may I add mine to this comparison?

pillar after completion:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v112/paul-w/6.jpg

and after a few months growth

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...nk101506-5.jpg

hopefully you can still make the shape of the pillar out in the last shot.

Paul.

Sanjay,
Where did you finally get the fiberglass rods?

I mail ordered it from mcmastercarr.com

sanjay.

Wow! Great looking rockstructure!!

Hey Sanjay,
I've been looking for a strainer for my CL like yours. Where did you get yours? Great looking tank.
Thanks,
Jeff

Here's the link to the strainers he has.

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/.../8566/cid/2098

Like how this looks. Great idea.

Whew, just finished reading the entire thread. GREAT! Can't wait to see it with the sand in it.

I'm getting ready to start a 450g plywood tank and you've given me sooo many good ideas.

Congrats again on the award, well deserved.

With concern for the rock formations...

I see many of them that have a shape that is rather narrow on the way up, then spreading out into a large mesa at the top... like a table with a single large leg underneath. I would think that this would kill alot of coral placement options and area. With a large 'table top' you are casting a shadow on everything below. Your only usable space is at the table on top, and that means only one light level for everything you put there. You cant place corals on the pillars on the way up (I suppose some low light stuff that likes indirect light only), but it just seems limiting to me. What about making something with a wide base, and narrowing towards the top... like a pine tree or something?

good point.. but not one that I did not think through.

I purposely have some peices that are wider at the top than the bottom for several reasons. I wanted to raise the rocks, while leaving enough room underneath for water flow, and for fish to swim through. This time around I want more fish than I have typically kept in reefs. Also, wanted the look of overhangs. keeping this in mind, and to still allow for coral placement, one of hte things I did was to stagger the rocks on the pillars so there were parts jutting out for coral placement, and I will make sure that what Iand where I put on top will allow light to get to the corals lower down. I also wanted to go with a mixed tank, not just SPS so I also wanted areas with varying amounts of light.

The way I see this tank grow out, is that I will eventually end up with about 20 large corals. I like corals to get big and into each other. :-)

My plan is to stock with about 50-60 different frags and let whoever is happy in my system to continue to flourish. Every tank that i have dealt with over the years has a decline in the diversity and I typically don't fight my systems.

Even with the pine tree approach to stacking the pillars, it can lead to shading of corals.

I am willing to experiment with a different style this time. Envisioning how things will grow will dictate the coral placement.
And if I don't like it I can always change it :D :D :D This is completely dissassemblabe structure. Only the rods are glued to the base the rocks are merely stacked.


sanjay.

Awesome Sanjay, that looks great.

What did you use to glue the fiber rods to the base stone with?

Thorite.

sanjay.

Looks good!! How is the center of gravity on these. The rock is probably less dense than the base (stand) paver but what will happen whena large table coral starts growing out horizontally. Glad to see things are progressing well.

By the way when are planning the "hurricane" day. Give me a few days warning. I want to be there.

The tank now has sand. I used the Caribsea Aragalive sand this time, the Bahamas Oolite variety. Last time I used dead sand and it clumped up into rocks, hence the use of the Caribsea "live" sand.

It cleared up in a day and a half, the only thing is that it has covered all my rock with white dusting.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/sbj4/aqu...-with-sand.gif

sanjay.

Still planning to DIY a skimmer?

wow great job man !

Love it... It's finally getting there.

Sanjay...I love your rockwork. Where did you get the sand. Is it really live??? How does that work...in the bag???
Mike

Oolitic Sand? Good luck Sanjay. I used to use that 'sugar size arag' oolitic... now it sits dry in a 30g rubbermade in my basement. By far the worst sand I have ever used. I would rather use southdown...

Maybe you got a coarser grade than the 'sugar-fine' stuff I hope.

What exactly makes it so much worse than Southdown ? My worst experience has been with Southdown. Where the whole sand bed turned to rock. You should have seen the rock peices when we tore down the tank.. there was very little sand left.

I have used the Caribsea Aragalive in several tanks and never had any problems with it. I am not a big fan of deep sand beds and do not like the look of bare bottom tanks. I have always maintained a 1-2" sand bed in tanks that I have set up or helped set up. I also do not like the larger substrates, except in a few places where the sand gets blown away.

With the setup right now, running with 2 closed loop Dart (returning through 3 sea swirls) , 1 Dart for circulation, 1 Iwaki 70 through the chiller and returned to the tank, and 2 vortech pumps, there is a lot of water movement and yet its not blowing the sand like I thought it might. I have used wide outlets for the water returns to help control the velocity, and it has definately helped.

sanjay.

