OK, I've glued all of my oyster matched halves to the structure. I think it looks great so far, just like I imagined it would. One of the issues with Gorilla glue is that it runs, so I will use my longnose pliers and any other tools that I can to clean excess glue off the oysters. In some places, I don't care if it's there, and maybe I don't need to do anything because eventually, algae and stuff will grow over it. But, I'm picky and I want it as perfect as I can. There is stuff to do still, but 99% of the gluing is over. Here is what it would look like from my view sitting in front of the tank (the picture size is about the tank size, if you can imagine that):
The remaining steps to complete these structures are:
1) create the base rock (DIY live rock) which will cover the PVC pipe (it won't stick out beyond the oyster cultches though, just enough to fill in the space and hide the PVC.
2) use Beckett's Pond Foam and more oyster halves to finish the oyster reef down to the sand bed, to cover the base rock and blend with the existing cultches. Those are the areas inside the green lines.
3) where the yellow area is, do one final cultch that won't connect to the others and will be free standing on its own frame, no DIY rock in it, just PVC and oysters. I'm toying with the idea of making a rock that looks like the ones that drop off Calvert Cliffs and embed shark teeth in it. That would give it that nice Chesapeake Bay feel. I may do both.
I think that I need about 40-50 more oyster matches to finish this right, and fill in gaps with unmatched halves.
To totally complete the aquascape, I will add some oyster cultches to hide equipment, etc. The area between the oysters will be a sand bed. I want room so that if I can catch a hogchoker, it will have room to bury in the sand and hang out. Here is a picture of the plan detailed above:
In the mean time, it's time to order equipment. When that stuff starts showing up at my door, then it will begin to feel like it's moving from my dream to reality.
Thanks for following along, and you comments too. Much appreciated!
