GoToSleep's 700g Build Thread (& complete remodel)

your rock work is beatiful

 

;D;D;D

Thank you so much and K+ for brightening my day. I showed pics of it to the woman at my LFS and she seemed kinda underwhelmed. I believe her exact words were "I guess it's alright". To be fair, it actually looks a heck of a lot better in person. It's really hard to convey the true 3-dimensional appearance in pics with my limited camera. Also, I owe a great deal of thanks to Jan at FW because she gave me some really helpful pointers that I implemented when doing this aquascaping (mostly with rock that I bought from someplace else, so she really is great).

Here are a few of the tips that I followed with thanks to Jan @ FishWorld:

• keep all rock at least 2-3" of off front and side glass so you can maneuver your magnet cleaner.
• If going for the 2 island effect, make sure to leave enough open space at the front (about 20" in my 72" long tank)
• The open area between the islands is perfect for clams or softies.
• Be careful to have plenty of ledges around the islands and especially in the middle so that you have room to place corals and the corals on the middle ledges can grow towards each other.
• Leave enough room at the top of the islands so that you have room for corals to grow upward.
• Be sure to have plenty of holes and tunnels within the rockwork to offer sactuary to your fish.
• Allow the center open space to narrow in (but not touch) towards the back of the tank to enhance the feeling of depth.
• Of course, place your rock before you put sand on the bottom of the tank.

 

Good tips. Love your build, your rock looks great!

 

im glad i could brighten your day

 

looking awesome....

 

Thank you for sharing those pointers. Those might be common knowledge to many, but I had no idea that the placement of rock designed to follow such a scheme can make such a big difference!

I love the second-to-last tip about having the open center area narrowing towards the back to accentuate the depth. It works wonders, especially in a large tank like yours!!

Thanks again, Dr.!!

 

it's too late to do anything now, but would egg crate between the floor and the rock have any benefit? if the glass is supported i know there is no danger but just seeing rock on glass makes me a little uneasy.

i copied those tips to my dream tank plans, thanks!

 

A lot of folks talk about the benefit of putting eggcrate on the bottom of the tank and this seems like a good idea to me as well. Another alternative is to put a sheet of PVC on the bottom of your tank. My tank has 1" thick glass for all walls so it is amazingly strong. It also has a layer of PVC laminated underneath the tank to make the 1700 lbs of glass 'easy' to slide around and another sheet of PVC laminated inside the bottom of the tank to protect against falling rocks.

 

It's not too exiciting but here's one of the first pics of water going in the tank.



Adding sand clouded things up a bit.



I put one of the Tunze 6205's in the tank for water movement. I was concerned at first because it didn't look like there was very much movement. The surface was rippling a bit and then I realized that the pump was a good 6 or 7" below the surface and it was still causing ripples that far above. 5800 gph from 1 pump.

 

Joe and I did a bit of refining on my saltwater vat yesterday.



The 2 true union ball valves on either side of the pump will allow me to remove the pump from the system without spilling or having to drain things.



The vertical valve and the pipe to the left run back to the top of the vat and allow me to keep water in the vat circulating. This comes in handy when try to get the salt to dissolve. The horizontal valve and the pipe to the right run through the wall to the display tank so that I can refill during water changes.



We also put a float switch in the top of the vat to minimize the chances of forgetting to turn off the RO/DI and and overflowing the vat.