Aaarrrggg's 144g Half Circle Dream

[Aaarrrggg]

I was just reefing along, minding my own nano-business when a local reefing couple put their gorgeous 144g Oceanic Half Circle tank up for sale. Well, what could a gal possibly do but buy it and start her dream tank?!

Here is "The Beast" (excuse the missing doors and canopy, they'll be on there soon)



My previous tanks have been a standard 55g and a 20g Elos Mini... so this bad boy is a BIG step up for me!

My goal
To have a set up like morbert with a family of clowns living together in a large colony of BTAs: http://reefcentral.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1259398

Rules
For this to happen I have set myself some rules:

1. Must raise the clowns myself
2. Must have large number of BTAs before attempting to introduce more than 2 clowns
3. Must aquascape in a way that the dominant pair can claim a semi-secluded spot for themselves
4. Must be able to feed heavily to lessen clown in-fighting (and promote BTA propagation)

My original plan was to get a pair of Onyx Percs to be the parents, (because I loooove Onyx! ) ... but I kept coming across threads from people complaining that their Onyxs had lost their black coloration in BTA hosts. I know I could choose another anemone, (esp as BTAs aren't natural hosts for percs,) but I love RBTAs as much as Onyxs!

Then I found out about Sanjay's Photon Clownfish. These guys are hybrids from a Onyx Perc female x B&W Occy male (story here: http://blog.aquanerd...ton-clowns.html)



They look like Onyx... but I'm thinking the B&W genes *might* let them hold their black coloration better in BTA hosts (I had a completely B&W occy in a RBTA in my first tank.) It's a long-shot... but for my dream of a shoal of black-white-orange clowns in a sea of Flame BTAs... I'm willing to give it a try!

Now, black photons are pretty hard to come by, plus I didn't really like the notion of breeding siblings; so I decided to have a go at pairing up a perc and occy myself. I have a 20g Elos Mini running already, so I thought I'd get things rolling on that front.

I bought the female Onyx from Alpha Corals. She's a C-Quest lineage one from SA and she's beeeeautiful!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiC-vIC05Lg

After all the years of drooling over Onyx clowns online, I'd never actually seen one in person until I cracked the box open. Wow. They don't disappoint! She's actually gone even more black since I received her on Sept 13th -her dorsal fin is now completely black, so she's "officially" an Onyx.

The male was the smallest of 4 ORA Domino Occys at my LFS. They had B&Ws too, but I'd been admiring their Dominoes for sometime and thought it would be neat to try something a little different from Sanjay. I added the male to my tank a couple of days before the female arrived. This seemed to work out well because since then they've rarely left each others side.

Introducing Guybrush & Marley...!



Occasionally the female will turn and snap at the male, but he'll just scamper away before being allowed to return to her side. I *think* I've seen him do some submissive wiggles, but he's generally so wigglesome, it's hard to tell. I've noticed a few nips taken out of this fins, but he's always allowed to eat and he seems completely besotted with her. Chances are he was a juvi when I got him, so I'm still bracing myself for things to get worse... but so far so good.

Here's a quick mockup of what their offspring "could" look like:



TBH they probably won't look like this, (Sanjay has just bred an Onyx x Midnight and the young all have their white bars) but it's fun to imagine.

[Aaarrrggg]

Right, so... back to the new tank...

As you might have seen in my previous thread, I'd been toying with the idea of upgrading. I was going to hold off, but then I saw a thread in the Austin Reef Club about 144g sale and I just had to see it for myself. My husband and I have always liked the look of half circle tanks, but I'd seen a lot of people online saying the glass distortion was a deal breaker. I fully expected to stare into the tank and go "nah, not for me..." but what I found was the most beautiful tank I've ever seen! The glass distortion is strange.. but it's a good kind of strange! It sort of magnifies whatever you're looking at, which is great for me because my eyesight isn't the best. A deal was struck that night and my new tank adventure started!



(Krypto is always photobombing all my shots!)

[Aaarrrggg]

Now comes the bit I equally love and hate... the aquascaping. (Actually...as time wears on, I'm perhaps hating it a little more every day!)

