40 Breeder stand- Now a Build Thread

[Lingwendil]

Man am I glad I picked up that rock, that was a killer deal! $60 got me all the rock you see in the tank, and three partial bags of coarse sand, most of the rock has already had an acid dip, but it will all get a good soak regardless. I'm thinking I have at least 25 pounds, the larger pieces are very open and porous- and quite light for their size. I'll have to play with stacking, and may break some up to build my structures with some PVC framework.

 

[Lingwendil]

Holy crap, this looks nice!



Got the top and bottom plywood cut, burnt, and installed, sanded down everything, then wiped it down with a wet rag to clear out sanding dust and soot. After it dries an hour or two I'll check it out, and either sand again or start application of boiled linseed oil.

Once it's all finished I'll pick up some pilister strips and shelf hardware, then I'll start on the shelving.

 

[Lingwendil]

After a session/rubdown with a mixture of 40% BLO and 60% turpentine, I applied it very heavily, and basically kept rubbing it in until it stopped absorbing quickly. The wood is very thirsty at this point, and will dry almost instantly as you apply it for the first few minutes.



I left it to dry for ~20 minutes or so, and then checked to make sure it didn't have any obviously wet spots (it didn't) and then left it to dry for a couple hours. I went back and have it a rubdown with straight BLO this time, with much the same technique as before. Since the wood had already absorbed a great deal earlier, this application went much faster, and stayed wet looking longer, approximately ~30 minutes. After checking to ensure that it had fully absorbed that coat (No visible wetness) I left it to dry overnight.

I'm still debating on whether to do a paste wax or oil-based poly top coat, and still pretty evenly divided between the two- I'm not a fan of poly finish in general but it would provide better protection. My usual top coat is a equal portion beeswax/turpentine/BLO blend.

 

[Lingwendil]

A couple coats of satin oil-based polyurethane(Varathane) with a sanding of green scotchbrite followed by 320 grit sandpaper between coats.



This is with no stain, just a couple coats of boiled linseed oil, and the polyurethane topcoat.

Next step is cutting/building shelves, and working on the light hanging rig. For the hanging setup I've got 1/2" EMT bent to mount to the rear of the stand, I just need to drill a few positions for eye-bolts for the hanging setup, and then give everything a coat of paint. I'm either going oil-rubbed bronze, or black (dark grey, really) hammered paint, keeping with the olde school theme

 

[Mike N]

Man that looks great!

 

[Lingwendil]

My other current project(s), the twins (both 2.5 gallon tanks)-


-have taken some of the attention from this build, but now that they are more or less how I like them I moved things around, and the GF helped bring the stand upstairs. I was going to wait until shelves were screwed in, but the current 20 long is having issues that prompted pushing things along a bit quicker. Needed the space in the garage back too

Got the light hangers attached, put a 4x6 block of 1/2" plywood under each foot (the floor has a raised spot directly center of the location the stand will be) and got the stand pretty much in place.





Since this is directly next to our dining table, I took a seat and an really happy with the height of the stand- the center of the tank is just at eye level, and the light fixture will be just past the rim for minimized light spill.

I also took a gamble and picked up three bags of dry sand from Petco, as at $4.89 (online, in store they're $8.99) for a ten pound bag the price was right. It's a smidge finer than what I have on hand, but should do great when mixed together. I threw some in a Ziploc for comparison.







I may need one more bag (I have maybe 10# of the tropic Eden) but so far it looks like it should work out great. This is more coarse than I usually would use, but with about ~40# on hand I think it should work without being blown around as easily as the finer stuff I'm accustomed to using. I plan on a sand sifting goby so it should stay clean.

 

[Lingwendil]

Initial aquascape idea-

 

[Lingwendil]

Broke up a bit of my extra rock to make it more usable, and added it all to an 18 gallon tote. I had more than I thought, about ~45 pounds total. I'll be using maybe 20 or so pounds total.



Filled the tote with water (10 gallons or so) and a half gallon of bleach to soak overnight, as a good deal of the rock had organic material still present and some silt/mud deep inside where I can't reach. I'll give this a day or so and then it'll get a couple days of freshwater soaking (with Prime added) and then let it dry. Hopefully tank will be wet this weekend.

