Drew's Dry Never Die 3x3 Table Top Reef

[afamousjohnson]

How about some more reef inhabitants . Figured I could use an old sea horse skeleton I had from a piece of art from when i was young. Painted him up and just like new.
Placed him in the sea grass under my large fish

 

[afamousjohnson]

And how about a star fish

 

[Greckel]

Cool idea! It sadly took me way too long to figure out exactly what you are doing here... I thought this was actually going into a tank.

 

[afamousjohnson]

Added more to the grafted montis with purple. Adding orange to the BG digi and decided to add in a blue and red pink meteor shower

 

[afamousjohnson]

Added the last touches on polyps and finished product for this rock. I have since gotten better tools to add small accents like polyps and had thought about going back and cleaning this piece up but well see.

 

[afamousjohnson]

Cool idea! It sadly took me way too long to figure out exactly what you are doing here... I thought this was actually going into a tank.

Thank you glad ya like it. It's funny I get that question on these a lot.. "but are they going to be reef safe lol"
Nope but they work great for this build.

 

[afamousjohnson]

Few other mixed randoms I've finished up.

 

[afamousjohnson]

Gotta have a scoly and it's gotta have a color spread. I couldn't afford the master tho so no purple rim.... but maybe I'll upgrade it soon haha lol

 

[afamousjohnson]

Few more random snaps of a couple pieces after placing

 

[afamousjohnson]

Working on a frag of cornbreds flaming fire dragon acro and a strawberry shortcake as we speak

 

[afamousjohnson]

You may have noticed some of the new sea grass algae in a few of the last pics. Cool story.

Was out hiking with my brother from MT here in the mountains in Nor cal doing some gold panning after all the big floods.
Came across this cool moss growing on dead branch's. Grabbed it initially for garden decor but when I was playing with this idea and saw it figured it could work just as well in the reef. It fits right in and covers more of the white rock.
Even cooler yet I have wanted to figure out a way to add zoa into the reef. In this moss there was some budding pods I'm guessing that look just like sunflower palys. You can see them in the pics. Thinking of taking some and painting them into some of my favorite zoas

 

[afamousjohnson]

It fits in very nicely and adds to the reef

 

[afamousjohnson]

Oooohhh and the start of the home wrecker mini colony. Working out base colors here.

 

[afamousjohnson]

Shoot pause that for a second. Almost forgot the UV spotlight for the finished product on the grafted monti mixed coral rock and I think you guys might like these lol

 

[afamousjohnson]

Adding more color to the home wrecker -- at this stage I remembered another fav in the strawberry shortcake it started looking like and set aside a frag for that - i wanted a different type of branch structure for the SSC more like the OG SSC that I finished tonight

 

[afamousjohnson]

Maybe a lil more homewrecker?? This ones up there with the WWC grafted rainbow jellybean chalice in my faves

 

[afamousjohnson]

Here's where the SSC really stood out in color. Hard not to love the highlighted fake blues as when buying a coral but hey these are supposed to look like this so let's keep um hot. Good looking HmWkr taking on pink and orange just missing some blue

 

[afamousjohnson]

Here's the start to the final touches on the HW and getting it's blue.
Been thinking about putting in a frag rack for all the new additions getting ready to be born again or placed haha.

 

[ReefQueen]

I am in love, this is my favorite thing ever! Have you thought about selling the corals? I have no arts and crafts skills, so I would buy them in a heartbeat! You could do memorial pieces for corals that have passed lol.

 

[afamousjohnson]

I am in love, this is my favorite thing ever! Have you thought about selling the corals? I have no arts and crafts skills, so I would buy them in a heartbeat! You could do memorial pieces for corals that have passed lol.

Reefqueen ya that's awesome. Glad you get a kick out of it.
I've done some probono work for friends and our club on sumps and tank backgrounds or cabinets but this was my 1st stab at the actual coral.
Rad idea on the memorial service - gave me a couple ideas.