AJ`s Build Thread

Nice!!! I got some fish in there!! FINALLY!! haha

 

So I'm just waiting for temps to stabilize before I throw some clarkii clowns in there.  It's 76 degrees now...I want it to get to 79 and stay there steady for a few hours before I throw anything in.  Thanks to Jay and Williamh for loaning my heaters while my others are getting replaced under warranty.  I'm getting some of the rock in the sump tonight...
Iowa Glass should have the replacement glass for my other sump cut tomorrow and Vortechs show up Thursday...the week is looking up!
--AJ

 

Toys from EcoTech showed up today!!  I just got two of the MP40ws hooked up and running.  They take a fair amount of fine tuning to make sure that the wet side is in just the right place.  If you don't, it will rattle, wear things out, use more power and cause the pump to fail prematurely.  I got one of the really quiet pretty quickly.  The other one, I couldn't get to be quiet at all.  After a half hour or so of messing, I swapped out the wet side with my spare.  It was almost immediately quiet.  I think I'll have to contact support and see what could be the issue with it.  They are not dead silent, but they are pretty quiet.  About like a regular PC fan, or a small desk fan running on the lowest setting.  They are not tough to set up to talk to each other, but I wish they had made it a little easier.  It would seem that as intelligent as these pumps are, there should be more than two buttons and a dial to control them and a single light to show the status.  Now, these comments are based strictly on setting them up on an empty tank.  I have no idea what they are going to do for polyp extension or anything like that, but I'm really looking forward to seeing that!
I was playing around with them in short pulse/anti-synch mode.  That's the mode where you can create waves.  It wasn't more than a few seconds before a 2" wave was rolling across the top of the water splashing on the top of the euro-bracing.  I got freaked out and unplugged them to stop the wave to keep it from splashing water out of the tank.  I'm sure it would have grown considerably had I not unplugged them.
Feed mode doesn't put them at a full stop, but almost.
It is pretty cool once you have two pumps in a group and you turn the knob on one to turn up and down the pump power and watch the other immediately respond.
I'll try to put down all my thoughts after I actually have some corals in there ans see how the corals and fish like them.
As for the rest of the tank, I'm getting ready to start building the rock structure...but before all that, I have to finish preparations for the meeting this Saturday.  Looking forward to seeing everyone and talking about skimmers!
--AJ

 

Here's my first take at the rock work. I tried to keep plenty of space behind the pillars for good flow and keep them from being too close to any of the glass surfaces. I have not connected any of the rock work yet, but I will be usiong acrylic rods to attach most pieces when I'm happy. Two of the pillars are made up of three rocks and one is just two. The circular rock will not be connected to the pilars and will just sit between them. The idea with that is to make it a zoa/paly garden with a few varieties mixed together. I really like this rock. Porous, interesting, and somewhat unique. Thoughts? Suggestions?






--AJ

 

Placement will ultimately depend on what corals go where. One other thing that's kind of crazy...the dry weight of the rock in there now was only about 75 lbs. I don't know how much weight the water has added, but it's amazing how light those big rocks are. I still have the biggest piece of the pukani rock in my sump. I just couldn't get it to interlock in a way that I liked and the others just seemed to fit together. I like it. We'll see if I still like it a few days from now.

--AJ

 

Thanks for the feedback PotRoast. You got me thinking a bit. My original thought with the rock the way that I have it was to make more area for corals..not less. Maybe my logic is off. I just figured that I could put corals on the sides of the columns as well as the front and provide a little bit of separation and room for them to grow without as much growing into each other. Heck, I could even put a few on the back of the columns. Now, you can't really see them in the pics, but there are a few tunnels and cave like areas in the rock, but not many. With the fish being exposed, what's the risk there? Stress? I guess I never thought that was going to be an issue, but maybe I'm overlooking something important. Am I overlooking something?

--AJ

 

I'm attaching (probably with epoxy) rubble to the bottom where necessary to give four to six solid points of contact on the bottom of each.  Additionally, they are very bottom heavy so it would take quite a force to tip one over.  One of them was naturally flat on the bottom so that one will not take any additional rocks for stabilization.  The middle one is so wide that it would only be possible for it to tip forward...and I'm attaching rubble to prevent that.  The one on the right, I broke off a few pieces of the rock to make it sit flat so no additional bracing on that one is going to be necessary.  I think once they were stabilized, I could support some of the rock bridges like Justin is suggesting which could certainly add a degree of visual interest, but may be difficult to implement.
--AJ

 

Hey PotRoast, I really appreciate your frank opinion. I like the look of it as is, but I think that you may be right that I could run out of space to mount corals. I'll give it more thought. I may add some bridges...we'll see. I need to rod what's there first, then I can figure out how to take it to the next level. I love the circular rock and I had originally thought of it more horizontal, but I couldn't find a way to make it work that way. I may still move it around a bit. I'm going to find a way to make it work because I think corals on that would look great. Unfortunately because of where the back overflow is, putting one on the back probably would not work. We'll see.

--AJ