Thanks for the step-by-step I really like how you've secured the rocks to the acrylic base! Where do people get their acrylic from? I need a bit to make a filter foam tray to sit before my return pump...

Finally, in the last section I wanted to make a lagoon with low(ish) terraces that hovered over the sand. One criteria here is that I did not want the appearance of a heavy base rock supporting the terraces. Instead, I used a slab of tavertine as my anchor and drilled holes into it where I would insert very long and thick rods to support my terraces. If you've never seen or worked with tavertine, it is a very very dense and heavy rock! They use it to build buildings! I would then cover up the exposed acrylic with rubble epoxied to it. The tavertine is a tan colour that perfectly matches the sand bottom.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249495943

I guess now is a good a time as any to let the cat out of the bag. Way back in the beginning I had made a decision to go bare bottom. Well, after staring into my 150 for the past few weeks and then seeing the aquascaping come together I decided that I truly am not a bare bottom kind of guy. Sure it looks cool, but I think sand looks better, more complete and natural. The decision to put some sand on the bottom helped me to put all the pieces of my puzzle together. For example, I can now hide those acrylic panels that I glued my live rock too and I can partially burry the travertine slab so that it blends in with the sand.

Anyway, here's one of the terraces drilled.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249500394

And here they are built up.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249500441

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249500475

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249500504

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249500523

Note: When dealing with live rock you have to work quickly. What I had on hand was a tub with heated salt water from the tank that I could use to dunk the rock into every now and again to keep them moist. Unfortunately this made for a very messy rock building session.

I got my acrylic panels from Home Depot (sump panels), and Rona ( base panels for aquascaping). Same stuff and pretty much the same price. It's just that sometimes they are out of stock.

Acrylic plugs from Red Coral :-)

Acrylic rods from Industrial Plastics and Paint

Totally love the way your doing this. Gives me a lot of ideas also. :wink:

Out with the Old and in with the New.
 

It is probably safe to say that moving/changing tanks is the most hated task for any aquarium hobbyist. Typicaly you set out with some sort of a plan or process. You execute it and then somewhere along the way there are hiccups, some bumps, bruises, sweat, tears, perhaps a little blood, and a few colourful metaphors thrown in for good measure. I have moved tanks many many times now, and each time I made note of something I learned that worked well, or was an EPIC FAIL. This tank move went quite smoothly as a result. Here's how it went down.

1. First I mixed two 33 gallon tubs of salt water. I heated and circulated this water so that it was the exact same temperature as the Old tank. That's a totally of 66 gallons in tubs. There was another 25 gallons in my premix Brute tub in the basement on hand and a full 55g of RO/DI water just in case. You may have noticed this tubs in some of the build picture.
They're sitting next to the display tank.

2. After fishing out some of my live rock to build the Cave structure I then proceeded to pump out water from the Old tank into the New tank.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249501545

3. Once I had enough water in the display tank (probably about 5 inches of water), I put a heater into the New tank and made sure it was heated. I like to run 77 degrees F. I also put in a power head to circulate the water in the New tank.

4. With 5 inches of water in the new tank I had enough water to move some corals. Using a tupperware container large enough to hold a coral colony with some water I placed colonies one at a time into the container and transported them to the new tank, making sure that they were never exposed to air. I know that they are fine with air exposure but I figured the whatever I can do to minimize the the stress of the tank moving the better!

5. I repeated this process until I ran out of room and then proceeded to pump more water into the New Tank.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249501752

6. Once more rock was exposed in the Old tank I took them out and worked on them (aquascaping) for the new tank. (see previous posts on aquascaping).

7. I repeated steps 4-6 until everyone was moved from the Old tank to the New tank. By now the Old tank was empty and the new tank was half full of the Old tanks water. Slightly cloudy. No one was very happy but none the worse for wear. I did not do all the aquascaping as i went along. For example, the last arm of the Bonsai and the Lagoon rocks I just left sitting at the bottom of the tank to be worked on later (after all the water was filled).

8. At this point I proceeded to pump in water from the tubs of premixed salt into the New tank. Slowly. It was like a water changed to them. Although a very hefty 50% water change. The tank was a little cloudy but it cleared up pretty quick.

9. Once the water began to overflow into the sump I turned it on and away we went!

10. I then transferred the refugium from the Old sump into the refugium of the New sump. Mostly just sand, live rock rubble and a ball of chaeto that doesn't seem to want to grow very well for some reason.. mental note, need more chaeto.

The next day I put my old 48" light fixture on top of the canopy. I am still waiting for my new 72" light fixture to free itself from the evil clutches of Canadian Customs. I also cleaned and added a dusting of sand to the tank. The sand clouded things a big.

Well, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. I don't have any pics of the full tank yet because it looks really funny with the 48" light fixture. The new fixture should be here any day now..

In the meantime, here are some shots of the sump in action.

The skimmer skimming..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249502407

The 'fuge fuging..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249502386

and the sump sumping.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249502448

Again, some great ideas and excellent detail in your photography. Keep sharing those ideas with us!

Two full days have passed now and everyone is doing great. Corals, SPS, LPS, zoos are all open, fish are swimming eating, exploring. Here's a crappy led moonlight night shot until I get a proper shot with the new lights in.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1249502878

see how funny it looks with the old light fixture on it ? :-)

Damn! Love the aquascape! :mrgreen: Tank looks awesome Kien!

Thanks :-) And thanks again for the lagoon terrace pieces ;-) I didn't really want to cook them and I didn't really need them to be "live" so I sterilized them.. did you know that dead coraline fluoresces a brilliant red under actinics?? Looks cool :rofl:

Haha! No problems, nice to be part of this build. :biggrin: