High Tide Aquatics

Pixel's 65 Gallon

I took on a big project yesterday. When I originally set up my two sumps, I used 3/4" tubing to connect them. The wall between them is 8" thick stone and that's the biggest hole I could drill with the tools I had.

It's been a bit of a problem, though. There's enough resistance that I can't run the full flow of the return pump through it, so I have to put the return pump in the sump under the tank and use a second smaller pump to circulate between the two sumps. It also makes me extremely nervous because if that line were to get clogged up at all, the first sump could easily overflow.

Soo... I went to home depot and rented a HUGE hammer drill and a 20" long 1.5" wide bit. It's really an incredible machine--it's like the BFG 9000 of drills. It cut through the stone wall like butter. I drilled several holes next to each other and knocked out the space between them, making a hole large enough for 1.5" pipe.

Then I drained both sumps, stripped everything down, pulled them both out, scrubbed them, put them back, and replumbed with 1.5" spa flex. Now it easily handles the full flow of my return pump with very little resistance and plenty of room to spare. Yay!
 
Holy cow! What an awesome swap today! Here's what I picked:

Aussie Acan (Natterjak)
Atlantis Blue Tenuis (farmer unknown)
Hawkins Echinata (from saltwatersig)
Cespitularia aka Blue Xenia (from cwolfus)
Turbinaria (from Thales)
Green Monti Cap and Purple Haze Monti Cap (farmers unknown)

Apart from the swap I also received:
purple dbtc zoas from Natterjack
nifty red macro algae from Thales
nice big ball of chaeto from Lyn
and a lovely valentines day bouquet of candy cane from Norman!
 
[quote author=pixelpixi link=topic=4551.msg81333#msg81333 date=1234663966]Atlantis Blue Tenuis (farmer unknown)
[/quote]

I think that was among the stuff Jeremy picked up from Atlantis for the swap.

If so, that would be direct from Mingwei.

p.s. Now you can post on RC when people say there's no such thing as lavender candy cane :D
 
I finally got around to taking a new full tank shot with my improved rockwork.

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And here are some other photos that turned out mostly okay.


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yay! another person who has clams and a sandbed. : ) and even some familiar softies....nice mixed reef. Soon will will run out of room.
 
Is it me, or have you been working on your camera skills? Not that you weren't good before, but these latest photos look a lot nicer.
 
Thanks, Jason.

The platform -- I epoxied several rocks together to make the riser for the platform along with rocks that create kind of an upside down tripod that fits the bottom of the shelf rock. I did this upside down outside of the tank. That's nice because it holds the big shelf securely but allows it to be removed.

Then I expoxied the riser into place. It's still very top heavy and needed to be done in the tank, so I used various things to prop it up until the expoxy could set. Once the epoxy was hard I just removed the supports and put the shelf in place.

I hope that makes sense!
 
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