillar. Its several pieces of rock with holes or cabletied to a 1 inch pvc upright. Soon the ties can come off as its growing together.

 

[aj2001]

heres a realy old shot of mine, the left "pillar" w/ overhangs was courtesy of a masonry drill bit and two fiberglass rods...the left was just alot of working w/ my pieces of LR to make em fit together..

 

[Konadog]

Dan, that's when these pillars look really cool, when they are covered in coral that is all intertwined together. The best part is there is still great flow between everything as it's not a rock wall.

 

[mikeo1210]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7011999#post7011999 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TCU Reefer
I'm doing two pillars and 2 overhangs in my 215 inwall right now. Although it's not a pillar, I finished the first overhang today.

Looks very cool. Did you use some kind of masonary hole saw to drill a hole that large through the rocks? Since it's barebottom do you have a plan for covering the base of the pillars? Really like the idea.

 

[tankslave]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7012070#post7012070 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jent46bow
Here is a pic of mine....it was done with just very very carfull stacking. It seems pretty damn stable.

hahah, it never is....

 

[flyhigh123]

i used cpvc and drilled all my rock... i have some pillars, but no pics...

 

[Konadog]

Well, I thought I would post pictures of what I ended up with. Here it is after I first set it up.

Tonga branch forest,

Large center pillar with ledges and cave,

A few smaller pillars,

It's hard to tell the depth, but the tank is 30" deep. The pillars are held together by a 1/2" rod slipped into holes drilled in the rocks. Drilling is very easy to do with a cement bit.

 

[tankslave]

It always kinda bothered me how easy it was to drill those rocks. Makes me wonder what they're made of...

The acrylic rod method is pretty slick. You can even put little "legs" on the bottom one to keep it off the bottom for a BB tank, so you dont have detritus get stuck underneath.

 

[tankslave]

Ok Ken, this was all your fault:

So at IMAC Captive Oceans had a whole bunch of pillars, and even little caves to cover closed loop returns. Pretty slick. I forgot the two guys' names, but they were really cool talking too, and let me pick out a piece from the truck. No shipping charges, but you can imagine how much fun I had carrying this piece back on the plane... (19" tall). Going to use it in the next tank, which will hopefully get assembled this summer.

 

[Konadog]

:lmao:

Just remember to soak it for a month before using it, you won't have an algae problem with it. Those pillars are very nice, I just wish they weren't so expensive.

So where did you post any pictures of your fish you won in the raffle?

 

[tankslave]

yea, he's still hiding under the rocks, so I'll have to wait til he comes out when the lights come back on. He's pretty neat lookin though.

I dont know if I have any bins big enough for the pillar. Might have to borrow a barrel...

Boy you're up early! I still havnt slept, and I have to go to work in two hours!
Got a three hour delay out of O'Hare on an already red-eyed flight. Didnt sleep much over there either, with the jet lag, and having all the "good" speakers first thing in the morning...

 

[SDguy]

Thought I'd contribute to the thread that I actually gathered my info from to make my own pillars. Used 3/8" acrylic rods just like recommended.

 

[Konadog]

Nice work Peter! It will look very nice when things start growing.

 

[SDguy]

Thanks Yeah, as soon as I finally get some corals, it will be nice . Drilling, ironically, was the easy part. Stacking to make them look good, that was harder, especially in that narrow space between the front glass and the overflow. I'm thinking gorgonians in front of the remaining visible overflow.

 

[Konadog]

I stacked mine for a few hours in the driveway to come up with a few that I liked. Your right, drilling takes only a few seconds. LR is way softer than you think. You only have to deal with the milky white leftover powder from the rock. Rebuilding it back in the tank is a little nerve wracking.

 

[taku]

How long on average is a piece of LR out of the water while you drill through it and rinse? Because I have a couple pieces of existing LR that I have live coral stuck to... and I'd like to drill it and pillar it only if it will be a minute or two to drill the rock.

 

[Konadog]

Depends on the rock, but the longest time I spent drilling a hole was 30 seconds. That's because I had to flip one over and drill the other side because my bit wasn't long enough. The stuff drills like butter, at least mine did.

 

[taku]

ahhh very nice.. thanks for the info!

 

[SDguy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8108261#post8108261 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Konadog
Depends on the rock, but the longest time I spent drilling a hole was 30 seconds. That's because I had to flip one over and drill the other side because my bit wasn't long enough. The stuff drills like butter, at least mine did.

Agreed....I had both the 6 and 12 inch bits. Once you get the hang of it, it goes really quick.

And here's the final product!! I'm extremely happy with the way this project turned out. Big thanks to socalreefer73 for all his help and reefer2005 for the info on how to do this! Feedback and questions encouraged...

 

[hdevils]

very interesting thread, learned something new