The Unskilled Reef Build

Cool Steelers color scheme you have going on there.

Edit:
Bah...its gray. Nm

 

Making some progress. I now have the one side of the wall to the DT plumbed.

 

I'm not going to lie, I dig that color. I would have never guessed it was painted. What paint did you use?

Quick question, are those titanium hose clamps?

 

probably stainless steel hose clamps. i think those will be fine, looks like it is in quite a dry area.

 

Thanks.




The clamps are just standard stainless steel. They are in a dry area.

 

Plumbing is complete and I’m now leak testing the entire system. No immediate leaks which is always great but still going to let it run for awhile and keep checking in on it.



I still have some final adjustments and need a few parts but it’s functional!

 

Here is a video of the initial tank filling for the leak test. I have a laundry tub right next to the sump so I just ran a tube from the faucet into the sump which pumped the water into the display tank.

 

Picking up my lights tomorrow!

 

No leaks with the system running overnight!!!

 

Drained the tank, cleaned everything and finalized the plumbing. The heaters and fuge light were also mounted.





I also painted the drain and return pipes inside the DT.

 

The new tank is officially started! Filling her up now!!

 

Always a tense time but the satisfaction when you get to say this!!!!

 

Very tense! Lol

 

So this is going to take longer than I thought to fill. Not as much progress as I hoped from letting it fill overnight.

 

This looks to be a great build! I'm looking forward to see the aquascape!

 

Thanks! The aquascape is my weekend plan

 

My aquascape came together fairly easily. It took only one full restart and about an hour or so to get what I wanted. I like the island look but I also like caves.

Here was my first scape that I scrapped. I think it was too cluttered. I wanted something cleaner and more open.



Here is attempt two which is what I decided to go with.



Here are a few other angles of the same scape.











Let me know what you guys think!

 

I like them both but I do really like the second one. I island will allow fish to disappear and reappear giving the tank a deeper feel.

 

I think it is a great job. I like the second one much better as well. My critiques would be these:

First, the rock height is obviously a challenge for this tank which is understandable. Right now there are three structures though that seem almost the same height by the pictures (left, center, back right). Breaking that up a bit may be more interesting.

Second, the left and center structure are very similar. I would consider sliding them closer together to create one large cave structure. You could leave the other pieces as is and this could solve the first critique as well as the heights will seem less pronounced. I think that would bring everything together, but of course this is just my opinion for my tastes.

 

My new toy arrived!