our zoanthid dominated island waterfall

[reefwars]

hey gang

new to reef2reef but have lurked for a long time

we will start with a new build that we under took at the beginning of spring, our last display was a 75g bonsai cube that ran well for its first year but then we ran it into some issues with it. the first issue was digitate hydroids....usually harmless but in our case where the tank was a high nutrient system that housed alot of nps corals they would not die off and we ended up with our whole tnk covered in them , every paly and every coral covered. we decided to restart the tank and i got sentimental on some corals so after scraping off what i could we rebuilt it and added back the corals i thought would be fine.....well nope 1 mth later and we were completely full again i was going to deal with it slowly then we got hit with more bad luck , i added a female flame wrasse and flane angel to out tank that brought with him a violent starin of ich , within a week we were out half of our fish and on the day we spent a bunch of money and set up a qt tank our achilles tang died.....we were fed up and decided to finish with the treatment and let the tank sit fallow , 3 mths later i just said you know what we have multiple tanks with corals in them and decided to shut down our display.


went from this (25g bonsai):





to this:



to this:



to this:



almost 2 years later and display-less we are finally doing another small tank



heres the thread im just going to copy and paste this untill i am up to date, this is a thread that has both me and my wife posting, i hope you all enjoy


cheers

denny( reefwars)


so since we shut down our last tank my wife for the last year has been after me to set up another display tank. with our frag systems still running and work busy for us both we just didnt have any mojo


near the beginning of summer one of my co-workers and friend was planning to set up a small frag tank for himself to prop some sps , he made it all the way to the lighting stage then realized he doesnt have frags lol the offer was there to buy a small stylish shallow tank and included a already made stand and light :mrgreen:




so we bought the setup with no real plans in mind and brought it home the following weekend.


me and ruth talked about what we wanted to do for the design and we agreed we would do another theme tank and just needed to settle on a theme. her last tank was a nano waterfall tank where water flowed over three panes of glass into a moat so she wanted to do something along the lines of a waterfall theme , i wanted to do the island volcanoe theme i had always liked.




so we met half way and settled on a tank that would house a vertical structure in the center of the tank that rose out of the water and on top of the tank in the back corner we would build a water fall. this is to be a mixed reef with all our nice zoas around the islands water edge and select sps pieces and lps etc to fill the rest of the tank fish ...TBD




so it began.......




the idea is to have water lines which are fed via the return pump to feed the waterfall and to have a few lines that ran over the island. the water that flows over the island ( 3 outputs ) will collect into some basins in which we will grow some corals in






we will try to keep this updated and log as much as we can as this will be a pretty interesting build




so here's what we got , we are actually already running with fish and corals but we will start this from the beginning as all good stories start




next up ....the set-up


enjoy!!!




denny:biggrin:

 

[reefwars]

ok so now thew theme has been determined we needed to figure out how we are going to run this idea




so heres what we came up with:mrgreen:




tank specs:


concept aquariusm custom made aquarium
36 x 20 x 14h
rimless aquarium
polished edges
external overflow on back panel
drilled for herbie silent overflow
1 x 3/4" returns on the back panel right side of overflow
black silicone
black acrylic back panel




stand: 2 x 4 construction painted black ( skirted later)


stand dimensions: 36 x 20 x 36h




sump: 32 x 20 x 16h -


its full custom built from concept ( obviously) and designed by me and ruth we maxed out every last inch of space available so its a bit of a jig saw puzzle lol


drain entry from display chamber
1 x 7" filter sock section
refugium section
skimmer section
return section
ATO compartment
custom built in dosing chambers ( ca/alk/mg/vinegar)




equipment:




t5 6 bulb tek light
bubble magus curve 5 protein skimmer
2 x 150w eheim jager heaters
jebao dc12000 return pump
2 x koralia powerheads (2 x jebao rw-4 wireless on order)
kamoer 4 channel doser
tlf 150 reactors x 2 ( gfo/carbon)
tunze osmolator 3155










here are some tank pics once we got it home from our friend and plugged in the lights

 

