Reef nutrition

CookieJar's 180 Redone

This is the start of a new journey for me, redoing my tank with a variety of changes. I know I'm breaking BAR tradition by starting a tank thread when there IS water in the tank, so please forgive me for this. :D

As some of you may know, my previous 180 tank had been in a steady state of decline for around 9 months until I finally pulled the plug on it. My thought was to clear everything out and start from a complete clean slate. By doing so besides ridding whatever problem I had before I had some improvements and new ideas in mind for the 2nd round of this tank so to speak. I viewed this as a fresh start, a chance to get re-enthused about my tank again, try some different ideas and make some improvements. So here's the start of my new tank thread,
This is the list so far and where I'm at:

[*]Less cluttered look
- Generally this meant less rock than I had before, more open space and a more open sandbed. I liked pillars, overhangs, caves & tunnels so that's what I had in mind with my Aquascaping plans. I did all the preliminary pillars and rockwork in my garage, piecing different pieces together to make the pillars and structures I wanted. Playing architect/ artist I enjoy so I had no problem taking a few weeks making a lot of changes & revisions until it looked like I wanted. With using all base rock this was easy and there was no time crunch. I got from Marco rocks the E-Marco-400 cement and that stuff really rocks! (sorry for bad pun) I'm a strong believer in having an aquascape you really like because it's what you'll always be looking at and because I really hate the rock wall look I put time into making it what I like with pillars, caves, tunnels & overhangs. it's not 100% done but pretty close so far.

[*]Different rock types
- I made pillars and the rockwork out of various types of rock. I really like the fisheads dry rock I found @ Neptunes. It's pricey but the color, shapes and unique crevices throughout the rock I found to be worth it. I also used some Macro rocks and props to Jim (Gimmito) for also giving me a good amount of nice pieces- including a whale bone vertebrae- thanks Jim!! :)

[*]More depth front to back

- This is perhaps the biggest change since I thought the way to do this was to convert the back wall to a rock wall with the idea that if the back wall is made a main part of the display, you are getting the maximum front to back visual distance. I saw a few threads on Reefcentral about foam rockwalls and got inspired to do the same for the back wall. I made the right and middle sections comprised of a sloping back wall of fake rock. I had a large rock already planned for the left side of the tank. With some trial & error, and patience I got the result I was looking for- a varied rock wall that looks real, has a lot of variety and plenty of places for coral frags & coral growth. To top it off having a whale vertebrae in it added to the coolness. I used eggcrate, black pond foam, various rocks to put on the wall, 2 part epoxy and 2 different kinds of sand to make it look like a rock wall. check next post for the 'rock lab' pics.

Improved plumbing

- I changed the plumbing in the sump & refugium which before had a pump to get water from the sump to the refugium. Not very eficient, plus it was just 1 more pump to maintain and another cord adding to the other cords of 'spaghetti' I changed the plumbing so 1 of the drains went righ tinto the refugium. Problem solved and it's now plumbed like most other tanks.

Better Refugium

- The previous refugium was bowing and had limited access from the top. I had Gen from Kritter tanks make me a new one to the perfect dimensions. It came out real nice- braced & with lids. Gen does excellent work and is great to work with so I'll give a shout out to Kritter tanks! :D

[*]Sand that won't blow around
- I've got Neptune's coarse sand (#3). I like it so far & it's easy to add since it doesn't cause any clouding of the water. The previous sugar sized aragonite sand blew around too much for my liking.

[*]Less noise from powerheads
- I'm going to replace my old 2 MP40s with 2 Tunzes. I'll take the larger size (Tunze) in the tank for less noise outside the tank- the MP40s were too noisy for me. I try to keep my system as quiet as possible and those were the loudest sounds I had.

Less power consumption

- I'm going to be replacing 3 250W metal halides with yet to be determined LED fixture(s). The PG&E bill was high before; $80-90/ month and when I use all LEDs it'll lower the bill as well as reduce heat, meaning I'll also get rid of my chiller which I rarely used anyway. Win-win all the way around.

Better 2-part reactor

- I had used the BRS dual chamber reactor, which works, but just ok at best since you can't keep the GFO & carbon tumbling very well. I DIY'ed 2 Avast reactors, hooked them up to an Eheim and am looking forward to using them- both have ball valves so it should be easy to get each reactor the proper flow. I did have a couple troubles with leaks & assembly errors, but those are fixed or in the process of being fixed.

With those things incorporated into this, it's off to the races. I had freshwater in the tank for ~1 week to rinse or let leech any rock wall epoxy/foam residue, and as of now saltwater has been inside the tank for about 3 weeks. I used no live rock and am going with Robert's recommendation (@ Neptune) of using all base rock and adding daily bacteria (Brightwell's Microbacter7) for the cycling. I've also added hermits, snails & food to get the nutrients going. I really like this approach because it minimizes pests and it allows me to use all base rocks which makes aquascaping that much easlier. With live rocks I wouldn't have got the same aquascape.

