Drew's Dry Never Die 3x3 Table Top Reef

[afamousjohnson]

Been working on this project for a few months now. Figured it was due time to get a thread up and running.
Will be coming back throughout the day adding some progression pics along with stats for this cool fun project.
Stay tuned as it's a new swing on things and definitely out of the ordinary norm

 

[afamousjohnson]

As a teaser on what's to come..... the home wrecker mini colony should be going in tonight or tomorrow sometime.

 

[jsker]

You got my attention with the title

 

[afamousjohnson]

I guess I should start the build thread with a little explanation.

We all have tank/fish related decor and junk around our tank areas. So I decided to utilize mine to fit the room.
The plan came from having extra rock in the beginning of my tank build. So instead of putting it in the garage I decided to build a scape on my fish table next to the viewing chair along with some glass art pieces.
Next came garage clean out and being a pack rat I save all my dead coral. So I figured hey - I could bring these back to life with some UV paint and create an actual reef on my dry scape on the 3x3x2 glass top table.

Lighting is ambient blue lights from the tank 3 feet away taking on more UV as the light cycle on the controller runs it's day cycle.

Flow and temp is from central air and heat which is also used to help keep temp on my 3 other saltwater systems so that is a bonus. 2 for 2

No feeding necessary

I have yet to do a water/air change since the bleach bath for whitening and everything looks fantastic. Maintenance is minimal and only requires routine dust blasting. As many of us know there is enough humidity next to the other tanks in the room to keep this salty n wet lol.

Stock list is filling up with back from the dead experiences and memories and a bit of art.

So now on to the cool stuff - the actual build and pics and how things are coming together up until this point.
More to come-

 

[afamousjohnson]

Here is the dry scape when I was playing with the rock placement and developing the idea.
Also the area it sits in with the tanks
Was a bit messy at this point

 

[afamousjohnson]

I'm married so I get an entire corner for myself to do with what I like lol
Here's what I've been doing with it.
The tanks and their dry scape glass top table

 

[afamousjohnson]

The start of the "bring um back to life phase" and my 1st thru 4-5 new additions.
I based most corals added off what they used to be or hot new gotta haves and some just off imagination.

 

[afamousjohnson]

My 1st additions were based off garf bonsai - wolverine pikachu diabolic packman - rainbow loom - JF fox flame - and 2 off just an idea for what I would like. Hyper green to blue and a blue with pink polyps/coralites the base on this one reminded me of a lot of old school ORA pieces - mind you these were my introductory 1st pieces lol.

I had to do layers so each piece was done in paint dry steps

 

[afamousjohnson]

 

[afamousjohnson]

 

[afamousjohnson]

It hasn't quite got to exciting yet but hang in and tag along cause I have a ton of pics to upload the progress and it gets much better as each piece gets layered and put into the lights

 

[afamousjohnson]

Little sun coral I was working on

 

[afamousjohnson]

And a finished product sun coral - placement into the scape and an idea of how these pieces react and look under the UV's and blues lol

 

[afamousjohnson]

Lots more to come

 

[afamousjohnson]

Finished rainbow loom acro

 

[afamousjohnson]

Gorgonian I did but have left it as a solid piece so far. Not sure if I'm going to add a contrast polyp color to it yet. Because i like the solid purple. Might look for another canvass piece and use that one with different colors like the yellow with white or red with white species.

 

[afamousjohnson]

Its a bumber because i took a lot of "blue only" pics specifically for the UV reaction effect but now can't find them so it'll have to wait till the end on some of these pieces from the starting point. Here was my rendition. On the wolverine diabolic pacman etc pieces

 

[afamousjohnson]

Lil fox flame

 

[afamousjohnson]

The blue with the pink (awesome color combo)
And a sorry rendition of a garf. I needed more control on the garf for detail. It was a piece I loved. Have since grabbed better tools for better detail when coloring a piece and may revisit this one. Best thing about this build is going back to square 1 on any piece is never a problem

 

[afamousjohnson]

A random piece and my scoly that I wish I still had in the display...... told ya that most of this build is built off of experiences learned and faves lost.