[reefwars]

so before the island we did the waterfall




for the waterfall we entertained the idea of buying an already made structure and simply modifying it to work in a reef , well that didnt work as none of what we seen online was going to work , so denny has a background in stone work and figured you know what we will just make it ourselves lol


so while we had our tank home we went and picked out some rock for the waterfall , the idea was to buy a thick piece of shelf rock shave the back to a perfect 90 degree angle so it sits flush on the rim of the tank in the back corner , with the shelf rock we wanted to create a basin in the lowest part so that we can put some corals in to grow. then we would build up and then down after the main plate/basin was created.


problem........




all the shelf rock is either very flat or doesnt have a already made basin in it




kinda like this:










so we broke out our 4" angle grinder and diamond blade and went to work making our own stone basin and working from there.




here are some pics of the cutting to make a basin we had to do......was dusty stuff




we had to make a plywood tank template to make sure when we got home it fit the tank perfectly





some grid lines up and down and left to right then snapped off the slivers with a flat head screwdriver , once it was all removed we used the saws blade and scratched back and forth untill it was all smooth.









placing the basin inside the tank.....yeah that was to much work and then we had to find a way to make it sit up there permanently ( cant have it break under its own weight right)

 

[reefwars]

this was the dry sScape we finished with that night and was to be the starting point on the waterfalls overall design we had one main output in the front and then i made two emergency outputs on the left and right side slightly higher just in case a snails sits on the waterfalls main output and clogs it and water flows over the back side....couldn't risk that lol












brought home and a quick dry fit before we sealed it all and made it one piece still is a bit shaky!





top down of the raw rock after being cut out, still alot of work to be done on this before its running












next up: the island design!!




enjoy!!


denny:mrgreen

 

[reefwars]

next up we started to work on our island , we didnt want to use multiple small rocks to build the structure we were hoping to find either one large one or two large ones joined together.


to get the look we wanted we ended up with two large rocks , out of the box they weren't exactly a perfect fit but had the right profile....just needed a little trimming


out came the old saw again and we started cutting to what we wanted






problem was neither rock had a flat bottom to it so one had to be trimmed in order to fit comfortably on the other rock











about this much had to go :

 

[reefwars]

repeat as necessary




getting there:

 

[reefwars]

brought it home for the final touches and a quick idea of how it looked in tank:mrgreen:












lights:







nice straight alley in the back:

 

[reefwars]

next up we had to seal the waterfall to hold water in its basin as well to make sure it didnt leak through the back and onto the floor , as much as we liked the all natural stone look seeing the water seep through the pores had me worried about if the waterfall backed up or if we may have missed something when planning , so we decided to seal it from the bottom and backside




good ol fijicrete to the rescue ( fast setting mortar) to seal the stones and then we used spray foam , 2-party epoxy and silicone to seal the outside and finish off the top off the waterfall




after making our cuts i realized this wont hold water lol







hmmm...big hole here...that wont do either lol





the lip of the waterfall , as well the emergencies on each side(less noticable)





the underside of the rocks.....see this wont hold water at all lol

 

[reefwars]

fiji crete:





a can for mixing:





some water:





very technological mixing spoon







top portion of the waterfall also needed to be sealed

 

[reefwars]

time to get messy












consistency of peanut butter

 

[reefwars]

like icing a cake










dont be afraid to get your hands in there












afterwards a little shot of water and then smoothed out with my finger to get full coverage and make sure theres no pinholes in the mortar

 

[reefwars]

while that dried we got to work on the water channels for the island , since this rock is so porous we decided to use some vertex 2-part epoxy to create our water channels and focus water where we want it , as well to build our basins/pools that the water flows in to later




stinky stuff but molds well and doesnt dry nearly as fast as that fiji crete lol







poke it right in there:





looks ok?





basins at the bottom

 

[reefwars]

next up now that our fijicrete was dry was to build the aterfalls platforms




we used a mix of expanding foam , epoxy and fijicrete to complete it all












had to seal all the outside as well:0










then coated the inside with fijicrete to hide all the foam and epoxy as well create a stone look

 

