My 180g, 4 sided viewable project thread

[bitterman]

Some sculptured rocks are done with an industrial sand blaster and very coarse media. Would that work?

Not sure the cost of renting such a thing... might be worth it if it worked to avoid the frustration.

Bruce

[Hookup]

Some sculptured rocks are done with an industrial sand blaster and very coarse media. Would that work?

Not sure the cost of renting such a thing... might be worth it if it worked to avoid the frustration.

Bruce

That has a bonus factor of being about as cool of a toy as I can imagine... I'm pretty sure that would work too...

[QueensU]

You could have used it to cut the hole in the wall too.. lol

[Hookup]

You could have used it to cut the hole in the wall too.. lol

yep and I bet I could have signed the divorce papers with too, had I done it.

You'll see me on the forums... have over-powered sand-blaster, will work for food, frags or salt...

[QueensU]

Haha,

Where are the pics? I wanna see this thing in the wall.

[salvini55]

lol at least u got ur priorities straight! how about those pic now

[Hookup]

Picture day! 

Here's the tank, on the stand (version 2 of the stand) the day it came in from the cold.



Here's the tank stand, version 3.0 (haha.. yeah i know.. )


Template for the top of the stand to match the holes in the tank.


Obligatory kids in the tank shots...



Plumbing parts.  This is about 25% of the plumbing, the other parts are coming in.


Rocks, a sampling of what Marco Rock looks like.  Its pretty dense, but I really like the look.


Some of the plumbing and rock work in-tank.




Today's goal, and tomorrows, and so on, and so on, is to cover more pipes with rock... then add rocks where i need to finish the scaping...   

[Vincenzo.]

nice tim... tobad they did not sell LR in 'bits-n-bites' bags.

[Hookup]

lol... believe me, by the time i'm done it's about that size... Each of those two pipes is covered in no less than 10 pieces of rock, not including the bits and rubble that I stuck into the expoy as it cured...  And those are the two smallest pipes... I'ma going to work on covering a bigger rock today and see what happens.

[Vincenzo.]

though, i see where ur going with the design, and it'll look awesome. it'll be completely covered/hidden..and with the aquascaping  ... i give it, 2 boombaps and a hellyeah.

boombap.
boombap.
hellyeah.

[Rybren]

Looking good Tim!

[salvini55]

I second the two boombaps and the hell yeah. nice progress, things are really starting to pick up. Did you concider using silicon instead of putty for the rocks? prolly by cheaper and less time consuming

[Tyler.L]

silicone would take so much longer to cure than the epoxy that stuff stays where you put it silicone would drip and look extra messy...

tank looks good though tim keep it up!

[Hookup]

Yeah, i'm looking at Ryben's suggestion about going back to the great-stuff foam.  I could cover the pipes and then stick loads of rock-rubble around it... there are some areas where this method would create a more "trim" effect... It's either using 1-2" size pieces and epoxy or bigger pieces and then you get radial-bulk... It's a trading game for the most part.

So far I have 90% of one tower complete, and my goal is to work work on another area before finishing it up... cause at this point, i'm down to using very small peices of rock just to patch the pipes up...   I've already got plans for where what corals will grow....

One thing that is impossibly hard...   The tank is only 25.25" deep (external dimension)... In a 3 side viewable system, you can move the rock work back to the glass, or just off the back piece of glass thus opening up the "front" of the tank.... In this 4-side viewable tank, the rock work has to be very thin and basically centered... It's creating some challanges with the scaping... If I were to do it again, I'd have extended the wall in some fashion and gone with 36" deep... It would have made for a MAJOR reno to the house, moving a wall back 12" into a sunken room has so many issues associated with it, but the end-result would have been 100x easier to scape, and well, 36" wide tanks are boss...

Just an FYI for anyone thinking of doing a 4-side viewable project... this is the only "challange" i've run into so far.

[salvini55]

have you found a solution to lifting the lights?

[holachicka]

I LOVE the pics of the kids in there...Very cute! And I agree with Vince - that tank is poopin' bro - hells yeah!

[Hookup]

have you found a solution to lifting the lights?

Yes, i'm going to control the budget and lift them manually on their built-in sliders.  Next year or some time later I can install an auto-lift system easily enough.

[salvini55]

safe call. I bet you ran out of wood rebuilding your stand, theres none left for a dog house?

[LittleX]

LOL 

safe call. I bet you ran out of wood rebuilding your stand, theres none left for a dog house?

[Vincenzo.]

u dont need wood for a dog house couple blankets n some shrubs.