Right on.

lights arrived today for the refugium, 10w halowgen underwater light x 2

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1283994722

i placed them in the back where the bio balls used to be, one on top and 1 on the floor, ill be putting my purigen and chemi-pure bags on either side of the light so after the water falls into the refug it has to filter through them to get to the display (let me know if this is a good place)

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1283994777

they give off a good amount of light and hopefully the cheato will thrive

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1283994829

ive taken the rock out of the bleach bath and its sitting in a baking soda bath now to neutralise it, for 1 day, then freshwater for 2 days with 4 water changes, and hopfully its sunny this weekend and ill let it sit out and dry......plan to get the tnak up and running next weekend

That looks like a very cool idea, I am looking forward to seeing the results.

was thinking of a way to cut the rock so i could maximize the amount i get on the back wall for looks and versatility, the wall will stick out alot and i want it to be mostley live rock so it functions better then a full foam wall... dont like the idea of a hammer and chizle as im a perfectionist and i think it would annoy me, called up home depot and its only $30 to rent a tile saw for a day, so saturday ill do that and aquascape my wall, then its figuring out a method to holding the rocks to the wall, any sudgestions would be great, zip ties are a last resort as i dont like the look of them and there hard to hide....

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=45915

His experiment begins on post 24. Good reading and he found a way to get a very solid connection between rock and glass. He's shunned my requests for an update so please try your own request so I don't look like the only beggar haha.

so i rented a tile saw yesterday and cut a ton of the rock in half and smashed some then today i started zip tieing them onto the eggcrate heres what it looks like so far, still have a few spots to fill and ill have tofill the cracks with foam then im going to crush some rock into sand and use resin to stick it to the foam....ill be covering the zip ties in foam and sand

theres 14lbs of rock on the wall alone so it frees up ALOT of tank space
http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284245553

i made 1 big ledge and 1 small ledge, smaller one if for a clam my gf wants to buy me, and the big one is for a brain (always wanted one)

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284245572

side shot u can see the ledges

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284245600

lemmie know what u think

Looking good... are you sure that little piece of eggcrate is going to keep it standing? you might want to add another leg to stand on.

Ooo nice wall.
Make sure your happy with how far your ledges stick out.
All the rock underneath that ledges will have much less light. Then make sure you think about as the corals grow and shade the ones underneath. Ive been having that problem with placement on my wall.

the weight gets alot less when its underwater so im not too worried, plus im goign to silicone it to the back wall, its mainly a mantis tank so im not too worried about corals, ill have 1 brain maybe a clam and then mushrooms and gsp, mantis is worth more and better then any corals u can buy IMO lol

ive jsut added the foam, so ill let it dry over 48hrs, then ill cover it in resin and smashed rock so it all melds together, but here it is so far

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284326310

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284326384

going to save alot of tank space as i have roughly 18 of the 30 lbs on the back wall,

Looking good.

trimmed up and sanded the wall heres the finish, i didnt do the bottom cause its going to get covered in sand, what i did was smash a piece of rock down to dust, then painted on some LePage Extreme repair adhesive (it was the only aquarium safe silicon/adhesive i could find) then just dropped the rock dust over it, did it 2 times. theres no point in being super anal about it as in a few months it will all get covered with coralline (if all goes well)

approx 14lbs live rock

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284507059

this is what i want the scape to look like including wall of cource, kinda a cove or cave look

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284507134

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284507148

the eggcrate is on the bottom for the saftey of Vader he'll get 5-6" and i dont wanna have him digging and break the glass (even though its a rare occation

its all done, the wall and rockscape is complete, ima go down to red coral on friday and grab 20g of water and get my sand, a bigger cleanup crew and maybe a few more things....

heres the final (without sand)

FTS
http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284602452

nother FTS
http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284602464

side shot i wanted to give some overhang and cave like appearence at the bottom, a better habitat for vader

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284602528

I like the look

Wow I don't think I've ever seen somebody just pulverize rock. They always used coral sand or something. That's one of the most convincing looking finishes I've seen and that's without any algae on it! Really like that.

My only concern is scraping the side glass. Perhaps you're not going to but it will look a little unsightly around the rocks where you can't get to.

Can't wait to see water in there. Vader's going to enjoy that lair.

looks fantastic! not a big fan of Mantis myself..they look like scary bugs and I get all girly and wince a little...but I'm sure that tank is going to look bangerang

thanx alot for the compliments and support, I was going to just use argonitye but i figured it wouldent look natural, and whats more natural then taking the original rocks and making them dust lol ,for your question/statement last light im going to be leaving a 1/2" space between the glass and rocks so that i can get a algae magnet through cause i agree it will look off if its gross under the rocks :)

the tank has cleared up, parameters are all perfect, i got 1 piece of live rock to seed the tank from the main display tank at Ocean City just to seed the coralline, then picked up bout 6 different frags of zoas from Red Coral. picked up an anemone today for the three clown fish 2 i transfered from my one tank and Jemal the black one i picked up from Red coral also they seem to be getting along just fine

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284934781
shot of vader took me a while to catch him

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284934819
heres the 3 clowns Jemal Luitenant shiney side and waldo

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284934833
Jemal

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284934886
coralline seed rock

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284934901
2 different types of zoos on this rock

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284934929
zoo

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284934977
FTS

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284935002
FTS took bout an hour for the anemone to attach....and of cource it attacked to the zoo rock lol so i had to cut all the frags around it b4 it killed them

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284935059
http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284935070

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1284935093
shot with just the atenic

few new shots, i now have 12 different type of zoas and pallys my cleaner shrimp is MIA so i think Vader had a midnight snack :P

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286051319

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286051431'

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286051522

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286051782

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286051878

FTS

vader is starting to explore all spots of the tank now, i think he realises hes top dog.....

