The Reef Tank - DIY Forum

(This was also posted on RC, but, I've always liked this forum best...:wavey: Hi, from a returning TRTer and BRW!:D)

I've been dying to set up a new tank, so, when my 6g nano sprung a leak a couple weeks back, I decided to move up to a 29 and have been trying to assemble the components to get this going. My little bits of coral and liverock from the 6g are doing reasonably well in a 4g bucket, so, I am going to try out some things I've been interested in trying with this as funds allow. I love the look of the foam and rock wall tanks I've seen here and on that other place and I really wanted to try it out on this new setup, so, here it goes.

Current equiptment includes;
*standard 29g aquarium - new
*wrought iron double tank stand - new
*Viper 70w hqi clamp-on lamp (this will be temporary until I can afford to upgrade) - about 1yr old
*unknown brand of siphon overflow (no guts/no glory...just can't bring myself to put a drill against a brand-new glass tank!) - used
* Seio Prop 1000 powerhead for main circulation - new
* Cap 2200 OR Rio 3100 return pumps - both used
* one of two POS skimmers... either a SeaClone 150 or a Turbo-Skimmer(if I can figure it out, lol!) a good skimmer is on my wishlist!
* 40lb bag of aragonite sand (will add more. I'm going for a deepsand bed of about 4")
*20g high for sump - used (this needs to be leak tested yet as it has been in storage for years. I would actually prefer a new 20L and may go that route if I can swing it befor the whole setup is ready for water.)
*25lbs of liverock...now dead and dried out for this project
*approximately 10-15lb of live rock, some live sand, and, a few coral frags from my 6gal.

Last night I started work on the rock wall. This was a fun puzzle/sculpture process and I spent all day snipping eggcrate and drilling holes in rock. Used a whole bag of zipties and scavanged the pvc fittings I bought to make a pvc overflow with to support the rockwall. (I did make the pvc overflow and it was a pretty neat design by Craig ? this one: http://www.nd.edu/~lego/grp2/www/ree...rflow_1024.jpg
but I decided it was just too big for this tank.
Here are pics up to where I am at on this now.

Plans for this tank include painting the back of the tank blue, perhaps a nice aqua, or, since this is more a deepwater reef with the low lighting, a deeper ultramarine blue... the possibilities boggle the mind! I like the open top look, so, I think I will have to get a plexiglass cover to keep the carpet surfers in (I'm partial to the little rocket-wrasses), also, planning a deepsand bed and would like to try a jawfish in this one...this will be predominately lps and a few soft corals and fish-wise I want a very peaceful, passive community including cardinals (sm. herd of orange line or blue-streaks), a jawfish, flasher wrasses and perhaps a pair of ocellaris or pink skunk clowns.

I used all 25lbs of dry rock on the structure and ran out, but, I just decided to add shelves to place the liverock and corals. In the last pic, I added a cover to hide the Seio pump and may add a small shelf to it as well. All the eggcrate and pvc will be covered with the black pond foam and sand, and, I also intend to foam the overflow box so that it blends in as well. My next step is to do the foaming, but, I only have one can and I suspect that it will not be enough even if I try to be as sparing as possible in using it.

Does anybody know if pvc cement can be used to cover the foam instead of using the epoxy resin? I have used the pvc cement in the past to create a permanent fake sandbed on the bottom of a 55g and it worked very well. It would be much cheaper than the epoxy. Any opinions on this?