Kannin's 225 w/ artificial rock wall & pillars

[Kannin]

I wanted realism, lots of room and an interesting place for my fish. I think I accomplished most of what I set out to do. I just added my first corals which were generously given to me by a member. I, so far have about 15 fish and half of a clean up crew. I still have 20 fish to go and lots of corals.

Here's a few recent photos...

 

[spongebob lover]

wwouu dood talk about live rock .
very nice tank

 

[Scooterman]

I must say this is a very beautiful tank! Maybe you can share the information on how about you accomplished this, I'd like to give it a try
\
Welcome to RF BTW!

 

[BCT182]

Impressive! fill us in on the construction of the rock.

 

[roscoe]

Ahhh man that is an amazing rock background!! Please let it know how you accomplished that!

 

[Kannin]

Thanks for the compliments. My first tank... which was started in January of last year has a great aquascape but, I felt that I was limited when it came to stacking live rock.

I mean... I remember, I got up one morning and my reef had fallen over. I love it it but, I knew there had to be a better way. I saw a thread from this guy in England that used insulating spray foam and rocks attached to egg crate... and I had to try it.

So, one day I went into Blue Sierra to buy some RODI and they had this huge tank an consignment. I fell in love with it because it was 30 inches wide which would be great for aquascaping and it had external overflows...

It took me three weeks to slowly convince my beautiful wife that we couldn't live without it. It came with the stand and the 750 watt fixture. Once I got it home... I started building a new stand. The stand it came with really didn't suit the tank and certainly didn't suit my wife's taste.

 

[Kannin]

So, then I decided I needed to put it all together... I had no idea where to go from here. Jonathan from Poulsbo gave me some great advice when it came to return pumps and manifolds and stuff...

Then with the help of 1 or 2 friends... we brought it in the house...

It's going right here...

Here it is...

 

[Kannin]

So... the rock work is made of egg crate, Marco Rocks, 200 zip ties, "Great Stuff" spray foam, finishing resin and sand.

Here's the egg crate frame...

Here's the Marco Rocks. Approximately 170 lbs...

I zip tied it to the egg crate...

And then filled in the gaps with the spray foam. nce it expanded and dried... the whole structure tightened up and got very rigid...

 

[Kannin]

Once I had it constructed... I brought it in the house where it was warm so I could apply the resin and sand...

Here's the resin I used. It is just an epoxy resin that I got at a model train store...

 

[Kannin]

Here it is when I put it in the tank. I will admit that I screwed up here... I though that I made allowance for the eurobracing but, NO! Not so much. When moving it into the tank... I had to break off both pillars and reattach them after I got it in...

I got to go to bed.

 

[Snowboarda42]

Looks good (still)

Those pictures definitely don't do the tank justice though! Glad to hear the frags are happy too!

 

[Scooterman]

Nice build, thanks for the details, this resin was used to cover the exposed foam then threw sand on it to make it look like rock?
I'm guessing all this stuff isn't toxic once cured, It sure looks great.

 

[spongebob lover]

omg dood, now you definetly left me with my mouth open after the details ... you did an exelent job .

 

[Kannin]

Alright snowboarda42... My Sister-in-law wants your number. Thanks again for the frags.

Scooterman... The guy I learned it from has had fish in his for 6 months or so and the guy he learned it from has a 1700 gallon tank full of the stuff that is 5 years old. And so far... my fish seem to be fine.

Spongebob lover... Thanx for the compliment. By the way, I like some of Ron Paul's ideas too... but, Spongebob has a better shot.

 

[Kannin]

Scooter... there are different kinds of resin too. Zap (the original super glue company) makes it too... I just couldn't find any around here and I was in a hurry. Before I bought the resin that I used... I called the maker of it and he assured me that if properly cured... (above 75 degrees for 6 hours) it would be non toxic in salt water. That is why I moved indoors to apply the resin and sand... so it could cure. After I applied the coating... I put it in the tank, dry and turned on the lights for the rest of the day. I'm sure the temp exceeded 75.

 

[dnjan]

I like that! May copy it when (ever) I get around to my dream tank. One thing I would change, is I would stop the "rockwork" on the back wall about 1-1/2" before it got to the end of the tank (on each side) to leave room to scrape the ends all the way to the back.

 

[Kannin]

New sand went in...

After it calmed down a little...

Left...

Center...

Right...

My favorite photo...

 

[Kannin]

I seeded it with some coraline flakes from the lfs...

It only took about 8 or 9 days for spots to show up on the rocks...

I got a really bad brown algae bloom that I attribut to high phosphates leaching from the marco rocks. This was just the start of it...

I tested my RODI... Mixed salt water and they both came out fine. I put a couple left over marco rocks in a bucket of salt water and after 24 hours... it tested off the charts.

So... the only complaint I have about marco rocks is the fact that I was in too much of a hurry to cure them properly.

I put them in a bucket of RODI mixed with white vinegar at a 10:1 ratio for three days with two powerheads. Then I rinsed them with RODI and called it good. If I had it to do over... I would double the vinegar and the time... then soak in salt water for a week with water changes.

 

[Kannin]

It took about a week to whip the brown algae only to be hit with a green algae bloom. It took two weeks to whip that and now I've got cyano.

Three weeks ago, I started stocking the tank. I started with some blue green chromis, a clean up crew and a lawn mower blenny...

Some said I might've made a mistake with him because my tank was too new... so I was on blenny watch, hoping he would take to being fed.

Guess what... he did. I caught him on day three eating nori...

Here is with his new name... Fat Bastard...

Catching some free food...

 

[Kannin]

The next weekend I got 7 more fish... 3 small yellow tangs, 3 bangaii cardinals and a convict tang...

Then last Wednesday... my tangs started harrassing a blue green chromis, trying to get him to clean them...

So Friday I got a cleaner shrimp...