Last weekend I dropped some fish and inverts off at gmack225's house in Renfrew and he invited me in to see his 220 gallon and I was blown away. The size and rockwork was very impressive but it was the colors and number of fish that truly made it amazing.
I immediately went out to the car to get my wife ;) and the moment she saw it I had carte blanche to upgrade our 56 gallon but with one caveat, " please don't do anything piece-meal or DIY".
So she picked out the tank she liked and we found a stand that was both funtional and fit in with our other furniture. I'm using pvc to frame the rockwork and will transfer over this week.
The pictures kind of suck but you...uh... get the picture.
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Great work!!! Keep going... I'm taking notes!!!! :)
OOOOOOh that is going to be one nice looking arch! Very nice!
It also looks like your going to get your armpits wet reaching into the bottom of that tank. ;D
Quote from: barabe on February 24, 2009, 10:31:28 AM
Great work!!! Keep going... I'm taking notes!!!! :)
Knowing what I now about setting up a tank I'm not so sure I'd trust me if I was me :P
Quote from: Severum on February 24, 2009, 10:45:00 AM
OOOOOOh that is going to be one nice looking arch! Very nice!
It also looks like your going to get your armpits wet reaching into the bottom of that tank. ;D
I told my wife that I was going to get soaked everytime I had to work in there but she said she didn't think it would be a problem so I guess she knows what she's talking about ::)
What are the dimensions of the tank? 48"x18"x30"?
Quote from: Severum on February 24, 2009, 11:43:14 AM
What are the dimensions of the tank? 48"x18"x30"?
Yep. The stand is about 30 inches so with lighting included total height is about 66 inches.
I partially finished the rockwork last night and transferred everything from one of the two 56 gallons I have. The rest I'll do this weekend after I arrange everything properly.
The transfer went surprisingly well. I drained 1/4 of my existing tank into the new tank then reversed and refilled the existing tank and did this 5 or 6 times over a period of two hours. Nobody seemed stressed by it and my clam actually opened wider than usual about an hour after the transfer.
I don't care for the background but it was the darkest blue that Deserres had in stock. I will paint it this weekend instead.
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Looking good Mike, now you have to get all the fancy do- dads :D ;)
Great looking arch. Are you planning to cover up the zip ties with something or let coraline algae cover them?
Nice so far!
Did you drill and used zip ties for the rock, I can't quite tell?
Where is the stand from?
Quote from: Severum on February 26, 2009, 03:46:16 PM
Great looking arch. Are you planning to cover up the zip ties with something or let coraline algae cover them?
Zip ties? What zip ties...damn! I only had black ones on hand and I was so sick and tired of running back and forth to HD and CTC that I thought noone will notice. I may be able to replace some of them with white, I'll see.
Quote from: RoxyDog on February 26, 2009, 04:15:36 PM
Nice so far!
Did you drill and used zip ties for the rock, I can't quite tell?
Where is the stand from?
Yep, I drilled and used zip ties, it's surprisingly stable.
We picked up the stand at Valley Squire and what I like about it is that the two doors on the sides have double shelves on wheels, like a spice rack. It's perfect for all of the bottles, refract. etc.
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Quote from: FocusFin on February 26, 2009, 04:49:21 PM
We picked up the stand at Valley Squire and what I like about it is that the two door on the sides have double shelves on wheels like a spice rack. It's perfect for all of the bottles refract. etc.
Nice!!!
It's been about a month since the tank went up so I thought I would update my pictures.
I didn't care for the background so I painted using a latex flat finish and it went on nice & easy.
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Breathtaking tank and rockwork! I love it.
What a gorgeous setup. Wish my husband would give me carte blanche. I only want to replace the fridge in the kitchen with a tank these days... who needs a fridge? If I had my way I would have 10 tanks though so I guess carte blanche is not the way to go!
Fantastic job Mike, well done.
Quote from: Cheebs on March 25, 2009, 12:46:44 AM
Breathtaking tank and rockwork! I love it.
What a nice compliment, thank you.
Quote from: redsanurse on March 25, 2009, 10:54:38 AM
What a gorgeous setup. Wish my husband would give me carte blanche. I only want to replace the fridge in the kitchen with a tank these days... who needs a fridge? If I had my way I would have 10 tanks though so I guess carte blanche is not the way to go!
I hear you. Part of the deal was, "do what you have to do but then that's it, no more, no bigger, no better". We'll see :P
Quote from: charlie on March 25, 2009, 11:09:12 AM
Fantastic job Mike, well done.
Thanks Errol.
Wow, amazing! Not only did it look good when you were putting it together it looks fantastic now! Bravo!
I'm jealous. :-[
Quote from: Severum on March 25, 2009, 11:18:16 AM
Wow, amazing! Not only did it look good when you were putting it together it looks fantastic now! Bravo!
I'm jealous. :-[
I'll tell you, I wasn't at all confident doing it. I freakin' hate aquascaping and working with rock and no one is more surprised than me that it turned out allright. The sad part is that by the time I'm ready to do this again I'll have forgotten all the mistakes I made and likely repeat them :( :P
That is crazy amazing!!
wow Mike this is truly breath taking, it is awe inspiring. Its so weird seeing some of my old corals, you are a master of aquascaping, I am truly amazed, would love to do something like that in my tank. I am suprised the pvc arch is holding it looks heavy.
Why...thank you kindly :)
Now's probably as good a time as any to update, although these pictures are quite a few months old. They've been tweaked a bit to look more natural.
The one piece that I regret losing was the large purple torch from your tank. It was a beautiful piece but fell to the sand and smothered while I was away.
Your pieces include the bubble coral, yellow polyps, frogspawn, leathers and torch amongst various zoos and mushrooms.
The only livestock that I ended up keeping was one of the clowns, simply because it developed such an attachment to one of the clams I didn't want to give him up.
(https://www.ovas.ca/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fovas.ca%2Fgallery%2F2146_17_08_10_12_47_46.JPG&hash=b1f97dee3977cb622406786e0a951596c55f9286)
(https://www.ovas.ca/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fovas.ca%2Fgallery%2F2146_17_08_10_12_37_56.JPG&hash=a320f719628453d62e60e6989e274c697fdcc279)
wow the set up is amazing, funny about those clowns, I had them for years, brought them with me when I moved her to canada, then one day they just started hosting in whatever they could including a feather duster. yes various zoa those being my fav coral, sucks about the torch I liked that piece too, but again tank looks amazing
Thats a very impressive set up.You should give yourself a pat on the back.
Good job!
Very very nice aquascape. If I ever start over again, I would do the same.
This is a beautiful setup! TANKz for sharing... :)
Thanks guys :)