Mits

I'm still building my combo 90/50 system with 2 stands that will come together to look like 1, and I'm ready to build the canopies. The tanks are on the stands and the frag tank is running in a water/vinegar bath to clean it up a little. I also decided to run my older powerheads in the vinegar bath while I was at it, and my Koralia 3 was one of them. I thought I shook everything out, but once I put it in the vinegar water out came 15 pods, 5 asterinas and one mini brittle star. Needless to say they died instantly, I was just amazed how much was in a single powerhead. I ended up 2 pieces of plywood short on the canopies, so I decided to try some aquascaping with extra rock I had in a bin with some SW running. I had tried a few days ago using a PVC pipe and zipties and it was a complete disaster. I did come up with an idea for the design, I just couldn't do it. I wanted to do a bit of a spiral looking spire for the left side of my 90. I'm determined to avoid the "stack of rocks" look this time. I found a website that detailed using fiberglass rods from the home store to secure the rock, and I cut up an old acrylic sump to make base plates. Here's a bit of a step by step:

Just a baseplate, cut off rod, and some epoxy and gorilla glue:


Drilled through the biggest rock to go on bottom:


Drill a few more holes, add a few more rods, cover up with some epoxy and here you go:




What you see is the front view, on the back I plan on attaching my monti caps that are starting to really grow. I have drilled several holes all over the rocks before stacking so I can use the pegging method of coral placement, allowing me to tinker with everything without worrying about glue or falling frags. I can also go with horizontal or vertical placement in different rocks. I don't know what I'll do with the rock that's in my tank right now, but I plan on doing something with a cove or a cave. I think I'll do an area for nothing but zoas, a chalice area, and so on. That's just an abstract idea now, I hope to come up with something more concrete as this moves on.