I'd done a lot of research online on aquascapes and I had a vague idea of the kind of thing I wanted. I love the "bonsai" minimalist aquascaping look... but also need as much rock as possible for all those BTAs. BTAs love to attach under shelves and in holes, so I ordered 100lbs of Key Largo Rock and 30lbs of Shelf Rock from Marco Rocks:





(That's large bubble wrap btw! Sorry I realized too late that I should have stuck something in there for scale. You can see some books at the top right of the 1st pic to get a rough idea of size.)

I like to start aquascaping by experimenting with shapes and layouts in Play-Doh, (any excuse to play with Play-Doh!)



Then I started messing around with the rocks themselves. (Tip, buy latex coated garden gloves so you don't tear your hands to pieces!)



These shapes were pretty good, but it became clear that to get them big enough to fill such a massive tank (L 57.5 x W 29 x H 29) I was going to have to get more adventurous.

[RotaryGeek]

Thats pretty good looking. Im only about an hour away from you. Member of ARC myself.

[Aaarrrggg]

I'd read about using rods, or "pegging" for aquascapes, but never actually braved it before. I ordered a 10lb bucket of E-Marco-400 aquascaping mortar and picked up some yellow fiberglass "driveway markers" from Lowes (as recommended by numerous aquascaping guides.)

My (wonderful!) husband then got to work drilling holes in some of the larger rocks:



As scary as this was, it actually went better than expected! Some little bits broke off here and there, but none of the rocks actually shattered and tbh it just made them look more interesting! (Drilling Tip: Apparently the trick is to let gravity do the work for you. Hold the drill steady and just let it go down through the rock at it's own pace.)

Once I had some drilled pieces to work with I built them up into 2 towers, using the mortar to stick them together:



Here they are being tested in the tank (we added 1/2 of the live sand and some water to help cushion them.)



Once I had my main 2 structures, it was time to build them out and make them look less like "rock kebabs!"

Although we had ordered 30lbs of shelf rock from MarcoRocks, only 2 out of the 4 shelves we received were much use (the other 2 were much denser than the rest of the rock, so they looked a bit rubbish and were far too heavy to use at the top of towers.) We also decided wanted a lot more shelves... so here comes my brave Husband to the rescue again...!



Once they'd been cut, I washed them to remove the excess dust and then started "worrying" at them with a screwdriver. This basically involved repeatedly stabbing them; chipping bits off and digging out holes. Some sections of the rock are weaker than others, so you just attack the parts that feel like they'll give. The result was a more natural looking shelf. Here's the before and after...



I took a few more days to play with various layouts and this one came out the winner...



Things will change a little bit as we stick the rocks together and move them over to the tank, but I'm going to aim for this general layout, (plus even more shelves!)

The mortar needs to be left overnight to cure so we've been doing a little bit every day for the past week. The large rock towers actually turned out to be the easiest bits! It's the small rocks that are the real nightmare. We've had to get creative to get these mini structures to stay together long enough for the mortar to set...



The finish line is in sight, but it will still probably be a few more days. Urgh...

[Aaarrrggg]

Originally Posted by RotaryGeek

Thats pretty good looking. Im only about an hour away from you. Member of ARC myself.

Thanks neighbor! Yay ARC, great club! I travelled around the globe to come and join in hehe.

[lcs]

What a great job on the aquascaping!! I can't get over how that tank looks like it was made for that location.

Looking forward to seeing the progress .

[Beandawg]

These are great looking tanks. They can be kind of a bear though. The biggest problems I had were getting flow to the bottom back corners, and REACHING the bottom back corners. Even with tongs which I definitely recommend, actually seeing where you are trying to reach is difficult to say the least. Definitely a 2 man operation.

Did it come with the canopy?

[Aaarrrggg]

Originally Posted by lcs

What a great job on the aquascaping!! I can't get over how that tank looks like it was made for that location. :thumbsup

Thanks! Yeah I couldn't believe how well it fit in either!
The space between the windows is spot on the width of the tank. I had considered changing the wood veneer on the stand/canopy to silver and/or black (because I'm a sucker for black & silver!) but it actually matches the blinds perfectly, so it's staying put.

