Finally got a tank. 60g Solana

[Trike]

Spent some time last night trying to figure out how I wanted to aquascape it. I wanted to design the foam wall around the main aquasqape. That way I wont regret it if something on the foam wall was in the way or didn't look how I wanted it.

It turns out, I'm not going to be putting much on the foam wall. It will mainly be rock rubble and sand. I have one piece of rock on it at the moment, and the rest of the wall will be filled with rubble and sand. I tried various pieces of rocks on the wall and didn't like how it looked or detracted from the main aquascape.

Hopefully I didn't have too much die off from taking the rocks out of the water. They were out of the water for about an hour and half. I put water on them every 15-30mins or so.

Putting it back together is going to be challenging, but I took a lot of pictures.

Here's a pic.

 

[dailydriven911]

I like the scape looks great! I'm looking at a similar tank so I'll be following your progress...

 

[Trike]

Thanks dailydriven,

I'm hoping to foam some test eggcrate pieces tonight and see what I can do with it. Once I foam the main piece and trim it to the tank, I can do a leak test on the tank

 

[Trike]

Started the foam wall last night. Heh. I thought 1 can of the foam was going to be enough. I ran out of foam while working on the left side. Some issues I noticed is the foam goes through the eggcrate pretty easily and stuck to the boards I had it laid on. I'll probably have to do quite a bit of trimming behind the eggcrate since the foam goes through the eggcrate and expands.

This is what it currently looks like. Still need to finish the rest then epoxy it.

 

[Trike]

just an update, Been working on the rockwall as much as I can. I put my first layer of epoxy and sand last night. I still need to do some touch up on the spots I missed, but it's pretty much finished. This thing took a long time to complete, took about 2 weeks, working everyday for about a couple hours.

I'm going to let it cure for about a week, then put it in the tank and fill it with fresh water. I'll run some carbon through it, and change the water out a few times. Then I'll finally be able to put some saltwater in it!

rock's have been cooking and have been doing 100% water changes and swishing them every week. I used an API phosphate test kit and got 0, API nitrate test I got 10ppm. I've been killing about 10 majano's every week. they've been getting smaller and smaller each week though. hopefully I'll be able to eliminate them.

First round of epoxy.

 

[jgalvin]

all i can say is wow. i'm hoping you offer a showing of your tank when its set up. amazing rock work and back wall, i'm a bit in awe.

 

[Trike]

Thanks for the compliments! I hope it'll turn out as expected. Once I get everything going, I don't mind showing it. Then maybe someone will spot something I'm doing wrong or give me pointers.

 

[roblou]

Started the foam wall last night. Heh. I thought 1 can of the foam was going to be enough. I ran out of foam while working on the left side. Some issues I noticed is the foam goes through the eggcrate pretty easily and stuck to the boards I had it laid on. I'll probably have to do quite a bit of trimming behind the eggcrate since the foam goes through the eggcrate and expands.

My advice is too late for you, but maybe for others reading this thread it might help... When I applied the foam to my rockwall, I layed the eggcrate down flat on top of a large Hefty trash bag. I still had to trim some off the back, but it didn't stick to the plastic bag, and overall the back side was fairly flat. After it all dried I took a razor blade to the back side to trim off the excess.

 

[Trike]

yeah, I had laid it on my template during foaming with a trash bag under it. The foam still made it through the grates. Some of the foam that went past the grate is pretty solid. I think all the air bubbles escaped and it dried solid. It's pretty difficult to get off. I got most of it off. The worst part is where the background meets with the front of the overflow box. I need to address it once I finish epoxying it. I'm still debating on coating the back of it.

 

[Trike]

I did a leak test on the tank over the weekend. Man with everything running, it's pretty loud. The fans on the sunpod/ballast, the return pump, mp40, overflow and sump were all making noises.

I did find it odd that current didn't make a durso for the overflow drain. It's just a pipe with a Tee fitting connected to the top. I'll have to see what I can do to lower the noise of everything.

I plan on putting the foam wall in the tank tomorrow and running freshwater through it with some carbon. I'll do that for a few days and change out the water. Then I'll drain it and put some saltwater into it. I'll run some carbon and skimmer to see if it foams up.

