JCOLE's Big Box of Rocks

[JCOLE]

Two days in and turning white. It's the beginning of the end for the Bryopsis.

 

[JCOLE]

 

[JCOLE]

Bryopsis is gone and the ugly phase is starting. Macros are in and I am having to dose ammonia and nitrate to keep up with the demand. Clean up crew and pods come this week. CaRx is installed and running as Kalk alone cannot keep up.

In a couple of weeks I am going to move the live rock to the sump and most of the macros to a fuge. At that time I will start to put some corals and fish in. Slow and steady.

 

[Charlie the Reefer]

Made a couple of the acrylic mounts yesterday and I am very happy with how everything turned out. I took some pictures of how I did it in case this turns out nice and someone else wants to implement this to their tank as well.

Also, don't mind the messy garage. We were organizing the garage this weekend and it looks like a disaster.

I cut down a 3/8" acrylic rod using a pipe cutter. This makes it so easy. Just a couple of times around to score the acrylic and then snap it off.

Figure out the bend or angle you want and use a heat gun to warm up the acrylic. Takes about 30 seconds.

After the Acrylic gets hot enough then there are about 10 seconds of wiggle room to position the angle. Once it's in the right position then I ran it under water to cool it down. Once it's cool then it's as hard as the original piece.

For the tops, I used tops of aragonite frag plugs. I will use acrylic disks on the second run of these. Just cut off the stems and they are good to go.

I then used Superglue GEL and applied it to the disk. You don't need to coat the entire plug. Just enough for the Acrylic.

I then heated up the tip for about 30-45 seconds and instantly pushed it onto the frag plug. The heat binds with the Superglue and sets it almost immediately.

Again, there are only about 10 seconds of workability until it starts to harden. Once, the desired angle was in place then I took it to water again. This instantly set it and it was hard as a rock. I tried pulling the disk off and it wouldn't budge. I even dropped one right on the head and nothing.

I then mounted a couple of them. I just used epoxy and superglue for the base. I made a ball of epoxy and put superglue gel on the bottom. Formed the ball into the area to get a good foundation. I then put superglue on the bottom of the acrylic rod and stuck it into the epoxy. I then formed the epoxy around the acrylic and against the rock work. The large piece at the bottom required a brace for about 30 minutes. This is a work in progress and only temporary for the moment. I have an idea for future larger pieces.

I added a couple of other pieces along the top rock work from this one.

The pictures don't do it any justice but the acrylic makes it look like they are floating. When corals start to grow it will look like they are just floating there. It's going to give more of this look once I make the other tops out of Acrylic instead of the frag plugs. I think in a couple of months it's going to look really good.

I am excited to see how this goes for two reasons. One, this allows me to mount more corals throughout the tank and doesn't limit it to just the rockwork. Two, I have a theory that the corals will develop into colonies quicker instead of mounting to the rock work. The reason is they have flow underneath and also they don't have a base to spend a lot of time encrusting. In theory, they should spend more of their energy branching out for light instead of going underneath the frag plug away from the light.

Let me know what you all think and if you have any suggestions or questions about this.

Just wanted to say thanks for this, super helpful.