Remodeled my 180gal let me know what you guys think...

[fernandesbe]

Hey guys here are a few pics of my 180 gal (5' x 2' x 30") The first few pics were taken a few months ago. Just last week I got so sick of the setup and redid the whole thing took me about 14hrs I even managed to take out 140 lbs of live rock. Right now i'd say theres about 150lbs of LR but a lot more space for my fish to swim. Let me know what you guys think........


Before remodel from rear

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/bernardfernandes/IMG_2142.jpg

Heres a pic from the front

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/bernardfernandes/IMG_0102.jpg


And now here is what I did last week ............(front)



http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/bernardfernandes/DSC_0254.jpg


And the back...



http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/bernardfernandes/DSC_0251.jpg


Back Again (right side)



http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/bernardfernandes/DSC_0255.jpg


btw does anyone know what kind of tang this is????

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/bernardfernandes/DSC_0107.jpg


though i'd throw in a pic of my frogspawn frag....

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/bernardfernandes/DSC_0086.jpg

[AMD30]

awesome tank! i just saw one of those tangs today at my lfs, but cant recall the name now! very nice morish idols! what do you feed them? and what kind of soft coral is that in the very first pic? its in the middle like on a bridge. im hoping to aquascape my 300g like both of before and afters on seperate ends of the tank! you really gave me some good inspiration!

[blindskater02]

Very nice tank!! Love the pillars! Did you epoxy those together or just stacked really well?? I believe that is an atlantic blue tang as well. =)

[tabndust]

did you drill holes in the rock?

[hawaiianwargod]

Very nice Aquascape.

[fernandesbe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9373219#post9373219 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by AMD30
awesome tank! i just saw one of those tangs today at my lfs, but cant recall the name now! very nice morish idols! what do you feed them? and what kind of soft coral is that in the very first pic? its in the middle like on a bridge. im hoping to aquascape my 300g like both of before and afters on seperate ends of the tank! you really gave me some good inspiration!

AMD30:

Sadly i only read up on the Morish idols after I bought them and apparently their success rates are about 0 to nil :( I feed my tank quite heavily due to the amount of fish I have. However I do notice them nipping on the rocks every few seconds which is a good sign and their bellies are still pretty fat....the softie in the middle is a toadstool leather I believe that I got about 2 years ago and at that point it was about one forth the size. I have fragged it quite a few time and still have 3 frags sitting in a small white basket located in the top left corner in the 3 pic of my original post.

I thought it was an atlantic tang as well but I am 10000% sure its not, the atlantic is yellowish when its smaller and i've had them a few time but never survived due to my sohal partly...

For the before shots I just stacked the rocks as they were but for for after shots the two smaller pillars I drilled a 3/4" hole in the rocks and then ran 1/2" electical pvc piping in them, i'm hoping that coraline algae will cover them up sooner rather than later....


I do urge people to open up their tanks a bit, nothing bothers me more than a tank crammed with rocks, so much rocks that the fish dont have any room to swim, I can honestly say that my fish enjoy this setup a lot more .....................

another pic of my leather

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t292/bernardfernandes/DSC_0023.jpg

[bignick]

I like it actually no i love it. The pillars look excellent and i like the struture by the overflow. Very creative design. Much nicer than before plus it makes your tank look a lot bigger IMO.

[jmccown]

I liked it WAAAY better before. It looked awesome!

[Capt_Cully]

Love those pillars of rock. LOVE IT!

[tank watch]

i like the original

[MikeD]

How hard was it to drill all of those holes in the LR? Did you aquascape it in your driveway before putting it in the tank?

[jayo]

I prefer the new one. It looks great!

[db_triggerfish]

I love both before and after but more after. You have a clean tank an lots more open spaces. This is my type of tank. wow.

[fernandesbe]

i liked the first one cause it looked more like a edge of a reef under the ocean, but the new look is good more open space to swim about.

[Sardough]

liked the first one cause it looked more like a edge of a reef under the ocean, but the new look is good more open space to swim about. hahahaha sorry about the earlier post didn't know i was in your account jackass

[charlesjordanjr]

I like the 2nd one. Looks good!
-Chuck

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

awesome, thanx for sharing...

[fernandesbe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9382842#post9382842 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MikeD
How hard was it to drill all of those holes in the LR? Did you aquascape it in your driveway before putting it in the tank?