Without further ado, here are the pictures so far. Just 1 MH in the middle + a blue reefbrite strip.

Full tank shot:


Left:


Middle:


Right Side:


Distorted angle shot:
 
For those interested, here are a few shots of my 'rock lab' and some of the concepts I played with. I cutout corrugate boxes to be the dimensions of the tank so I'd know how everything would fit inside the tank. I hope these help inspire some to be adventurous with ways to make the tank aquascaping look the way you want it to.

Left side rockwork layout. I changed 1 of the bridge pieces


right side pillar of PVC pipe & secondary structure:


Pillar mostly done:


foam rock walls before 2-part epoxy & sand


Early 2 island concept that I rejected:
 
I have to say I am a fan of the rock background. That said.
This is one of the best looking aquascapes I have ever seen on BAR.
Clearly well planned.
Love the whale vertebrae. Is that confirmed? Could be a manatee...
 
A few of the rocks are base rocks from stores like PetClub & other LFS- I've used that type before and I'm not too worried.
JAR- thanks for the good words. I cannot confirm it is whale or manatee, but I know it's not human because not even sumo wrestlers get that big. :)
 
Nice!!!!
I wish I had done my pillars more off-horizontal like you did. Nice arches!
Mine are a bit to vertical, and a pain to mount coral.

Regarding the Tunze : They have a "Silence Clamp" that replaces the standard one.
Really helps on noise. But can be a bit of a pain to put on.
 
Awesome scaping Bill...glad that "whalebone" worked out for you. :)

Quick question...did you consider covering the left overflow also with foam ?
 
Very nice scape. It's simple, yet not boring. The back foam wall is awesome - If/when I upgrade...This/JAR's tank sold me on the foam wall :D

Question - How is the foam wall anchored? I tried a similar experiment a long while ago and for the life of me couldn't figure out a way to anchor it safely. The foam was incredibly buoyant.
 
The Tunzes will be 6205s, controlled via Apex controller. I'm going off of Jim's recommendation on the newer Tunzes which should be whisper quiet.

Icon- yeah, the foam really wants to float. Having rocks as part of the foam wall helps, but only a little. In my case I had the eggcrate for the right side cut to a height so it is wedged underneath the top lip of the tank. There is no way it can go up. The middle section was more difficult because I couldn't wedge it anywhere. Keep in mind the foam wall is actually L-shaped so it has a base that's about 6" that rests underneath the sand. That is so I can put heavy rocks on it. On the left side the large rock against the back wall & rock tower to the left of the middle rest on the 6" base so that keeps down the left side. I also used the Macro-4000 aquascaping cement to cement the middle foam wall & right foam wall together to keep the right side down of the middle wall. I made the rocks of the 2 walls fit like a puzzle so cementing them together was easy. They're cemented together at the top of the joint.

Jim- I didn't think about doing a foam rock wall for the left overflow because I wanted a contrast of high rock on right sloping to a more open and lower rock structures on the left. That's just for now, who knows down the road what tweaks i'll make.
 
Sweet. I had tunze on my tank, then moved over to vortech to give them a try. I like them, but damn they're loud. Next ones will be new-school tunzes.

My old tunze's didn't like short pulse mode and tended to swing around over time. I know the design is different now so I'm assuming not an issue?
 
Time for an update. The biggest change I've made, and am real happy with is using the custom rockstructure Jestersix made which I won in the raffle at the last BAR meeting. Shout out to Jestersix for a great demo & pieces he gave to the raffle. The piece I won really works well with my rockwork in that it meshes with the other rockwork of my tank. There's a larger sloping piece that fits on top of the custom bridge piece nicely and it keeps a lot of the sandbed open. Excusing the excessive blue on the right from the LEDs, this is how it looks.


Since the meeting, i've been inspired to make my own pillar/ bridge type structure using Emaco. It's still in process and am looking forward to making it exactly what I want. That stuff really opens up possibilities with what you can do with your rockwork.
 
Nice! Thanks for the kind words.

I really like how that piece fits in your tank - always like to see the structures once they find a home. Let me know if I cna answer any questions during your build - that is fun stuff, Emaco can be addicting...
 
Yeah, i know, i'm slow to the draw to populate it. I have a nice collection of mostly LPS frags in my frag tank, but i'm still undecided on the main tank lighting. For sure i'm going with 1 350w Kessil. I need 2 more lights & am considering Radions & maybe the new Maxspect Razor which looks really cool. So many LED choices, hard to decide.
 
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