[reefwars]

ok so we had to design a sump , this is right up my alley and we got to work and drew something up


these were the plans we made:































basically our down pipes from the external overflow are plumbed into the chamber marked drain entry form display , water then flows over the baffle and onto a 7" filter sock try , when the socks are running normal water flows under the baffle and when they clog water flows over the notch and into the fuge , after the socks water flows thorugh the refugium and then into the skimmer , thorugh some bubble traps and into the return. we have added a small ATO in the back corner as well some dosing chambers for vinegar, alk , cal and mg there is an acrylic cover for both the ATO and dosing chambers with holes drilled for lines


will post actual pictures of our sump next

 

[reefwars]

and the actual sump all glass























under the stand





skimmer and reactor laid in place and plumbing done

 

[reefwars]

ok time to get the water lines on the island and waterfall and to fill this with water and take it for a test drive




for the island we were going to use 1/4" tubing but after going through all the trouble to install it all even hooked up to a mag 9 couldn't push water through it , an option was to use a dosing pump but they don't have a lot of flow so....we had to go with a slightly larger tubing at 3/8" diameter


the lines are fed via a " tee " off the jebao 12000 and there are three lies in total for the island and one line for the water fall , this way by using a large return pump we had some extra umfff and set the flow rate properly


once the lines were figured out we used some small pieces of pukani to cover them up and then some fijicrete and sand to hide it and make it not so notciable


you can also get a better view of the epoxy basins we made for the island











one line we decided to not have a basin and flows down into the water line:

 

[reefwars]

waterline neatly hidden down the backside of the island







it works

 

[reefwars]

water in to see how the levels all lined up


video of the fill:







pics:











had to add a small piece to the waterfall as the drop to waterline was to much and created noisee and bubbles

 

[reefwars]

ok so fast forward through our cycle and we have a rough finished look , even a few first tester corals from our prop systems


light has now been mounted above and about this time hooked our doser to automate additives


we have been carbon dosing vinegar since the first day water was added and have had no measurable No3 or P04 and to this day am still on my first batch of gfo


gotta love nipping it in the butt right out the gate


tank is being dosed 40ml of %5 white vinegar throughout a 24 hr period







pay no attention to the ugly koralias there are rplaced by 2 x jebao rw-4 shortly









getting close to where we are today , tank still has a lot of corals to add but is coming along nicely


we will post our stocking plans here next for corals and fish


thanks for following!!

 

[reefwars]

we have quite an extensive collection of zoanthids so the idea is to populate the island right at the water line with all our collector zoanthids , some sps and a few other frags


below the waterfall and bottom section of the island will be mostly lps with a few zoanthids mixed in


fish/shrimp so far we have :


2 x clown gobys
2 x neon gobies
1 x sailfin blenny
1 x sunburst anthias
2 x cleaner shrimp
1 x halloween crab






we would like to still add:


more cleaner shrimp ( 2 more)
some more clown gobies ( 2 more )
my pair of trojan clownfish ive had for years
my citron goby






coral list so far that we have:




too many zoanthids to list lol ( 150+ types)
large golden torch ( 6 heads)
metallic green octospawn
metallic green wall hammer
black torch ( hehe )
green tip octospawn ( wall )
ausiie warpaint scolymia
dragon soul favia ( x 2 )
25 ultra florida rics ( 100 more coming !)
large green and white flower anemone
favias ( green/red, toxic, black eye favia )
white polyp toadstool
orange clove polyps
large acan lord ( red and blue)
4 x chalices ( tubbs alien eye , alien eye , meltdown , cotton candy )
large blastmussa colonie ( 40 heads-purple and green )
gorgonians ( ORA grube, purple frilly , corky etc)
NPS gorgonian - menella sp. ( red with yellow polyps)
golden scroll coral
yellow fiji leather
australian lobo ( very nice)
cluster of red mushrooms
green and teal symphyllia
joker australomussa ( green and purple )
colony of aussie duncans




sps:


RR red diablo
ponape birdsnest
birds of paradise
pink birdsnest
joe the coral
blue tenuis
tyree pink lemonade
bali green slimer
orange setosa
a few RR wilds as well


inverts :5" ultra tahitian clam from reefraft










quick wish list:




master scoly
some australian dendros
orange elegance
red or blue gigantea carpet anemone
rainbow chalice
some more RR sig sps
rainbow welsophyllia
rainbow australomussa




plus im sure a lot more




up next , pics on where we are today as well how it all looks now


stay tuned!!