It wasn't hard at all I used a 3/4" masonary bit and a powerful drill, make sure the rock is wet though. The first few I did cracked on me but from there on I got the hang of it. I tried aquascaping it out of the tank first but it was too difficult to lift them all at the same time and put them in so I drained my tank to nearly empty and started doingit in there ....

Another thing that annoyes me about aquascaping is when people put rocks too close to the glass which results in a build up of algae and coraline because its inaccesable to clean. As the rocks sit right now I can cover the entire tank with my mag float when cleaning off the algae (just another thing to keep in mind), a mistake I used to always make......

Does anyone else out there have any good pics of their aquascaping???

[MikeD]

The one thing most people will have probs with though is cleaning the back of the tank. It seems like you hav access to that back glass so most people will still have algae/corralline back there. What is the 'base' of the PVC? Is just a big rock in the center of each collumn of rock?

[nutto]

awesome tank.keep up the good work.

[nanomilk]

AWESOME NEW LAYOUT!

Especially love the rear side. I LOVE open scapings. My new 3ft hs a lot of open space. Viewable from three sides... can create awesome effects.

Anyway

Props dude!

[EnderG60]

yeah i like the before better but still nice!

and yes its an atlantic blue tang changing from juvi to adult colors

[Pistonkev]

Another vote for the first style looks like what you would see in the reef. IMO

[n8rad]

Im also curious about the base of the pillars. How did you fasten the PVC pipe that runs through all the pieces of rock to the base.

Did you also epoxy the rocks to eachother or to the PVC after sliding them on to the pipe or are they just sitting ontop of eacher with a pipe running through them?

Awesome tank man, I am totally doing pillars in my new 120 and i love to see people's tanks that confirm why i want to do it.

Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work!

[n8rad]

Also you got any pics or a thread somewhere explaining your setup and equipment. If not i would start one if i were you, sounds like a lot of people love your tank.

[fernandesbe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9398747#post9398747 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bimmernate
Im also curious about the base of the pillars. How did you fasten the PVC pipe that runs through all the pieces of rock to the base.

Did you also epoxy the rocks to eachother or to the PVC after sliding them on to the pipe or are they just sitting ontop of eacher with a pipe running through them?

Awesome tank man, I am totally doing pillars in my new 120 and i love to see people's tanks that confirm why i want to do it.

Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work!


Thanks for the comments.....I did not epoxy anything together as of yet due to the fact that I didn't know what the finished product would look like, thus I didn't want to make anything perminant. What I did do however is put teflon tape on each joint because the pvc did not sit securely, it kept sliding. The structures still shifts a bit, but only if I move it. What I want to do at a later date is secure them somehow...but later, I'm too exicted with the new look and watching the fish swim about and chase eachother. For those of you who thought that tang was an Atlantic Blue Tang, I hate to say it but it aint, I was told by a guy at my LFS that its a "bar eye tang". I have seen thousands of Atlantic blue tangs swimming in the wild in huge schools last year, and I love them, oddly enough I was at my LSF the other day and guess what??? they had a small one, and now its the sixth tang I have....I will try and post some more pics of how I made the PVC structures and of my equipment, but soon enough I will be replacing ALL my equipment, new sump, new skimmer, new reactor, etc etc....will post more pics later tonight though...lots if I can......thanks for all the comments thus far!

[n8rad]

cool.. looking foward to some pics! :-)

[MikeD]

updates? I like both before and after. For the before picture, how did you get all that rock into those two massive pillars with a bridge? I don't see PVC anywhere in those pics.

[DitchPlains2]

very cool thread, not many people post their reaquascaping and mods thread to their exsisting tanks, I applaud, but actually I think I liked your tank before you changed to the pillars, only because the pillars look to be leaning or uneven, maybe that was the desired effect, but your orignal rock sctructure was very unqiue, either way I like your approach, thank god no more typical rock walls... getting so sick of those, I think everyone is, esp if you do snorkel or scuba you know that not all dives are wall dives.

best of luck and
CHEERS!
David

[samson78945]

wow!! it looked good before and now it looks great!! i guess its nice to get in there and rearrange everything once in a while!(very long while) :)

[Ritten]

Man, you got a knack for aquascape. I like before and after equally. Nice tank!

[magdelan]

I see you went Sanjay style. Very nice!!! Looks great :D

[KUDA]

Is that a christmas tree worm rock before you remodeled it? Where did it go? I can't seem to find it after you remodeled.

[NewSchool04]

Can you give us a detailed description of the base of your rock pillars. How did you construct it to stay upright, any pictures?

The tank looks great, both new and old!