kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

kien · #1 04-14-2010, 10:17 AM

When I knew that I was going to set up a FOWLR back in January the first thing I did was run out and buy some live rock so that I could start to cook and cure it. Here's my cooking and curing setup.

By the time I was ready to use the rocks (3 months later) they were nice and clean :-)

Other than the live rock, here's what else I needed to aquascape.

If you've followed this thread from the beginning you may remember that I used acrylic rods and zip ties for my 150g aquascaping. Well, I pretty much did the exact same thing. I had a fairly dynamic structure that I wanted to build so I added the use of epoxy, lots of epoxy..

Here's the main base structure which supports mostly all of the weight. A very very heavy piece of travertine rock anchors the whole thing. A single 3/8" rod rods through the centre of all the rocks to hold them in place.

Additional structures are similarly held in place by slightly smaller rods and zip ties.

Then finally I added this arm structure to the base structure to get something like this.

Nothing is secured at this point because I actually have to assemble the whole thing inside the tank as the entire structure is way too heavy to lift. There are 3 sections that just hang loose on their joining rods. Once assembled in the tank the they will be secured and joints filled with epoxy..

Here I am assembling the structure in the tank. Photo courtesy of the wifey

Here's what the final structure looks like. Epoxy is also used to cover up all the zip ties.

kien · #2 04-14-2010, 10:24 AM

Time to fill the tank. It took quite a while to make up enough water but I did use water from the cooking and curing bins as they tested out to be quite good by the time the rocks were ready.

What better way to wait than to surf canreef on this..

I have to say, canreef is great on the iPhone but it is damn sexy on the iPad.

kien · #3 04-14-2010, 10:27 AM

There's more, but let's take a little break and see what Mr. Blue Starfish is up to these days.

Oh look, he seems to have taken up liverock climbing.

and after a climbing session he likes to crash and chill out on his zoa couch.

TJSlayer · #4 04-14-2010, 01:55 PM

Looks amazing kien, love the way everything is setup, can't wait to see it in action, looks very cool.

TJ

lorenz0 · #5 04-14-2010, 03:12 PM

So hold the phone.... you got a power module for a fowler????

love the set up man, its going to look killer once everything is done

freezetyle · #6 04-14-2010, 06:00 PM

Kien... we need to talk.... You gotta stop setting up reef tanks so the rest of us can have a chance for TOTM. Seriously, Its getting out of hand...

Love the scape, gonna be a beauty for sure

superduperwesman · #7 04-15-2010, 05:17 AM

Why not just have the tanks separate? You have 2 return pumps anyway. Isn't the fowlr just going to increase your nutrients and make it harder to maintain you the levels in your mixed reef? I'm assuming it's mainly to ease you water changes b/c your tank is in the middle of your main floor but why not just implement your sump with water change section on both tanks? I guess you'd also need another skimmer but don't or didn't you already have one?

Don't get me wrong. Love the tank! And you're far better reefer than I'll ever be but just a few things that came to mind

burtonboy · #8 04-15-2010, 05:47 AM

WOW!!! Looks really good kien!! Cant wait to see this tank full of fish, Do u know what kind of fish your going to put in there yet?

I like how the water change sump/container turned out! Ill be putting mine together this week i hope it works out, seeing how u had to put in a third hole in the water change container do think putting 1 or 2 2" holes would work? How many gallons/hour is going through your tank?

Thanks!

Daniel

kien · #9 04-15-2010, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorenz0

So hold the phone.... you got a power module for a fowler????

love the set up man, its going to look killer once everything is done

The phone is off the hook!

I know that I am going to throw some corals in this tank, probably SPS :-) (hence the "reef" in FOWLR reef

).

Quote:

Originally Posted by freezetyle

Kien... we need to talk.... You gotta stop setting up reef tanks so the rest of us can have a chance for TOTM. Seriously, Its getting out of hand...

Love the scape, gonna be a beauty for sure

word ! I seriously need to stop setting up tanks.. no seriously !

Although I am in the process of installing a separate power circuit on the main floor with its own dual 20amp breaker so I think I might be good for at least another couple of tanks?

Really what I should have done is just enclosed my entire dining room with 1" acrylic and turned that whole space into a tank.

lastlight · #10 04-15-2010, 08:05 PM

Love how you document all the little details Kien. Looks like a really nice tank you had made there I'm looking forward to seeing more. My only concern is those 3 pipes tying those tanks together. You added one more pipe to keep up with the flow...so you have enough plus a tiny bit? I'm sure you'll make sure they never get plugged...but there isn't a great margin of safety there from what I understand...