There are three or four types. All the tall ones in the centre are the same and I've begun to take frags from them to keep them under control.

I have a question! Being so gigantic, do your fish have hiding spots? Do they even bother to hide at night? I suspect maybe the littler fish do? Asssuming you even have caves for them to hide in. Just curious :-)

The blonde Naso seems to just hang around all night. All the others have set sleeping spots. Right at lights out, there is a lot of disputes over sleeping places. It never ceases to amaze me how you can look in that tank and see almost no fish at night.

Brad, I can't remember. Did you stain the bar before attaching it, or did you stain it after the fact?

Also, for the river rock, did you attach that direct to the plywood, or did you go through the process of putting up tar paper, then the metal grill, then the mortar, etc.?

I think Brad's boulders are fake Tony. Don't read too much into that but I don't *think* they required mortar =)

Yes, the bar got multiple coats of stain, then multiple coats of spar varnish all before installation.

The river rock is fake stuff used on exterior of houses. Because it was an indoor install, we skipped the tar paper...but it is installed over a metal grill, then cemented in piece by piece.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/100_0494.jpg

Oh ok, thanks. Yeah I know the stuff is fake, I thought it was the same kind of stuff that you can put around fireplaces, of which you can get "river rock" (which looks *just* like what Brad has there) or a host of other kinds of things. I don't know if the stuff I was looking at was for both indoors and outdoors but the literature showed indoors only - but I was just reading up on the technique for how to build that stuff, and well, it sounds basically the same. They said you should do tar paper even for indoors though.

Alternatively drywall would be a quick and easy way to skin my tank stand and canopy, but also kind of boring. But at the same time I don't want the tank finish to take away from the tank itself. I'll never be in the silver orb or pheasant ball or artsy red chair with concrete walls kind of interior design category that some looloos are in but at the same time I'd like to try to at least say I put some thought into how it would look. :p I don't think I'd want river rock since that look has been done now but there are a number of other kinds that are pretty nice.

Anyhow just things I'm thinking about. Thanks for the info.

Two things wrong here:

1) Brad never made any perverted comment in response to mine. His thread so I'll respect that.

2) Tony...looloo? Come on dude that was as lame as my orb.

That said I love the rock Brad! Tony I don't think it's a good fit for you since this rock will weather away over the next couple hundred years due to dust and debris blowing over it in your basement. You're going to want something that will be intact for when your tank is done.

The rock was a pricey...and really permanent. Those would be the downsides of it.

Yeah, I priced it out to around $500ish for the surface area of my tank stand. I'm still undecided on it.

Would you do it again if given the chance?