Steph's 120 inwall tank build

I'm not going to take all the rock out. I have another tank to store most the rock, corals and fish in while I setup the 120. I was going to clean the rock I use for rock wall as best as possible to help get as much dead stuff off before building the wall. Suggestions on how to do this or should I just let the die off stay on the rock to help with cycling?
 
Drywall is up.
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Drywall mudded.
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Starting on my foam /rock wall build.
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One question on rock wall build. What do you usually have this laying on when adding the foam. I just have it laying on a piece of wood and the foam is getting stuck to it. Glad I didn't do it all at one time or don't know if I would have been able to pry it off the wood.
 
Hi Steph, you probably won't remember me, but I bought some tan/orange rics from you a couple/few years ago. Still have them, though I've had to nurse them back to health after some tank issues. Still not back to how you had them and still trying to figure out what in the world you did to make them grow so well. Under my care, they slowly receded.

Anyway, I was going to start my rock wall this weekend. I'm guessing yours is done now except for the epoxy you posted about in your other thread? How did it turn out? Any pointers? Pictures? I think your overflow is in the middle, which is similar to what I have to deal with on a 90g RR.

From talking with Chad at Gateway, I know you need to remove as much of the foam as possible, otherwise the thing will float. Also, he makes his out of live rock, but I believe keeps it all fairly wet and works very quickly to keep from killing off the rock. Not sure how that affects the foam/rock adhesion.

How are you going to attach it to the wall? I've been trying to figure out how to make the wall so that I don't have to glue it at all (thinking of an 'L' shape in section so it is free standing) or use a glue that can later be removed.

FWIW, I've tried silicone + sand before and found that does not work very well. It probably depends more on what kind of surface you are adding silicone to, but the problem I've run into is that if the silicone peels, it all comes off.

Mark
 
Mark- Good to hear from you. I had issues with my tank and lost almost everything at one time so I no longer have those rics. Here are some pics of my rock walls. I still need to do the front section of the overflow but here are the two sides.
This is one side before foam is dry.
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Here it is after foam has dried for a day. Sorry pic is not that great as it was with my iphone instead of regular camera.
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Here is the other side with foam still wet. I just did it yesterday and as I am doing everything at my mom's house I have not been back today to look at it.
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I sanded the back of the that is dry yesterday.
<a href="http://s1050.photobucket.com/albums/s415/stephnewman1/?action=view&current=IMG_0748.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s415/stephnewman1/IMG_0748.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>My question for those who have done this is should I fill in the spots on the eggcrate that don't have any foam which is mainly behind the rocks? I plan on putting epoxy on the back to seal the foam that I sanded could I just fill the holes with epoxy Which might hold the rocks better, yes I know that would be alot of epoxy. To answer a question by Mark. I am assuming I will have to silicone the rock wall onto the back of the tank. Or does anyone know a better way to attach rock wall to tank?
 
I did not want big globs of foam to resemble rock but instead I just wanted the foam to cover the eggcrate and I will epoxy it and apply sand to hopefully make it look more realistic. I was hoping this would also help solve the probably of bouyancy as I used only one can for the whole section and . What I did was as I sprayed the foam on I used my hand to smooth it out so it pretty much was just filling the holes in the eggcrate. Then as it dried it bubbled up just alittle but enough to cover the eggcrate. I am hoping it will look good when completed.
 
Sorry to hear that. I know how that goes!

Your wall looks very 3D, which should look very cool.

I'm amazed you've only used one can on a wall that size. I was going to buy five cans! Did you zip tie your rock to the eggcrate? (OK, I see it) Are you going to epoxy them? I was going to foam / expoxy mine over.

And you probably don't have to epoxy the entire back of each rock, unless you have a lot of extra epoxy. Maybe just enough to glue each rock to multiple points on the eggcrate? Those eggcrates seem pretty flimsy and it does not look like you bought 1/2" thick eggcrate either.

And are you going to try and curve the wall around your overflow or just box it out? I'm debating if it's worth it to try and chamfer around the overflow. If I do, it will be a pain to get everything to match up properly.

If your tank is dry, I would go with silicone. If the tank is wet, you might consider that underwater reef glue the fish stores sell. Not sure what it's called, but supposedly it works great.

Hope it works out! :D
 
I bought the eggcrate at Home Depot which is what I have read most people use. Yes it did seem flimsier than I would have expected. I used one can on each side so two cans total and will need one more can to finish the eggcrate on the sides (which is pictured not done yet) and front of overflow. Just going to box the overflow. I am wondering if I should fill in the holes of the eggrate on back behind the rock either with foam or epoxy so that it is a flat surface for the silicone application. The tank will be dry when I attach the rock wall. I am going to epoxy the foam and add sand in front on all the foam. I am going to epoxy back to seal the foam that has been sanded down. I did ziptie most the rock.
 
You would think that if the foam did not cause the wall to float, that the wall would want to just rest on the bottom of the tank, and that you would only need one strip of silicone at the very top of each section to keep it in place. Especially if you are going to have sand on the bottom, which would keep things in place.
 
Done foaming all the walls. Waiting for epoxy to arrive. I ended up ordering the thin medium epoxy from uscomposites.com
Here are some pics of rock wall.
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I left alot of this open because I have a big rock that is going to be placed in front of this. I will attach the rock to this piece with epoxy putty.
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Here is the rock that will be attached later.
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Hopefully it will all fit together and look like this when in tank.
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Update on inwall stand build
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