What became of the ravine? The skies opening up to light angels blast the pile with heavenly light etc? Come on man what happened?

???????

Hey Tony,

I haven't been on canreef all that much. Just catching up on your build thread. I'm really excited for you that you are soooo close to livestock in your tank. Keep at her :).

I thought I had given myself enough markers to be able to rebuild the layers inside the tank. But between the dim lighting and my -6 or so eye prescription, I just couldn't see well enough to pull it off (maybe if I actually DID crawl into the tank, but I didn't - I think I'd need a SNUBAby tube or something so that I could get my head the requisite 6" away so I can see - man Lasik is looking better and better - I just need to convince someone to pay for it!!) Anyhow so I thought OK, take the rock out, rebuild it outside the tank with the glasses back on and this time drill more holes and use as many acrylic rods for alignment as I need to be able to rebuild it by touch and feel.. But you know how it goes - no two rocks will ever fit together exactly the same more than once - and the whole thing just lost its mojo - and became one of those moments where no matter what you do - you know the ones - everything you do just makes it worse? "No that's worse - undo it - no now it's worse some more - undo the undo - wait what, that's worse than the worse before which was worse than the worse before that!" .. and I find when I get into that state it's best just to wallllk awayyyyyy slowwwwwly..

Another thing, the shelf pieces are overwhelmingly large inside the tank. I have to go look at Brett's old 225 pictures to get some inspiration because I'm not sure I liked the look of the huge pieces in the tank the way they were going to go now anyhow.

So I might focus on some other facets on the rockwork next. I have to go look up again the tanks that have served as inspiration to see what other ideas I can try.

Went and found Brett's FTS of the 225. Here they are: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...&postcount=385

So I recognize the pieces on the left island but I'm not sure I ended up with the shelf pieces from the right side island as I don't recognize them in the pile of stuff. I think two people ended up buying rock from Brett after the shutdown so I think they probably ended up with the other person. Which is too bad since that was my favourite part of his old 'scape. :lol: Oh well, life goes on. One thing that I am reminded of though after seeing the pictures is that low rockwork is better. I "thought" that I wanted one island to be nice and high just to give the tank some different visual flow, but seeing the low rockwork convinces me now that I'm probably wrong on that idea and should stick to lower lying rockwork anyhow.

So I hate to say it but I'm not sure that the enormous shelf pieces are doing anything for me. I'm REALLY not good at visualizing something with an aesthetic quality to it, and I'm even worse at connecting reality to a vision (there's a reason I'm not an interior designer - man I envy those with the talent to "make stuff look good.") Some smaller shelf pieces would do better but it would be a HUGE shame to bust the big ones up as they would go really nicely into a big tank somewhere. Maybe I'll sell them if I don't end up using them, we'll see. Between a 50g rubbermaid with rock, a 20g tank holding some rock, the rock from Brett and some rock from Kien it's not like I'm sitting on a huge deficit of rock (in fact I'm thinking I might have gone a little overboard with the rock collecting the last year or so), so the options should be out there in the meantime.

All I know is I want swim-through caves and ravines and a slight island look. I also like the bonzai look to a tank but it's clear to me now that I have NO hope of blending elements from say someone like Kien's 'scaping to someone like Brett's 'scaping (or "Sweet Ride's" tank here: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...12&postcount=3 ) I mean .. it could probably be done and be an epic win, but, it's WELL outside the realm of what my own talent (or lack thereof) is capable of. Boo. I'll have to leave the visionary work to those whom are better visionaries.

@$%^&%*&!!! Man alive I hate the aquascaping phase of a tank! The temptation to do what I've always done and "just throw the rock in there and let it be what it may, landslides warts and everything" right now is huge and it's taking a lot to fight the urge at the moment.

Tony have you thought of breaking the larger shelf pieces? I ended up doing that. I had made two columns but it just didn't look right because the pieces were too big. After breaking them into smaller chunks it was much easier to make a nicer-looking island.