Time to add the corals :-)

Okay, time to clarify... is that the <1mm sugar arag? You know, the stuff that is pretty much dust? Or are you using a coarser grade? My comments only apply to the sugar arag... the stuff thats lighter than silt.

That stuff is so small and it packs sooo dense, yet is so easy to blow around. I had that stuff clumping up in 1" or less, with sulphur deposits, mold, and everything... and then a hermit would walk through it and release the 'stench' into the tank. The stuff would blow around so much, and was impossible to clean (its about the same density and size as mulm/detritus, and so its impossible to wash. I remember washing it alone resulted in 1/3 of it going down the drain. After a while, it just ended up looking grey/brown because I couldnt clean it, and the detritus just kept mixing in. But it was too dense to allow good breathing so it mixed in w/o processing very well. They advertise a DSB with 1" or less of sand... yeah, right.

.

sanjay, how many bags of sand did you use?

I know.. my patience is running out too :D :D

But, I really should do this right. I am getting a some brown algae growing on the rocks, and I really should get the aglae control crew in the tank before I do anything else.

I have turned off the lights until I can get the snails, crabs, cukes, etc in the tank to prevent the algae from taking too strong a hold and having to fight it for longer than I should.

sanjay.

I used 17 bags so far. I want to see how it distributes itself before adding the any of the 3 remaining bags. I also got a couple of bags of the coarser stuff to put down where the flow is really affecting the sand.

I added the 2 votech pumps yesterday, and today there was some relocation of sand.

sanjay.

patience is definitely the way to go. build up the infauna first before putting in the higher life forms. not as pretty but will be worth the wait. do you have any nutrients going in? are you feeding? have you added any detritivour kits to the sandbed, worms, fan worms, etc?

Carl

Sanjay. Great looking so far :D.. I have looked a few times, what are you doing for filtration?

Sanjay were thay 50 lb bags?

NO, 20 lb bags.

The 20lb bags were hard enough to work with, I can't imagine having to deal with hoisting 50lb bags and the process of dumping them into the tank, especially since the rock was already in the tank.

sanjay.

Sanjay...Is the sand bacterially alive???
Mike

Well, they claim its bacterially alive.

What I like about it is that, 1) its prewashed.. so there is a lot less silting and white dust and it settles out quickly. 2) since it has some bio coating on it.. it tends not to clump and harden, problems I have had with southdown (others have had no such problems). The clumping and hardening is often due to the fresh aragonite surface proving reactive sites for calcium to deposit which then causes bonding between the particles and subsequent turning to rock. I tend to run my tanks with high alk and Ca levels and that may be one reason why I have seen this in my previous tank. Again, others have reported no problems using "non bio filmed" sand.

I like it, I have had prior sucess with it, and given that sand is not easy to remove I wanted something that would not be an experiment for me.

I am sure if you contact the manufacturer they can give you more details about it.

sanjay.

Wow Sanjay awesome setup. I really like how you did the rock pillors. I do have one question for you. I see you are only running 10K MH and I didn't see in the thread which brand bulbs you are using. Once again very nice setup.

Bryan

Sanjay can you answer this for me. I am thinking of going with the same size as you

In my case, the sugar oolitic sand clumped together because the density was to high that it couldnt 'breathe'. The clumping was due to actual molds and sulphuric acids building up in the sand. The 'clumps' were green and grey in color, and broke apart easily if I get to them before too long... but ''Ooooo, that smell"...

I had used this live aggrivate several times when I had my store. I only had one issue with it and my customers a

The issue I had with this aggrivate was when it was shipped in the winter by one of the wholesalers it actually came in frozzen. When it thawed and I opened a bag it did have an extreme foul odor. Made me wonder if the freezing temp it was exposed to killed the live organisms and they started decaying.

Also not these bags are also date stamped.

Dennis

My stuff was fresh, shipped direct and everything. It didnt smell when I got it... it smelled after having it for a while. It also took something like 5 days for the cloud to finally settle. Most of it turned to milk right off the bat. Lots of crap in the sand... twigs and the like.

http://www.carib-sea.com/pages/produ...aragonite.html

Product #00930... never again. FWIW, not that its a huge concern, but I remember something about oolitic sand not buffering as much...??? Its too pure and it doesnt dissolve very easily? Doesnt contain all the trace elements of other arag because its pretty much just calcium precipitate that is dry mined.

Ahhh different stuff
<http://www.carib-sea.com/pages/produ...aragalive.html>

That 00793/Bahamas Oolite is the same stuff... they just play with the name, add some water and 'bacteria' (what a scam), and sell it as that. Its the wet version of what I bought.