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286130103

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286130136

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286130159

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286130187

He looks killer.

This is really looking good :) I really like the dark clown.

the two lights i had that were deemed "waterproof" in my refugium crapped out on me, one got corroded all inside and the other stopped working for no apparent reason, SO i took apart an old canopy and drilled the roof of the back hatch and attached in a part of the light, i siliconed all the electrical gaps and holes so it wont get wrecked, i took the pics when it had a 10k PC in it, but ive since changed the bulb to a halogen, i read that lower k rating is better for cheato growth? any info would be great

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286671846

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286671858

hard to see but theres a button on top to turn it on and off, although it will be staying on 24/7
http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1286671897

im in the process fo catching Vader im going to move him into another 10g i have and im looking for a peacock for this big tank,

Ive read alot about coralline growth rates and such, most sites and most places told me that it takes a long time for it to start to burst, its been 1 month so far of set up and its starting to form on the glass and all over the rocks, its not much but for so little time considering i used dead bleached rock im very happy with the progress, purple up works magic

excuse the bubbles im fighting a cyno bacterial algae outbreak with chemi-clean right now so i have to airate the tank for 2 days,

and for the nay sayers i used chemi-clean on my other tank which had gotten out of control with cyno and its been clear for 3 months now and looks great...+10 for the stuff

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1287101560

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1287101581

WOW... just WOW!

gunna sepdn then next while making sure the tank is ready and all my zoos are in place cause once he gets 6"+ im not sticking my hand in there lol, kinda makes u want one hey green?

Kinda?... they kill inverts and fish right... I almost want to make a 10-15g acrylic box and place it in the tank for one to live in.

if you get a smasher he wont touch fish ive got 3 clowns living with mine, i spot feed them every 3rd day, as long as u do that they wont kill n e thing, maybe take the odd hermit, but who cares bout them :P lol, if you get a spearer then ull start losing fish

new pics, caught arnold (peacock) out exploring his diggs,
tank is comming along great, coralline algae is really picking up and all the zoos are starting to spread...

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1288835661

infront of my strawberry Conch

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1288835696

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1288835714

proving he dosetn kill the clowns

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1288835740

where the name comes from

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1288835760

few updated pics, i got a free baby niger trigger, and YES i realise the tank is too small but they are slow growers once he outgrows it in a year ill be buying a 200g system, for now hes smaller then my clowns and fits in nicley shows no aggression towards any of the other inhabitants

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1289709568
arnold eating some cut up shrimp......cannibal

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1289709599

My BTA under just atenic
http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1289709622

FTS atenic
http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1289709647

shot of the trigger hiding in his cave, ill try to get more pics of him in the open......and yes for those that i know will say something again i know the tank is too small for a full grown trigger but hes only 1" right now and once he outgrows it ill upgrade :)

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1289709719

im pretty sure hes a niger, but when i get a few more shots ill ask for a positive ID,

got a few more pics of the trigger, anyone able to give me a positive ID? please

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1289877854

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1289877867

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1289877890

Looks like a Niger to me.

appreciate the responce homie :)

Don't kid yourself there bud.... My 7" Peacock (Dr. Zoidberg) will catch and eat fish. He's a good swimmer and picks off blue/green chromis on a regular basis especially if I don't feed him EVERY day! He also devours any CUC I put in there.... He even ate a brittle star.

i do agree with you, BUT did ur peacock start off 1" long and grow up with the fish it ate? there very smart creatures and learn fast, there are many many success storys of people keeping fish with smasher mantids.....that being said every mantis is different

7" thats awesome what size tank do u keep him in? id lvoe to see pics

I agree all mantises are different just realize big peacocks are eating machines and if you don't feed them regularly don't be suprised to find your favorite fish suddenly gone! Hence why I use green chromis... I'm not too sad if he eats a $6 fish. They usually last quite awhile though if he's fed every day.... Anything with a shell is fair game to him... I like to give him freshwater mussels from the seafood counter... Something challenging to open!

Yeah I've had him for like 2 years. He was about 4" when I got him. He lives in a 30x14x14 tank in my bedroom. Filtration consists of a magnum H.O.T canister and a Remora Nano on a timer to run while I'm at work. Lighting consists of a Coralife 2 bulb NO T5 fixture. He has two piles of LR to make his burrows under sitting in 2 inches of crushed coral that he moves around to great delight. Abundant macro algae grows on the rocks.

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow!

5 year update
 

sadly after about 5 years my peacock died he had a bad molt, so im restarting the tank into a clown heaven, I will be putting various anemones into it and i have a couple designer clowns, system has been running steady with extremely low maintenance for 5-6 years now

A few tank photos I will add more as I upgrade, I installed 2 rapid LED custom kits I had laying around under the hood to allow anemone growth and maybe some corals once they settle in place,

here it is so far

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...lscot/FTS2.jpg

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...olscot/FTS.jpg

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...t/P3221101.jpg

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...t/P3221098.jpg



http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/z...321_122313.jpg

I have a jaebo wp-10 on order to increase my flow, the coarline has run rampant and looks gear imo but it is not growing on the foam parts of the wall so I will need to think of something to fix this