We have lot more arches and semi circle detailing in the room too. Once it's is a bit tidier I'll take a wider shot. It looks like a LFS has exploded in there at the moment so it's not very flattering!

Originally Posted by Beandawg

These are great looking tanks. They can be kind of a bear though. The biggest problems I had were getting flow to the bottom back corners, and REACHING the bottom back corners. Even with tongs which I definitely recommend, actually seeing where you are trying to reach is difficult to say the least. Definitely a 2 man operation.

Did it come with the canopy?

Yup there's a canopy as well, just haven't put it on for a picture yet. Ideally I'd like to attach the canopy to the wall with some sort of mounting arm, so I can open the top like a Pacman mouth. Failing that, it will just have to sit on the top, which will mean taking the whole thing off when I need to do something in the tank. Not ideal I know.

On the plus side, I'm hoping with my planned livestock I won't have to actually get in there too often. The BTAs will propagate themselves and move to wherever they see fit; rather than having to constantly reach in and glue frags down.

I'm probably going for a couple of mp40s (with foam covers!) for flow; which should be more than enough for BTAs. The open aquascape will help too -none of the rocks will be resting on the back wall.

I must admit that I am cautious of this tank size/shape. All the 144g half circle threads I've found seem to either peter out, or end in a sale! I'm hoping its because people have tried to either go mixed reef or pure SPS in them, which seems like it would be one huge headache.

[Lynnmw1208]

looks good! i can't wait to see it up and running! props for taking time on your aquascape!! i wish I would have done the same thing and it would've been easier than trying to find the rocks that fit well together lol. keep us updated on your clowns! it'll be fun to see what the babies look like!

[Aaarrrggg]

Originally Posted by Lynnmw1208

looks good! i can't wait to see it up and running! props for taking time on your aquascape!! i wish I would have done the same thing and it would've been easier than trying to find the rocks that fit well together lol.

Thanks! It really helps that I have a tank up and running already, so I'm not in the usual crazy rush to get this one going.

[mark54321]

Wow,great start.Can't wait to see it finished.

[JasonBJones]

As in your last build, the rockwork looks great. Looking forward to seeing this tank put together!

[john miller]

Originally Posted by Aaarrrggg

I took a few more days to play with various layouts and this one came out the winner...

Can you come and aquascape my next tank, please. That looks AWESOME!

[JCurry]

Awesome build! I've always wanted a half circle tank, tagging along. Krypto cool too I've got two Boston.

[yellowRubi]

Looks great!

[fishcraze_1]

Looking good. I have the smaller version sitting in my garage. Still undecided what I am going to do with it.

[goochesfish]

That tank fits perfectly between those window and goes with the semi circle you going on at the top of the windows

[mkengr45]

The half circle tanks are awesome. I used to have the oceanic 92 quarter circle tank (sorta like half of your tank) and always regret getting rid of it. Looking forward to seeing more pictures.

[saltman1]

I love mine....but yes when it comes to cleaning and working on the tank. It's a 2 person job. Tough to see in some blind spots.

[rogermccray]

Looks Awesome!

[maymania6]

Looks great! Love the half circle, its a beautiful tank! After you get it set up and settled in you should hold the next ARC meeting so we can come out and drool over it!

Jen

[Aaarrrggg]

Thanks everyone! After a hellish week of working with the rocks I really needed this. Neeearly there...

Originally Posted by john miller

Can you come and aquascape my next tank, please. That looks AWESOME!

Sure, as long as you can put up with a week of me swearing and crying!

Originally Posted by maymania6

Looks great! Love the half circle, its a beautiful tank! After you get it set up and settled in you should hold the next ARC meeting so we can come out and drool over it!

Hehe, sure!

[Tradewinds]

Great rock work.

I agree with goochesfish, the location of the tank looks like it was custom made for it.

My parents had Boston Terriers when I was growing up; I am thinking about getting one.

Great avatar btw.

Enjoy the new tank!

[Dono]

Definitely going to be tagging along for this.

I would like to ask some questions though!

-What Kind of lighting are you using since its an awkward tank shape?

-Sump/skimmer/refugium/filtration system you are using?

-Water flow/return setup?

-Have you decided on a substrate?