Tony, I broke the largest piece here into 3 pieces and it was much better to work with.

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...k/IMG_2356.jpg

Yeah maybe that's what I have to do, I'm not quite done yet convincing myself I can do it and not feel too guilty about it but maybe that's the direction I'll have to go with the pieces. Weird how in Brett's tank which was 30" deep IIRC, and considerably shallower (mine is 30" tall and 30" deep) that it doesn't seem to completely overwhelm the tank.

Darn it, I KNEW I'd have been better off lining the room with acrylic and making that the tank instead of trying to move the rock into the glass box. Phoo!

You now if you throw it all in there your going to get the urge to aquascape it eventually, I don't think any of us are ever truly happy with the rockwork so it's nothing to exhaust yourself over.

Perhaps having Brett or Kien over for an aquascape consult isn't a bad idea, that or maybe post a photo of what your working with and we can give you some informative ideas?

Tony I recall not wanting to mess around with parting rock out during that time so you did in fact receive ALL the rock. I'm almost positive.

The right column has a base that is actually made of a piece of shelf rock sorta put upside down. The middle shelf piece broke on my and you'll recognize some tie wraps and epoxy holding the 3 pieces together. The top piece was a sort of triangular piece and I had to use tie wraps to keep it how you see it. I think the boulderish piece on top of the very bottom shelf base had sorta 3 or 4 little leg/nubs to it and you'll see that there is a hole drilled for a tie-wrap through each nub. Those all connected thru the bottom shelf bit and I used those massively long tie wraps to do it.

Hopefully that gets you started in the right direction I dunno it's a tough bizz.

I also got very frustrated with the shelf pieces. I mean they're sorta the creme de la creme but are so damn big and tough to position. I'm sorta a fan of piles now and letting the corals BE the shelves. You could certainly sell them =)

And holy hell you're trying to do this with the tank full I forgot. No way in hell I could have done that either man. I water tested with regular tap water. Drained. Scaped. Ro/di'd that beatch. May the rock gods have mercy on your soul =)

We should set aside a night this week and I'll swing by if you want?

I'm home Wednesday night at midnight...and am without vehicle until I renew my license, but
I can hop a bus down your way later on in the week if you need a hand Tony

I thought there was someone else you gave a couple pieces to, I remember you sort of saying "hey is this cool?" and I'd have never said "NO IT'S NOT COOL, I AM DELPHINUS, ALL HAIL DELPHINUS!" or words to that effect (I might THINK it, but I'd never state it out loud). I could be wrong (even if it did happen it's OK, it's more for my own sanity that I can't find those pieces now so I'm grasping at a possible explanation). I'll look at the stuff more closely again but I could swear that some of those pieces I see in that smaller shelf are not there. It's no biggie either way.

Your description should help me look through it all though - thanks - and - you kinda scare me that you can remember details like that. On a good day I can't even remember what I had for breakfast the day before, and you're all "the triangular piece this with the crack that I fixed that" and so on. :eek: ALL HAIL LASTLIGHT MASTER OF THE GOODER REMEMBERORAY THAN DELPHINUS WITH THE BAD REMEMBERORAY!

Who would have thought they're frustrating?! But yeah that they are.

And thanks for the offer Brett and Randi - unfortunately the only time I get to work on things like this is very late at night, which probably explains my propensity to get all depressed and frustrated at every little thing that doesn't go right on the first try (which is everything) .. if you're OK with coming over at 11pm, cool, but otherwise I wouldn't blame you for being more sane and saying "Uh, I might have to wash my hair or something that night".

And Dez, sorry man somehow I missed your post earlier, but hey I appreciate the comments (and everyone else too). It's been such a long road it would be soooo nice to be done with this chapter and move onto other things! Like .. um .. enjoying the tank.

Well who's always around on msn far past 11 dude? Come up with a night and I'll still be there.

- the night owl

if I can find a way down there I'll be there...or I'll wait till I renew my liscense and meet ya down there one night....either way, I'm game

Time for some pictures!

