My new display tank for the garage

Ah I see. It looks like it will blend in with the rockwork very well!

Its all up and running, but I still gotta mess with the lighting.

Got it hooked into one of the 110 gallon lobster tanks. Selling the other lobster tank on sunday.

I was able to use almost every drop of the water from the lobster tank I am selling, so I only had to mix up 90 gallons of new water to go into the tank. Once it was all hooked up there was 220 gallons of cycled water and 90 gallons of new on the 310 gallon combined system.

I'll post more pictures of it once I get a chance to go collecting and stock it up a bit

That's awesome. I like the height of the tank. What are you planning on collecting in the near future?

That's very neat! Mind sharing some pics of the lobster?

~ocean wrote:That's very neat! Mind sharing some pics of the lobster?

Follow the link to the video in my photobucket album posted below and you'll find TONS of photos of the lobster tanks.

Got all the fish and inverts moved over to the 200 gallon from the 110's.

Did a little aquascaping, but really all there is left to do is paint the back of the tank ( I know I should have done it before I filled it, but I wanted to see what it looked like clear first, lol) and place a few more barnacles with corynactis on them that I have still in the lobster tank. I think I may add more sand to the left side.

Photo and a quick shotty video I took.




VIDEO:

https://s246.photobucket.com/albums/gg100/Stuwobbe/Coldwater%20tanks/?action=view¤t=200gallontankoctober4th2011.mp4

You might need a little more corynactis. No, but the tank looks great. Is the kelp attached anywhere?

Pufferfreak wrote:You might need a little more corynactis. No, but the tank looks great. Is the kelp attached anywhere?

Wait until the Corynactis starts to fill in

The kelp is attached to the foam rock work on the back side of the tank.

Tank looks awesome man

AquaticEngineer wrote:

Pufferfreak wrote:You might need a little more corynactis. No, but the tank looks great. Is the kelp attached anywhere?

Wait until the Corynactis starts to fill in

The kelp is attached to the foam rock work on the back side of the tank.

I said that with a touch of sarcasm. In all actuality, I think you have plenty and once it fills in it's going to look great.

Does the kelp still have its anchor?

I found the kelp completely dislodged from whatever it was attacehed to, anchor roots and all. It looks like it was attached to something rather flat previously. Next time I go out, I'll look for some more kelp that is still attached that I can break off a chunk of rock with it so I dont have to worry about it reattaching.

I thought I would test out my auto feeder on the big tank and I hooked up one of the 2 liter bottles with live phyto and tigroprius californicus growing in it on the feed line.

I stuck a waterproof LED strip light into the bottle so the phyto could keep growing and I set the dosing pump to feed every hour for 10 second intervals from 6am until 10pm. It takes about 2 days to get the 2 liter bottle down to where I need to swap it out, but it leaves enough phyto and pods still in bottom of the of the bottle ( about a cup of liquid) that I can refill it with more new water and let it grow out again.

I have seven 2 liter bottles going now and a couple larger plastic jugs for mother colonies.

Great idea. Is it proving to be enough food for everything in the tank? But then again, surely the fish require more.

Also, how did you collect or get the anemones off of the rocks?

I throw in mysis and cylopese also, and big chunks of shrimp for the larger anemones.

I got the big green anemones using a hammer and chisel and just taking off a little bit of rock with them. Once they are in the tank they creep off of whatever rock they are still attached to within a day or so to find something more solid.

Oh I see. Any interesting updates?

that foam work looks great! how do u do it?
did you need to cure it??

Nope no cure time, just let it set until its hard.

It is a UV resistant spray foam designed for use in pond applications.

There are a bunch of different techniques I've figured out while working with it to get different looks, but basically you spray out the structure that you want and you cover it in a thick layer or rock salt to texture it.

Once the foam has set I use a shop vac to vacuum out the loose rock salt, then a stiff bristle brush to take off as much as I can that has adhered to the foam, then I use a hose to spray off the remaining that I can and then fill the tank with water and the rock salt just disolves. It leaves that random pitted texture that you see.

Hit me up if you want to give it a try I can give you more specifics.