Ben and Rosies 300g 4x4x2.5

[fairymary58]

looks awesome.
can you explain how the external coast to coast overflow add structure to the tank please.

[bdinnerv]

looks awesome.
can you explain how the external coast to coast overflow add structure to the tank please.

The main reasons for the coast to coast weir are:

Increase space inside the tank for scaping
Quite the water flow - as the water flows over the entire width of the tank, the volume of water per cm is reduced which in turn decreases the noise of water flowing into the weir

The added benefit is that it acts as an external brace like a euro brace on the tank supporting the rear panel.

[hanzelz]

Wow thats going to be amazing!

[bdinnerv]

We had a play around with the first dry run of the scape last night and got all of the rock in -











We are pretty happy with it so far. It will all come out again and the backing paper on the perspex will be removed and some holes will be cut in the perspex to line up with some cracks in the rocks to allow water flow and fish to swim through. We are also thinking of trimming hte perspex back a bit and trying to "disrupt" the edge so it is not as much of a straight line on.

[Spuznik]

Looking really cool.

You could always reduce the size of the perspex and have the rock overhang the edges more. Not sure if the supports would balance it, but you want to be careful not to compromise the integrity of the perspex.

Would hate for it to crack and collapse

[jayellul]

Good to see a lot of though go onto every aspect of this build. You will be rewarded when the tank matures for sure!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bdinnerv]

Hi All,

Has been a lot of work done between the last post and now.

After doing a couple of dry runs with the rock work, we got everything how we liked it so I then proceeded to mark out some gaps in the rock work on the acrylic and cut out those areas to allow some water flow and fish to swim between layers. Then finished the acrylic off by flame finishing all the edges to give it a real clean finish - note to self, take the backing paper off prior to flame finishing the edges next time!



Prior to slotting the rock work in for the last time, we covered the base with black sand - we thought the black contrast will pop the colours a bit more. We went with CaribSea Arag-Alive sand -




Rosie sorting the sand out - great to have a tank you can get into!

On Sunday night we began the lengthy process of filling the tank with RO water -


It was great to finally get a wet tank!!!!!!!!

By Tuesday morning, we still had a while to go!


Whilst waiting for the tank to fill, I got the reactor plumbing finished off -


And Tuesday afternoon we were almost there -


Man did that phase take a while! It is amazing how long the surface tension kept the tank from spilling over but when it finally did, it was a relief, but we still had to wait for the sump to fill. By 10pm that night it still had not but it was not far off so I turned the water off and was up again early Wednesday morning and got it going again. Within an hour, we had a fully wet tank and had the pumps running!



I currently have the pump set to turn over about 6000 lt / hr and man does it create some throughput through the sump.

During the week, I managed to snag an APC 7922 Switched PDU for a good price so decided to grab it instead of making my own controlled power board so the next job was to begin the wiring. I moved the APC 2200 UPS under the tank and connected up the PDU along with some of the ancillaries - still need to mount the PDU and start tidying up the cabling etc which will be a job for this weekend but off to a good start -





And one of the things I got cabled up was 2 of the new lights, there are still 2 more to go on which will come over from our other tank once we have the coral migrated.



When looking at the tank like this, we are really happy with the way the Floating Reef has come up and how the black sand works! Even Edna our Cockatiel approves (top right corner)

During the week I also picked up a rare yellow Yuma Ric which will look great on the black background -



Also also a pink Yuma which our Tomato Clown managed to photobomb -



We are now 3 days into a Dr Tim's cycle and if everything goes to plan we will start moving fish in next week and then coral in a couple of weeks. Still a lot of work to do with cabling etc which will hopefully get done this weekend.

[colg]

Wicked!
Great update! Good to see the end (start?) in sight!

[Vilante]

Love the floating rock and the black sand, looks amazing.

[pebbles]

May I ask how you intend to keep the black sand looking black, ie managing detritus accumulation?