Movin’ on up (on the East Side) to a 375g

[rcw98022]

cant wait to see it setup

 

[Chichas01]

Nice tank. I saw it in the flesh on Sunday. Jason let me climb inside it and lay down. :lol:
J/k man. It's a sweet setup.

 

[stalefish]

Before. After.

 

[stalefish]

All right, let's try to get this thread revived again. Vacations and scheduling slowed progress for a while, but we're moving again. I'm in the middle of aquascaping now and will post some pics of that soon.

So obviously the tank was delivered in early June, here's the obligatory me in the tank shot, grinning like an idiot of course.

 

[stalefish]

While I was clowning around, Jason was working on the plumbing.

I did the plumbing in my last tank and gave myself a "C" grade. for something this big, I wanted an A. Less stress, better results.

 

[stalefish]

The plumbing seems fairly simple in planning, but there are 15 holes in the bottom of my tank and it adds up quick.

 

[JPG@CFI]

Don,

15 holes isn't that bad! Trying not to make a rats nest of the plumbing is the fun part! Looking great.

Jason

 

[stalefish]

Don,

15 holes isn't that bad! Trying not to make a rats nest of the plumbing is the fun part! Looking great.

Jason

That's why I had you do it! I'll see if I can wedge myself in there to get some better plumbing shots, but here's the left side.

 

[pecan2phat]

Hey Don,

Nice impressive build!
If the Solaris doesn't work out on this tank, LMK since I need a 2nd 24" fixture.

 

[stalefish]

Ahhh, the glow of the metal halides. Surprised I haven't had the police stopping by yet.

I'm finally into the fun stuff now - I've got the rock and the sand in, as the tank clears, I'll post some more pics.

 

[stalefish]

So I had some friends help with the aquascaping on Sea Fair Sunday. We got a late start since we had to watch the Blue Angles first!

The sea mount on the left I was pretty happy with, although it needed a touch more. The rest had some good ideas, but needed work.

We had been at this all afternoon and were beat, so we called it a day at this point.

 

[stalefish]

I thought I was so close when my friends left, but it was well over a week before I finally was satisfied. Nothing like a nice sheen of salt scum on the viewing panels after nearly a couple of weeks of aquascaping. Adds to the bad picture-taking I think.

Since this is a peninsula style tank, I also had to worry about the back side.

I had three basic goals that I wanted in aquascaping:
1) Keep all rock ~4" off the viewing panels
2) A lot of "beachy" area
3) Keep the rock only about half the height so that the coral would have
room to grow and I could still see over the top of it.

 

[stalefish]

What a difference some livestock and lighting makes! In my old tank I was having trouble finding places to put more coral, my new baby here looks barren.

This is just some temporary jury-rigged lighting more for asthetics than anything else. I'm particularly fond of the wires hanging down the front and back viewing panels. Jason hates jury-rigging, so this won't be here long I suspect!

The canopy's actually ready to go, but we had it off during the aquascaping phase. The canopy's just too dang heavy to keep taking on and off. Jason's working on a sliding system for it and once that's done, we can get this thing properly lit.

 

[stalefish]

And since this is a 3+ sided viewing tank, here it is from the backside. What's great about this shot is the really good view of the wires!

 

[stalefish]

And finally, the longways shot. 8 feet of depth from this angle (and 30" of width!)

-Don

 

[khaosinc]

Nice qand clean.... I like

 

[Chichas01]

sweet! Those rock rock racks really work unbelievabley well don't they? Did you drill any of your rocks to place the rods or just lay them on top?

 

[stalefish]

Thanks for the comments.

The rock racks are great. I didn't have to do any drilling either, just one zip tie threaded through "natural" holes on one of the higher pieces.

-Don