btw .... that is such a gorgeous tank. I really can't wait to see it when it fills in. I imagine you must be exploding!
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Really cool reef! How big is that pj cardinal? He looks waaaay bigger than mine!
Thanks for the reply. I will let you know! I feel like it's probably ok since so many use JB Water Weld for the aquascape, why not the frags? My tank is only about a month new, no fish yet (and no skimmer either) but I've been adding some hardy LPS and Zoanthids to build up the lifeform complexity. I just clipped the extra long stem from my zoanthid frags and it's happy enough where I put it, so I will mount it this weekend. Will pop back with pictures in a week or so, figure that should be enough time ...
Thanks for the reply. I will let you know! I feel like it's probably ok since so many use JB Water Weld for the aquascape, why not the frags? My tank is only about a month new, no fish yet (and no skimmer either) but I've been adding some hardy LPS and Zoanthids to build up the lifeform complexity. I just clipped the extra long stem from my zoanthid frags and it's happy enough where I put it, so I will mount it this weekend. Will pop back with pictures in a week or so, figure that should be enough time ...
Give them time and they will probably recover, corals are pretty hearty when it comes to being pushed around.
If you go for super glue, be sure you get gel as it's much better when dealing with water. The regular super glue seems to thin out too much if there is any gap between the frag plug and the rock.
I sent an email off to Loctite and I think I may just try a personal test with some Loctite and 3M 5200. Just try a small dab dry and a small dab in some saltwater and see what happens. I'll post my results back here.
We just got back from a long beach walk out on Sanibel (now that the Red Tide bloom is fading away. Pics will be posted in the snorkel thread linked in my signature below.
Fantastic thread. So interesting, especially captive, sexual breeding... Pretty sure this is the only forum where that phrase can be uttered
Humbling to see how much some have accomplished in the hobby.
I love the idea of doing a floating reef ...but instead of doing it on egg crate I'd use a u shaped piece of acrylic and lay it down on its side ...Here is a feature that I had built in to may last three builds, but I didn't do in this one. It involves lifting some or most of the live rock off the sand! I didn't do it in this build (yet) because I was in a hurry moving corals that I was going to keep from my 120g tank to the 50g. And I had a lot of work to do to get the other corals sold and start selling off the system and a lot of the spares and backup hardware that was specific to the big tank.
OK, so you have 'x' amount of sand in your tank. I usually have about 2-3". So I figure out how I want the rock to be laid out first. Then cut some standard egg crate in roughly the same footprint as the rocks in the sand, only a little smaller.
P8310001 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
P8310002 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
Now my sand was 2" deep, so I cut 3 1/2" legs out of 1" PVC pipe to go in the sand under the egg crate. I also drilled small holes at the end of the leg and attached the legs to the egg crate with very small cable ties to keep everything for moving so the platform would be stable.
P8310003 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
I put the platform in the tank, press it down into the sand until it hits the bottom glass.
P8310004 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
P8310005 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
Then put the rocks back into the tank as I had designed earlier.
P8310007 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
Now you have rocks that are above the sand, but it looks like crap! So I take much smaller rocks and some flater rocks and use them along the edge of the platform. They go in the sand and are big enough to cover the gap between the sand and the egg crate and main rocks. Now it looks good normal.
P9020001 R1 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
However, you now have more open sand for the critters like serpent stars, sea cucumbers and wrasses who need open sandy spaces. And it's under the rocks so it's very protected. You have also exposed the entire rock, including the bottom that would have been buried in the sand, so it can all develop useful bacteria for processing ammonia and nitrite. You now get some water flow under the rocks and because it's mostly dark, you get more sponges, small feather dusters and some other critters that help with cleaning. And it creates lots of room for shrimp, crabs, mollusks and other animals that like to hide out during the day a place to do it. I even found that because I had better flow around and under the rocks (now that they are off the sand) that I had less issues with cyano developing on the sand.
To be perfectly honest, the only drawback to using this technique that I found, was that I spent a little extra time designing my rockscape and then an extra couple of hours building the egg crate platforms. Other than that, everything was good and most people who looked at the tank never had any idea that the rocks were off the sand.
I love the scape ..fantastic. !!OK, I took Monday to recuperate from auto-x (I won my class for the first time!) and get some things set up for the rockscape rebuild. Tuesday morning I set up containers for the frags and rocks in the tank. Then added some saltwater I had made last Friday. So here is what the tank looked like before.
And after I took all the coral and rock out of the tank.
Here is the big picture. The bins are full of rock and coral. This is part of why I wanted work space next to the tank. If you have the room, and a spouse that will allow it, it makes working in the tank a lot easier!
Here's a look inside a couple of the bins. One is all RFA's, mini maxi's and RBTA. The other is rock & coral.
Then I loaded the new platform into the tank (I had to remove the led fixture). It was a tight fit around the center overflow but being snug is probably a good thing.
This isn't the final rockscape, but it's close and at least you can see the basic look... a rock slope/wall.
The fish are crazy about having the 'cave' under the platform and almost everybody else in under there as well. I guess that makes them safe from my hands. I don't know how long we'll be able to see in from the sides like we can now. I assume that will get covered with coraline algae in time. But for now we can see that all the inhabitants are doing OK. And my wife thinks being able to see the life under the rocks is cool. That's just so much the better for me! So far I'm happy with where it's going. I just hope I have enough holes for all the corals. There were close to 50 that were already in the tank and only a couple green paly colonies aren't going back in. But then there are 50 more corals in the sump! Fingers crossed. BTW, when is the last time you did a rockscape and were concerned you may have too many corals for it?!?! ;Nailbiting
More to follow.
