Project Phoenix

[DemoReef]

Thank you for following along, hillegom Very interesting link as well, his cover solution sparked my interest. Have to make sure to watch his other vids as well.

[whatcaneyedo]

This looks like quite an interesting build. The texture and shape of the wall is amazing. What holds the egg crate/rock structure to the rear glass to keep it from falling forward?

[intarsiabox]

That looks like a great start to an interesting build. Following along!

[hillegom]

I have heard that cement leaches a lot of lime and will raise the ph too high for a month or so. When u put water in, put in fresh first and monitor the ph for a while to see what happens.

[DemoReef]

Originally Posted by hillegom

I have heard that cement leaches a lot of lime and will raise the ph too high for a month or so. When u put water in, put in fresh first and monitor the ph for a while to see what happens.

I did cure the concrete pieces in freshwater for about 6 weeks before assembling the wall. The concrete that was used to put the wall together however was curing in the tank. And I agree, I had to offset a rise in ph with vinegar for a couple of weeks.
I currently have about 300 lbs of concrete curing to be used for additional structures.
As of this writing the tank finished cycling about 3 weeks ago, ph is stable at 8.4 and I have fish in it. I dropped in about 2lbs of real live rock and I am just waiting now for purple spots to pop up

I am just slow in catching up with the build timeline and getting pictures uploaded

[scherzo]

Great name for your thread! Tagging along! I also like the look of your workshop. Hmm.. got me thinking...

[DemoReef]

I found anther shot of the back rock wall showing a bit more detail.



With the back wall in place, it was time to get water into the system. I had been hording RO/DI water already for that moment, but I have only storage for about 50 gal, and that made hardly a dent. So, like many before me, I hooked that 1/4" plastic hose from the RO/DI unit over the rim..and let'er trickle..for a long time.
And eventually it was full.



A couple of notes to the above picture.
First, you may notice the whitish deposit on the bottom pond liner. That is residue from mixing salt in the tank. I am not to crazy about this Coral Life stuff, I prefer IO. It was a pain to get off the glass. On a positive note tho, I don't mind the lighter color of the bottom, also the rock work was 2 different shades of gray due to the different cement mixes for rock and the concrete used to bond the rocks together. The residue made this all blend together.

Second, I installed 2 intake strainers for the CL, made out of 1.5" PVC and a 90 elbow. The PVC pipe was slotted on the table saw and then the works was painted black with Krylon.

At this point I had also put in some clam meat to start things up.

Next adventure was the moving of a almost 30" tall by 20" diameter, at the bottom, rock tower I had made some time earlier. It had been curing in a garbage can for the last couple of month and was ready to go. I am doing it by myself and the weight of the thing is something like 70lbs.

Step 1 was to get it onto a stack of IO buckets. (Sorry for the terrible focus on the pic)




Step 2 set it onto the edge of the euro bracing, carefully


And in..thank you for salt water buoyance making the tower lighter as I had to lean over the tank from the ladder, lowering it in.




Just a tad tall

[DemoReef]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

This looks like quite an interesting build. The texture and shape of the wall is amazing. What holds the egg crate/rock structure to the rear glass to keep it from falling forward?

I glued a few short pieces of 1.5" PVC under the back euro brace to prevent the wall to tilt forward. Also, the bottom edge of the sheets is about 1" away from the glass and leaning back slightly