Ok, so, it's been a few weeks of working on the rockwork now. I think it's finally at a point where I'll be leaving it (at least for now). Still some features to it that I'm not completely loving, but it's good enough. There are a few features that I really do like though. So time to toss up a few pictures since next I'll be dumping the sand in and who knows when you'll be able to see into the tank again after that, at least a few days I imagine or maybe longer.

FTS
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1640-0.jpg

The main design idea was to get a few shelves, some arms, some ravines, some caves, some bommies, and some open lagoon type spots; and then to try to not be too uniform about it. The shelf rock in particular has been a thorn to work with, it's been redone several times now, and in fact came close to just being nixed altogether. But I'm glad I kept it, it's no bonsai tree but nevertheless I'm liking the shelf now.

Right hand side bommie/caves:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1641-0.jpg

Unfortunately it doesn't show up in the photo well but there is a 3" wide ravine here that opens up into the inside of the bommie which is essentially hollow.
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1645-0.jpg

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/..._img_16460.jpg

Might be hard to pick out in the photo but there is a really neat overhang here. I took a page out of Kien's book to build that particular corner of the bommie, in order to stabilize it, it is permanently mounted to some scrap acrylic (the flange lid to one of my earlier DIY calcium reactor jobs).

End view looking to the left side of the tank:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1644-0.jpg

The left side shelf/bommie/island:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1642-0.jpg

http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1643-0.jpg

I really wanted to get two levels of shelves going but it kept coming back to either looking contrived and fake, or a bit just "too much" for the tank. I came up with a few tries that would look great in a FOWLR tank and/or a tank larger than this one, but just didn't fit into this overall schema of THIS tank. So away with the second shelf and just went with a "cap". This sucker is a bear weight-wise and had to constructed outside the tank and lifted into the tank in two separate layers. The base rock is probably 60 lbs on its own.

The hole to the lower left is a rock I found in my holding tank that had the hole. I melded it to a curved rock and leaned it up against the base of the shelf rock on account the base rock really needed some more texture to it in order to fit in, plus I wanted a cave of this nature since my trigger currently sleeps in a very similar rock in the base of the bommie in my 115g cube right now. Hopefully she finds this spot, but if not, I'm sure someone will and hopefully likes it. :lol:

And then there's this nightmare of wiring:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1647-0.jpg

This is actually the "clean" look. Man there are a lot of things to plug in. Some of the wires were too heavy for the cable holds so they are just dangling. I'll probably replace the cable mounts with some threaded S hooks in the ceiling.

The orange extension cords that run off the right there are for the two existing tanks in another part of the basement. I can't wait to shut them down and get the rest of the basement development work going.

You can also see a "hole" where there should be a second Tunze driver box (above the one by itself and below the two Wavysea controllers). I figured out what's wrong with it, and I should be able to fix it so long as I can actually find my stupid soldering iron. I haven't done any soldering on electronics in like 6 or 7 years so I can't find it at all. So I just went out and bought a new one. :lol: But stupid me, I bought a butane based soldering iron and no butane. DUH. So off to Home Depot to correct that little oversight and hopefully get my one not-running Tunze back into a running state again.

I did a quick calculation earlier tonight and with the Dart return, the two 6100's, and the two 6080's, I figure I'm right at about 40x turnover with the 6100's at peak. This is before the waveboxes fit in (not sure how they would factor into a volume turnover calculation). I am hoping this will be enough for SPS for starters but I guess I'll have to see, might have to toss a few more flow generation things in there I suppose..

Next up, the sand, and then starting the cycling in earnest. I liberally estimate maybe another month from this point before the tank is ready to start having fished moved over, but we'll see how things go.

For the most part the fish load is already complete since I'll be shutting down the other tanks. I have been dreaming up "what else's" and one option that keeps speaking to me is a small group of lyretail/squamipinnis anthias. I saw two such groupings today at Red Coral and it's really solidified in my mind that I would like to try, wow, they are really beautiful fish. I have some time to do some more research on them in the meantime.

its really coming along Tony, and the scape looks great.

There are alot of places for fish in there, what kind of sand are you going to use, the fine grade or something abit more coarse ?

great work man :biggrin:

Thanks!! It's been fun, well, sort of .. a few swear words uttered here or there but overall I hope it's stable. Still some parts I'm not loving but I'm hoping that it will be better once there are some actual corals in there.

The sand is a mixture of Fiji Pink, Select, and then Seachem as well. Forget how much I picked up now. If I guess I'm sure to get it totally wrong but I'll guess anyhow and say maybe about 200lbs in total?? I'll have to count the bags tomorrow. I basically cleaned out Kevin right after Mitch had bought a whole bunch of sandbags for HIS tank (great timing on my part - as usual, a day late and a dollar short, but oh well, I do at least remember thinking that had secured enough to cover the bottom silicone basically). It was about a month ago so I'm sure by now there will be more in store should I need any more (hope not though).

I TOTALLY went overboard on stockpiling rock in preparation for this tank and in the end I've probably only used up about 30% of what I had on hand. I'm still trying to secure a 65g tank I can use for the butterflies and the eel on their own, so I'll keep some rock for that tank and then sell the rest. Long story short, the eel will be too difficult to feed in this tank, and the butterflies are just overall too destructive to a reef, so I'm thinking I will setup a FOWLR just for them.

WO that is looking great Tony.
Start date 1-08-08
life date
11-29-10

man time flies when your building addy boy buddy

Hey! good to see the pics man.....and lookin saw weet :biggrin:....
ps......I didnt take a dolli home:redface:

I think it looks great Tony. Love the shelf!
I have really noticed that some fish definitely prefer hanging out under outcroppings, wherever they can find them.
I think it's a behaviour one would want to try to accommodate.

Mitch

Those are exciting pics man. The rest is patience and waiting and then you can unleash your hoard upon that glass box. Maybe a bunch of ppl do this but Greg shared a great tip with me the other day...use a pvc pipe with a curved end and a funnel to add sand to the tank. No mess on the rocks and you can get it under the rocks too.

I like the nice open space for wires and controllers. Something I certainly never had and moving things or eventually servicing them would have been a nightmare. I also zip-tied all my stuff into one which was SMRT.

:thumb::thumb::thumb: I like it!

The shelves really are a bitch, aren't they? I don't want to remember how long I spent fartin' around with them. Finally took a hammer and busted one of them down to smaller pieces. I like what you've got going on there Tony. Once you get some corals and a few of your nems in there it's gonna be top-notch. There are some very nice pieces in that rock, with lots of holes and what not. Fishies are going to love you for it.

Those fishies can SEE the 280 from their cube. They've been waiting as eagerly as us!

So happy to see rock in it, you're on the home strech now :biggrin:

Well, Tony better put a cover on that cube before they try their hand, (or fins), at moving themselves over.

I really like your little shelf/bomie thing going on on the left. I think it looks great actually. I think half the battle is getting the rock in the tank, and the second half is placing things on it well.

I'll take your stock piled rock off your hands. I'm going to need it in about 3 weeks.

So both waveboxes failed tonight. :lol: (I laugh, because if I don't, I think I might cry. :lol:) Oh seriously FFS, where it does it end? What a ridiculous gong show everything has to be. I can only hope my stupid little predicaments and FML moments make others happy for a few brief instants so that at least I can think that some good can come out these happy little moments..

No seriously FFS, FFS, FFS, FFS!!!! I am NOT HAPPY.

I'm too ticked to deal with it tonight ... maybe tomorrow night but lalalalala of course Monday evening is a night DW works so I have to chase the kidlets all night instead. What the heck, what's another night at this point!!! GRRRRRRR!

I'm really starting to wonder if this is the hobby for me! I'd say I'd start up knitting but I think me and knitting needles is probably a really bad combo! Who knows what sort of delicious freak knitting accident I could cause to happen!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

La la la la I have this hobby because it helps me deal with stress la la la la la la la la la!

I don't think it's working....:)

"I had no idea a knitting needle could fail in such a manner. Wow."

Sorry to hear of the continued shat luck man. Is the issue fixable or have you troubleshoot yet? I know you don't want to shell out more money but everything with the Tunze line is replaceable down to some pretty minor parts so long as they're not the really old stream pumps.

Holy crap Tony! Your run of bad luck is unbelievable! I recommend you do not buy lottery tickets or plan a trip to Vegas anytime soon.
Surely though, this is the last of it and all clear sailing from here on in.

"La la la la I have this hobby because it helps me deal with stress la la la la la la la la la!"



deal with or cause lol i think i had them mixed up when i started i thought also it helped you deal with stress not be the MAJOR cause of it lol:):) hope it works out for you man:)

It does help to deal with stress; because your tank can stress you out so much the stress in the rest of your life seems pretty minimal in comparison :lol: Probably shouldn't add the lol smiles because really it's not far from the truth :neutral:

I remember my wave box was pretty touchy, there was a few times we thought it was broken because it didn't seem to be working. If you don't tweak it just right and get it to the "sweet spot" it doesn't work very well or pretty much does not work at all. Did the pumps fail on them or are they just not dialed in right?

I'm thinking it's the controller because both waveboxes are controlled off the same unit. The controller powers on and you can see the little LED's switching on and off but the pumps themselves, both of them, remain off. I tried bumping the impellers in case they were just having trouble starting but that didn't do anything. To actually remove the waveboxes and take them apart will be a bit of an effort because of the tight spot they are mounted in .. but at least taking them off the controller to see if that is the problem should be an easy enough first step. If they power on and stay on without the controller in the equation then at least we know it's the controller and not the stream pumps themselves. And yeah all my Tunzes are the old style streams so I guess at this point if anything further on them goes then I just start saving the pennies for a Vortech.

Would a single MP40 be enough in a 6' tank? I think a MP60 would probably be too much? I was really hoping to get swish-swish wave effect with the polyps in this tank if/when I ever get to the point I'm comfortable trying corals in it...

Tony I think all the 6101, 6201 etc are repairable but not the 6100, 6200 series. I think it's the old hockey puck transformers that are no longer made and if I recall correctly they are part of the pump. But for both to go at the same time...that's pretty much impossible. So the red and green are coming on opposite each other...what about the other red light that says the pumps are on?

A single MP40 won't be enough to make a decent wave IMO, certainly enough to get some good water movement though. I've got two MP40's in a six foot tank and use them more for erratic current than a straight wave.

I have nothing but sympathy for you. I hope you can fix the controller and don't have to replace it.

The vortech's are nice and all, but they do a number on your wallet.

I can only recall two LED's, a green and a red and they always alternate. I don't recall a third LED to indicate pump status. In short the controller looks fat dumb and happy and doing it's regular thing, the pumps just sit there as if they are not getting any power. No hockey puck transformers on these - they have two cigar-box sized 24v transformers then a little 1" black square box with 3 cables attached, one is the 24V supply, one goes to the controller port (master or slave), and the last is the lead to the pump drive itself. I'm probably getting the terminology wrong I know they call some things drivers and some things motor drives or blabbity blabbity.

Lance do you just use the Vortech's or do you use other things as well?

I've never quite embraced the look of all these things in the tank, I thought I'd get over it but I can see why people go closed-loops, I'm still not buying into that idea for myself but I can see ditching both waveboxes and all 4 Tunzes and going the Vortech route if I could convince myself what that would be like on THIS tank. :neutral: It's hard to describe, I know nobody has ever regretted the purchase of them but to buy two of them is basically a thousand dollars more in cost than what I have to spend. :cry: I don't know .. I just .. I just don't know anymore. I don't know. I just don't know where to go with things some days. I'm tired.