Trust me, whenever I set up a new tank, I call em up and talk. I know which are which. I would highly suggest calling them up if there is anything you have questions about though. Their staff knows alot about the products, where its from, how they mine/culture it, etc. They will even send you free samples of ones you are considering so you can see before you buy. It really has helped me with my purchases (except for the oolitic sugar crap).

Right now all I am using for external filteration is my old 5ft tall ETS converted to beckett skimmer.

A friend and I are in the process of making a needle wheel skimmer.. but he just had twins and things may be on a hold for a bit.

So for now I think my skimmer will suffice. The only other thing I am using is carbon and phosphate remover. I use them combined in a reverse flow reactor.

sanjay.

One of the things I often do with my tanks is to use them for experiments in lighting. I want to do some long term tests on bulb ballast combos. I have done this with 4 EVC lamps on magnetic ballasts... and 3 XM bulbs on magnetic ballasts (currently on going on the penn state tank).

On my tank I want to test the long term effect of electronic ballasts on lamps. So I am using the ICECAP 400W electronic ballast. I bounced this idea around to a few lamp manufacturers, and Giesmann was the first to respond. I just got 3 Giesmann Coral 400W lamps sent to me.. thanks to Phil.. so I will be using these on my tank and collecting data over the life of these lamps.


I know form past experience the EVC, USHIO, XM 10Ks have done well for me over the Penn State tank. Those are the only ones in the 400W 10000K I have used in the past with good success.

sanjay.

Looking at the dimensions of yout tank and some of your data on PAR values of the lights I have a different idea that may or may not work.


The idea is in a large tank like this most people would be using more than 3 lights probably using 4. Well 4-400Watt units would be 1600 Watts. While 6 250 watt bulbs would be only 1,500 Watts. With a comparisons between the 250 Watt bulbs and 400W bulbs the PAR values per watt are considerably higher than 400 Watt bulbs. So on an energy conservation angel wouldn't more smaller units be more effecient than fewer larger bulbs?

The other advantage is if you have more bulbs it would be easier to mix and match them to give different spectrums of lighing in different areas for for comparisons.

Now for a change in direction may I ask you what youl would recommend for my upcomming new set up. It will be a basic 120 gallon tank 48" X 24" X24" and a deep sand base so my penetration only needs to be about 20". For corals My preferences are Zoos, Softies, and LPS coral. For SPS I may try one or two of the encrusting varieties.

Dennis

I for one did not keep track of what I spend either, however when we had a fire at our house I had to go through everything and make out an itimization with retail values. Believe me I was shocked at the final; number I finished up with and there loads of estimates like how do you put a value on a 15" coral?

Anyway the values that we came up with with roughly $7,000 invested in a 75 gallon tank, $3,000 in a 45 gallon, and another $2,000 in a a 45 gallon reef. Then we had all my fresh water tanks so the toatal they came up with a little over $30,000 total.

Now when the pay was finally calculated from the insurance they only would give me a max of $500 for all my live stock, which was about 1/3 of the total initial value. For the rest we went well well over the total limits of my insurance so I only ended ou with a 2/3 value there. Final for tanks was about $12,000.

Sanjay's set up will be considerably more than what I had and probably ever will. From what I have seen for custom tank proces alone the cost of his bare tank would retail someplace between $3,000 and $7.000 alone depending on the source and how many upgrades he added on to it from a basic tank. I do not think the average person could build up a set up like this for under $10,000 not incuding livestock. Fortuantly I hope Sanjay gets a few perks and deals from manufacturers to keep the cost withn reason for him.

Dennis

Well, there are few things about the lighting. yes, the 6 250s on paper would use less watts, but to get the light output of some of the 400s you would be driving them with the M80 ("HQI") ballast and there you would be using up much more than 250W/lamp.. more like 320-350 range. Secondly, the cost of replacing 6 lamps is more than replacing 3, and also the initial setup cost is lower with 3 lamps than with 6, you would have to buy 6 ballasts, 6 reflectors instead of 3. So in this case the 6 250s would not be a good choice.

For a 120G tank, I would probably go with the smaller footprint lumenarc, or lumenmax reflectors with either the 250W mogul or DE lamps.

sanjay.

As for the cost of the tank, yes I do save some money getting things at wholesale from some of the vendors. But even at that the costs are still quite high.. unfortunately I do not get stuff for free other than the stuff I test for lighting. :( I should have tried to get a sponsored tank like the NASCAR race cars, and have offered to put thier stickers all over the tank and over myself when I give talks. :eek2:

its not just the cost of the tank, it the additional costs of remoding the basement, the concessions made to the wife :D that are also significant cost elements of having a reeftank.

sanjay.

Hey Dennis...