OK, all the corals are in place, but some may move so the better looking (fluoresces better) coral is up front. I did pay much attention to that as it was white light when I moved them all in. I will be doing the wavemakers different. I got a low profile unit from Reef Breeders and I intend to put it up high on the side glass near the back and aim it at the middle of the front glass (L to R & top to bottom). Then I may use 1 or both of the Current wavemakers I've had on the back glass on the other side or on the back glass and side glass. It depends on how it looks and how well I can control the flow. I may even put the different brands on timers so the current flows one way for 3 hours, then both systems for 3 hours, then the other way for 3 hours and back to both for 3 hours. That would kind of simulate the tides. Not that anybody in the tank is going to care, but I think it would be cool!
Here are my clowns hanging out together under the platform.
This is the view looking down from the top along the front glass. Anemones at the front in the sand. Some of the RFA kids are up in the rocks now and I still have some more to figure out what I'm going to do with them. Then there is the short vertical wall and then the slope (where the led reflections are).
And finally, here is how I'm leaving it for today. I'll take a good look at it tonight under blue leds in a dark room and decide if any of the really good fluorescing corals are at the back. I placed the frags with more heads toward the front so it would look better in the normal daytime white light. So you can see the frags all over the place and most have some room to reproduce and spread. But even during daylight outside and with the blue leds on in the tank, it looks like little jewels of red, orange, yellow and green that are lit up from behind. So far I couldn't be happier. I have some holes in the vertical front wall which will eventually get filled with some of the best corals (assuming the anemones aren't going to reach up and sting them. But I'll need to work on a mounting system as the holes are a bit too big and the frags fall out. If anybody has an answer for how to do it, I'm open to suggestions. I'm thinking to pack some JB Water Weld putty around the stem of the frag plug and push it into the hole.
For anti-siphon holes I've gone a bit beyond just drilling holes. I've tap the holes and added Jon Guest 90 degree elbows. They can now be adjusted up or down to direct the small flow during return so it helps create some water surface agitation and sets the opening as close to the surface as I can so it will break the siphon as soon as possible when the pumps are turned off (by me or by a power outage). I've done this on previous tanks and have been very happy with the results. I even get better shimmer in the tank despite the fact that I use a wide array led fixture which usually cuts shimmer down to almost nothing.
20180717_110058 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
20180717_110047 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr
.
@Ron Reefman, I love how that cube is coming along! Got any closer pics of it? I'd love to see a recent FTS
I love the scape ..fantastic. !!
Looks great, Ron.
Just found this build. I love this idea and am going to be building my Return system this week. I am going to do this...
Do you happen to have a link to where you found black john guest threaded 90 degree connectors? I have found regular 90 degree connectors, but haven't found threaded ones anywhere... Beautiful tank! I might be raising my rocks as well... Love that idea too!
@Ron Reefman Why do you keep your RFA's in PVC endcaps?
I been playing with some photo and will post a couple later today! It's been a long time coming, but then retired people always have so little spare time with all the hobbies and traveling they do! ;Joyful
I just used white john guest elbows from Home Depot and painted them black with Krylon plastic /epoxy paint. It holds up very well.
Two primary reasons. One, they tend never to move from wherever I put them in the sand. RFA's don't tend to move much anyway once they settle in. But I've found most new additions I would put in the tank tended to move over the first few days down to the point where the live rock and sand meet. Then the nem seems to be a bit 'folded' when they open. And some even end up hiding under the edge of the rock. But if I let them set their foot in the bottom of an end cap (while acclimating and after while in a bowl of tank water) and then move them to the sand in the DT, they never move. And this is also where most of (not all) the RFA's I find in the Keys live. There is hardscape bottom (flat, hard coral rock) with holes and covered with 1 to 3 inches of sand. They set their foot in one of those holes and they become almost impossible to remove. And when disturbed, they can retract and hide under the sand and then come back out later.
Second, this technique makes them very easy to move. I've moved several of mine from one tank to another a couple of times and they never leave the end cap. I've also sold a few (I have lots of babies from 3 spawning events in the last 2 years) and they even stay in the end cap when the buy transports them home and puts them in their sand! And I have to assume they are happy this way given the regular spawning. I started with about 5 adults (3" to 5" in diameter) and now have between 25 and 30. The older kids are the size of a quarter and the youngest are so tiny (smaller than 1/8th on an inch in diameter) that I'm always finding new ones I hadn't spotted earlier among the fields of zoas that make up my tank. Eventually they get big enough and they start to stand out as not looking like the rest of the zoas where they have settled.
I hope that helps? If you have questions, please ask.
Interesting. The misses and I setup a RFA Nano with 7 RFA's (3 about half dollar sized and 4 around nickel sized) and a large Mini-Maxi and when I acclimated everyone they had their foot already attached to rubble from what was in the bag from when they were shipped (shout out to @AquaSD) and everyone acclimated fine. The smaller ones I placed on the sand bed and the larger ones I placed on the TwoLittleFishes Stax rockscape we put together and since then they have shuffled around until they found the place they wanted to be. How deep of a cap do you think they need to feel comfortable? The tank doesn't have a deep sand bed, but I wouldn't mind 3D printing something as a solution in order to get the display more organized.