DIY Group Project-Invisible rock lifts

[sly fox]

thanks fly guy... im pretty tool lacking, and i dont know if all the reefers in houston swoop and get the decent scraps, so i got slightly sub useful scraps...soon found i had trouble cutting them, so improvised a bit...

[sly fox]

thought id post some pics...

just so you know this is my first tank and im a newbie...

when i got the tank there was so much detritus in it, it formed an inch deep layer when the sand was put in... i had to hand siphon and water change repeatedly..

heres one of my not as great stands

[sly fox]

its takes me ages to cut the pieces, so i took one large piece drilled holes for water flow, and stuck pices under holes for rod and had holes for a bit of water flow...

[sly fox]

heres my detritus before....

[sly fox]

heres my as of today... note i am gradually adding more sand to cover most of the rods

[crvz]

That first shot is sick, sly fox! What an improvement.

[OneDummHikk]

A very drastic improvement for the better. Nice job.

[aquawolf]

Okay, I really need to get off my butt and the money and build a set of these immediately. Great work, and thanks for sharing!

[sly fox]

thanks guys..

[ScruffyRubicon]

Just thought I would dig up a good thread and send it back up front.

I am going to build a set this week. Slightly different, but very close.

[knockout]

this is pretty cool, anyone making them to sale to others... pm me if you are!

[wanareef]

Too bad all I see are those pesky red x's

[Jesstheveg]

Old thread, newbie reefer. I'm going to start the setup of my tank soon and love the idea of these lifts, but had a question. Although I love the look of wall to wall rock in others' tanks, I saw a tank recently (at my LFS, I think) that had a bit of a cave down the center and thought it looked amazing. Could you achieve that by using two smaller lifts spaced a bit apart?

They had the two sections of rocks separated, but I would just like a fairly small cave with rock on the top connecting the two sections of lifted rock. Basically a crude, natural looking arch. So, I guess two separate rock lifts spaced about 4-6 (if even that) apart, with the rocks joining higher up (I imagine I'd have to glue to make the top possible).

Or would a better alternative be just to keep the lifts a single piece, but get rid of the rods in the front 2-3 rows in the middle leaving them rock-free with a natural little cave? That sounds like it might be more stable, but I'm clueless

[Neuticle]

Due to the minimal torsional stress, is there a need to use cast instead of extruded acrylic? Extruded is really cheap compared to cast.

[aquawolf]

Jesstheveg, You can do exactly what you are talking about by just not placing the rods in the center section where you want the cave to be. Is it possible to use 2 separate lifts in order to leave the center wide open, but I feel you get much more stability by having longer bases for the lifts.

Neuticle, I used clear extruded acrylic rods that I got from www.usplastics.com when I made mine and they worked without any problems in my 75 gallon.