I picked up a bunch of Elo's test kits at barrier's sale over the weekend. I picked up P04, N03, CA, KH, and MG. I tested the liverock water before I changed it and got 0 for phosphates and 10ppm for nitrate.

Still finding a lot of mojano's that keep re-appearing every week. Trying to kill off as much as I can.

 

[roscoe]

Still finding a lot of mojano's that keep re-appearing every week. Trying to kill off as much as I can.

Your build is coming along great! Your rock work looks awsome! As for the manjanos and aptasia. This is just me though but if I was you I would just nuke all the rocks that has those pest on them while you are just starting new. You will be thankfull you did 6 months to a year from now. No mechanical in tank removal will completely rid of them.

 

[Trike]

Thanks roscoe, I'll keep the nuking in mind. I've switched from joe's juice to a mixture of sodium hydroxide and ro water. It's not as thick, but once I squirt them with it, they instantly melt.
In the beginning I killed a bunch of aiptasia's. Now, I've only seen maybe one everytime I do a waterchange. But the mojano's seem to keep multiplying.

 

[roscoe]

Thanks roscoe, I'll keep the nuking in mind. I've switched from joe's juice to a mixture of sodium hydroxide and ro water. It's not as thick, but once I squirt them with it, they instantly melt.
In the beginning I killed a bunch of aiptasia's. Now, I've only seen maybe one everytime I do a waterchange. But the mojano's seem to keep multiplying.

If you see one every now and then. You have tons more inside the crevis. You see when you use kalk, lime/lemon juice, hotwater, ect. ect. ect. yes visually you see what is being melted at the surface but aptasia can root themselves deep in the rock. You melted the mother colony at the surface but you have it's spores deep in the rock that will eventually manifest itself somewhere else in your tank. I battled and gave up trying to keep these guys at bay for almost 2 years in my 40b. When I set up my current system. I nuked all my rock it was white when it went in my tank and now less than a year later all purple and full of life.

 

[mfinn]

If it is majanos, you can pick them out with a knife. Just get the tip in under the foot and pry up. The foot is pretty tough and will take alot. Even if it rips, it can still be pulled up.


I know that cooking the rock is a good way to eliminate the pests, but I did that on my current zoanth tank, and I still have majano's and aptasia's and even a little bryopsis in places.
Anything that you add to the tank, like corals, will have the possibilty of adding crap you don't want.
The big down side of cooking your rock is you have to do a complete cycle, and deal with completely white rock.

As far as the overflow, there are a couple different designs you could go with to quiet it down.

 

[mfinn]

I did find it odd that current didn't make a durso for the overflow drain. It's just a pipe with a Tee fitting connected to the top. I'll have to see what I can do to lower the noise of everything.

Durso, Stockman, herbie, hofer gurgle buster are some that come to mind.

 

[Trike]

I'll have to try removing them with a knife and see how that works. They're typically pretty small and transparent, but you can see the bubble tip on the tentacles. I may try making the "zapper" since I probably have all the parts laying around.

With the overflow, I may try adding a cap to the top and putting a hole in it like a durso. there's not much room in the overflow box. I'd like to go Herbie style, but with the lid I have on it, there's no easy way to run a return. Cosmetically, I'd like to avoid running pipes over the top, for now.

 

[mfinn]

A zapper would be fun.
I'm a diy guy, but making a zapper is a little beyond me. lol

 

[iroll253]

That rock scape is sweet! i hope you can get it in there like that!

 

[Trike]

Thanks! I hope it all fits in there. The part i'm worried about is getting it to look the same, since there's a lot of rocks to piece together. I took a bunch of pics, so hopefully in a week or two I'll be ready to put everything in there.

Here's a photoshopped image of the background with the main rock structure. This was just to get a better idea of what it'll look like.

 

[Trike]

I managed to reduce the overflow and sump noise considerably. In the overflow box, I made the standpipe longer and added a 90 and a cap to the tee. Basically making a durso for the overflow. In the sump, I added a reverse durso. That reduced the splashing noise significantly. I can still hear quite a bit of water rushing through the flex pipe, I'll try and work on that later.

There's still some overflow noise from the water falling a few inches, but it's not as bad now. I may leave it since it masks some of the vortech noise.

I put the background in the tank last night, and added a small bag carbon.

Here's the reverse durso.

Here's some shots of the background in the tank.

No lights on.