Project Phoenix

[DemoReef]

Originally Posted by hillegom

I have heard that cement leaches a lot of lime and will raise the ph too high for a month or so. When u put water in, put in fresh first and monitor the ph for a while to see what happens.

I did cure the concrete pieces in freshwater for about 6 weeks before assembling the wall. The concrete that was used to put the wall together however was curing in the tank. And I agree, I had to offset a rise in ph with vinegar for a couple of weeks.
I currently have about 300 lbs of concrete curing to be used for additional structures.
As of this writing the tank finished cycling about 3 weeks ago, ph is stable at 8.4 and I have fish in it. I dropped in about 2lbs of real live rock and I am just waiting now for purple spots to pop up

I am just slow in catching up with the build timeline and getting pictures uploaded

[scherzo]

Great name for your thread! Tagging along! I also like the look of your workshop. Hmm.. got me thinking...

[DemoReef]

I found anther shot of the back rock wall showing a bit more detail.



With the back wall in place, it was time to get water into the system. I had been hording RO/DI water already for that moment, but I have only storage for about 50 gal, and that made hardly a dent. So, like many before me, I hooked that 1/4" plastic hose from the RO/DI unit over the rim..and let'er trickle..for a long time.
And eventually it was full.



A couple of notes to the above picture.
First, you may notice the whitish deposit on the bottom pond liner. That is residue from mixing salt in the tank. I am not to crazy about this Coral Life stuff, I prefer IO. It was a pain to get off the glass. On a positive note tho, I don't mind the lighter color of the bottom, also the rock work was 2 different shades of gray due to the different cement mixes for rock and the concrete used to bond the rocks together. The residue made this all blend together.

Second, I installed 2 intake strainers for the CL, made out of 1.5" PVC and a 90 elbow. The PVC pipe was slotted on the table saw and then the works was painted black with Krylon.

At this point I had also put in some clam meat to start things up.

Next adventure was the moving of a almost 30" tall by 20" diameter, at the bottom, rock tower I had made some time earlier. It had been curing in a garbage can for the last couple of month and was ready to go. I am doing it by myself and the weight of the thing is something like 70lbs.

Step 1 was to get it onto a stack of IO buckets. (Sorry for the terrible focus on the pic)




Step 2 set it onto the edge of the euro bracing, carefully


And in..thank you for salt water buoyance making the tower lighter as I had to lean over the tank from the ladder, lowering it in.




Just a tad tall