 

[Lingwendil]

My girl's daughter wanted to help out, so she gets to blast the crud out of the rock and flush the bin



Good bit of organic debris came out, but not really all that bad. Most of this stuff came from a guy who had either recently used it or recently starting prepping it, so I'll pull it out to dry tonight. Goal is to get it in the tank hopefully saturday afternoon. Then on to rinsing sand, and mixing up water. I'll throw in a couple koralia powerheads and add bottle bacteria, then cover the tank in paper for a blackout cycle to promote strong bacterial culture. I'll throw in a few smaller pieces of LR to help get a good population of bacteria and maybe even pods going during the cycle.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

My girl's daughter wanted to help out, so she gets to blast the crud out of the rock and flush the bin



Good bit of organic debris came out, but not really all that bad. Most of this stuff came from a guy who had either recently used it or recently starting prepping it, so I'll pull it out to dry tonight. Goal is to get it in the tank hopefully saturday afternoon. Then on to rinsing sand, and mixing up water. I'll throw in a couple koralia powerheads and add bottle bacteria, then cover the tank in paper for a blackout cycle to promote strong bacterial culture. I'll throw in a few smaller pieces of LR to help get a good population of bacteria and maybe even pods going during the cycle.

Moving right along to meet that goal. Also, that stand looks awesome. Kudos on the techniques used to get it look that good.

 

[Lingwendil]

Thank you! I am very pleased with the stand, it turned out fantastic.

Now I just need to figure out flow pumps, I want a gyre 1k but it's way over current budget, I may just do a pair of 800gph sunsun powerheads for now.

 

[Lingwendil]

Well, ordered a pair of powerheads to get it going. I figure if/when I upgrade I'll use them to mix salt



Need to slush some funds to scare up the money for an Icecap gyre 1k in the next month or so ideally, if not I'll live with these for a while.

 

[Lingwendil]

Thank is wet! Went with kordon salt (I had a 50 gallon mix already) and RO to start.



Already moved the rock around on the right, but I'm happy so far. It's got maybe ~15# of tropical Eden and 10# of the caribsea aragonite.

 

[Lingwendil]

Grabbed some acrylic discs out of the stash, scuffed up one side each with a fine scotchbrite for some diffusion, and threw them onto the pendants I was playing with in the general LED thread. The synjet cooler heatsink setup has four holes that conveniently fit right near the edges of the discs.




Got the lights up and took a look-




I really like how compact those are, and they have plenty of coverage. Should give me plenty of room to work in the tank compared to a strip for now.

The tank is just now getting some algae growth at the edges of the silicone, so I'm thinking water test tomorrow. Tank was seeded with a few cups of dirty sand from the 20 long so we'll see how the cycle is going. We're at two weeks so far

 

[Lingwendil]

Moderate nitrite and nitrates, zero ammonia. I'll do a water change Thursday or Friday night, but in the meantime I put in a piece of rock from the 2.5 gallon, it has nice coralline growth and a single yellow polyp to act as a canary of sorts in the proverbial coal mine. Also added a hermit from the little tank as well, and a bit of red ochtodes.

 

[Lingwendil]

Moved the fish over from the 20 long, I drop acclimated them in pairs over the course of 45 minutes a batch, clowns first, then the starry blenny and gramma.

They looked to be doing great, active, exploring, and acting like they usually do. Eating usual food just fine. After two days I noticed what looks like fun rot on the royal gramma, and white protruding spots on the clowns, with the larger of the two showing more than the other. Nothing on the blenny so far.




Don't know what to do. Over the last week I had begun transferring the snails and hermits over, and they all came from the same setup as the fish, with no other changes. They had all been effectively in quarantine for several months. New and old tank had both had very closely matched salinity and temperature (~79) and the drip acclimation method seemed to not bother the fish much. I'm not quite sure what to do.

 

[Lingwendil]

Lost the starry blenny but the other fish pulled through.

Got the shelf installed and loaded with books. Gotta find a narrow ~10 gallon or so water container for the bottom to go behind the books for a topoff reservoir at some point.