Or you could go with a 8 bulb T5 unit and blow those halides right out of the water!!:p

Don't forget that this is a 30" deep SPS tank. Some people might be able to maintain SPS with the 250's or T5's in this deep of tank, but to get good growth you need the 400's.

Your talking about Sanjay's Tank right?... oh, yeah, I dont doubt for one second that 400s are the best choice. Lumenarcs, HQI ballasts and HQI rated bulbs would be my pick too most likely. That or 28 54wattT5 bulbs (front to back). I know it sounds like a lot of bulbs to deal with, but its about $560 in bulbs to replace every couple years, if that (assumes an average cost per bulb of $20, but some bulbs would be less... like GE 6500K and 3000Ks that would be used for daylight, not to mention, a bulk order like that might also warrant a huge discount, if not just a wholesale purchase). But thats 1512 watts of T5s.... that would burn Sanjay's tank up. But considering how even the distribution of light would be across the top of the tank, and how much more the halides would be considered 'point-sources' in this tank (18"x18" lumenarcs are not that big compared to a 7'x4' tank, considering the 30" depth too)... I think that the T5s would grow and color the tank better. The only drawback is that it would require about $2800 in T5 reflectors, endcaps, and ballasts. So not worth it...

Hey guys, I was directed your way to discuss the Thorite. I have used it in my aquascaping and have helped three other local buddies’’ re-aquascape their tanks with this cement to create a stable reef structure.

Sanjay, what is everyone congratulating you for? I confess that I am just getting here and did not read all of the 30 pages in this thread.

I wanted to share some information about my use of Thorite. Here is what I recall. There are several varieties of Thorite available. I used the Thorite Rapid Vertical. It is specifically made for reinforcing vertical surfaces like those found in tunnels and walls of water ways. This cement has been used exclusively at the Waikiki aquarium in Hawaii. I got the idea about using this cement form the latest Delbeek and Sprung Book: The Reef Aquarium Volume III. BTW, this book is a total MUST HAVE for anyone that is building a new tank. It explores many innovative ideas for building a reef tank. The Thorite cement is discussed on page 562. This type of Thorite does not contain any antifungal and is reef safe. My system has been running for 6 months now and I do not have any issues with it. My water parameters are in check too.


Finding the cement is a challenge. Do not waste your time looking at Lowes HD, Ace, or any store like that. This cement is a specialty item and I had to special order it. It also came in a bag, not a bucket like that showed on pg 562 of the book. I purchased the cement from Border Construction in Tucson Az. The cement cost $35.00 for a 50 pound bag and freight cost $48.00. I arranged a group buy a while back and sold some portions. I had many portions remaining and now I think I only have about 15 pounds left or so. I used about 5 pounds to do my project and about 2-4 pounds for each of my friends tanks.

I used the cement in a different fashion than Sanjay. Rather than cement sections of rock outside the tank. I used the cement to solidify my reef structure as I was building it in the tank. First, I placed base rock on the glass. Then, I added the sandbed and seawater to wet the sandbed. Then I began building the aquascaping up in layers. With each layer added, I used zip ties and Thorite where needed to create a solid structure. I would do this by laying a rock in a natural resting position. Then I would use Thorite and wedge it between and around the rocks that met each other. This stuff is awesome to use, but must be used in a dry setting. You can not use it underwater. However, you need to baste it with seawater as it cures. The stuff you mix up in a bowl will begin to set in about ten minutes. If you just add a tbs more water and mix it up, it will become soft again and ready for use. After the aquascaping is complete add sweater to the tank and let it cycle. The Thorite will finish curing underwater and be solid in about 24 hours.

Some people asked about the color. It remains dark gray but does not look too bad. It also works great to smear on zip ties to dull the color of the tie, whether black or clear ties were used. For a few pieces of cement that were in obvious view, I would pour a spoon full of coarse reef sand onto the wet Thorite and press it in with the back of the spoon. This would break up the gray color and looked natural. In about three months, coralline algae took over and the Thorite is now very difficult to point out when I have guests over to check out the reef.

As testament to how valuable this stuff is, I helped Adam redo the aquascaping in his 110tall. The challenge to overcome here was to build a structure that his two large engineer gobies could not level. All his other attempts to aquascape would be destroyed in several days after these master diggers started playing. His system is now 4 months old and not a single rock has shifted. Furthermore, the gobies love it. They create new tunnels daily and then burry the tunnels up at night and start digging all over again the next day. All this is done without the rocks falling down and crushing the gobies.

For more information on my use of this cement and detailed photos of the aquascaping process in my 110 tall, please visit this page.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...5&pagenumber=4

This is Adam’s tank with the engineer gobies. This is his update. In that thread, click on the link to visit his build page.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=965431