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Downhill's 200g Starfire Marineland Deep Dimension


downhill_biker

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So here is the stand's frame. I will go ahead and set the tank up on top tomorrow or Sunday. I need to get the back of the tank painted first. I will just use krylon fusion on the back and sides where the overflows are.

 

 

Front View:

toddineugene071.jpg

 

Overall Pic with Location:

(I really wanted to be able to see 3 sides, but it just wasn't going to work with the place we are in now. This will due for the next few years.

toddineugene070.jpg

 

You can fit a yeti in a box:

toddineugene068.jpg

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You think that cadet will be okay behind the tank there??

 

Also Krylon Fusion is for plastic. Some people use a latex based but a 99 cent regular old gloss paint does it.

 

Other than that lookin good man!

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ok' date=' maybe i am dumb, what is a cadet? the vent? should be ok, that is where i am running my pvc through to go to the basement.[/quote']

 

Well Im the dumb one :) I didnt think of it being a vent! I automatically though it was a cadet heater. Good that its not. Lookin good.

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Hey Curtis, looking real solid - I don't think you will have anything to worry about with that. Nice location too, even if you don't get a veiw of all three sides. Glad that double cube stand idea worked out for you... that is pretty much exactly what I was thinking. Nice looking house/apt. as well!

 

Good luck man... hope the survivors are doing well!

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Thanks, I am glad that we were on the same page. The two cubes worked out great. It is very sturdy, I rocked it back and forth pretty hard with my girlfriend to test it out. (laugh)

 

Really though it seems pretty strong. I was a little unhappy with the boards splitting, but it worked out in the end.

 

The new place (duplex) is really nice. It is about 900 sq. ft. so slightly smaller than our other place, but has a 900 sq. ft. basement. the basement is where i have the 72 bowfront and the sump. We also have all our bikes, camping gear, and my tools down here, as well as my desk. It makes upstairs very open, and downstairs is fairly organized and open too. We finally have a yard and garden too!

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Just wanted to update:

 

Picked up my corals from the LFS today and I am shocked!

 

There are specks, 1/8" to 1/4" of corals that I thought were completely dead. The ones that I thought were dead, that have a tiny speck, and hope of growing back are:

 

Chilli Pepper Monti

Sunset Monti

Superman Monti

Morningstar Monti

Purple Haze Monti

Oregon Tort

California Tort

Pokerstar Monti

Setosa

 

I still lost a bunch, but the graveyard is still in the tank just in case another coral or two decide to pop up a tiny piece of flesh. I am SO HAPPY!!!

 

Only have 1 anemone left though. :(

 

But overall HAPPY! :)

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Hey that is great news Curtis! I hope they all continue to bounce back and maybe even more of them start to show signs of life again. (clap)

 

I hope so too. It is unbelievable that there is anything live on these corals. They were completely dead, as far as I thought. All the more reason to never give up on them.

 

On that same note, I had a Pink BTA that was in my sump and got sucked into the return pump and got turned into mush. A few months later I noticed that there was a pencil eraser sized Pink BTA in the sump, and it survived the move!

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got the tank plumbed today, and the back and sides taped up, ready for paint. i will be painting later and it should work pretty well. i am using krylon fusion in black, and will paint the back, the side against the wall, and the overflow area of the showing side. eventually, in another house, i would like to view 3 sides, so i will have to use stripper or razor blades to remove the paint from the one side against the wall.

 

0603090927.jpg

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Here is the aquascaping plan. I really enjoy open tanks and large rocks. i enjoy rockwork with open caves and lots of places that you can see completely through the rockwork. i plan to keep this in mind when doing my rockwork. island #1 and island #2 will be larger islands and go about 3/4 the way up the tank, maybe even slightly more on one or the other. the anemone island will be small and isolated keeping the anemones away from the corals.

 

Aquascape.jpg

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I like that plan a lot Curtis. I like those tank dimensions for the same reason. I don't like thin tanks were fish just swim in laps all day. The cool thing about deep tanks is that they allow more natural and interesting movement around the tank. And your design works well to that purpose.

 

I can't wait to see it brought to life.

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That's gonna look fantastic! I agree with Jason, the depth just adds so much.

 

I love those Marineland deep tanks, but can't understand why they didn't give some built-in way to conceal the overflow plumbing.

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That is gonna be hot!

 

Are you sure you want to paint the side facing the wall? I would personally probably just get something black to place on that side just so that I didnt have to strip it or worry about scratching it in the future. Either way its gonna look hot though! Check out a rock pillar I made. Something like that woudl look hot and you can build them however you like.

 

IMG_0125.jpg

 

Garrett

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that rock pillar is sick! how'd you do it?

 

Top secret, very need to know info.

 

Just kidding. I will post a bit about it in my prop system build in the near future. Basically a masonry drill bit, some 3/4 inch pvc and some nice porous rock. I am doing another one in more of an elongated island formation. If I had the kind of deapth that Curtis has here... [language filter] that would be some amazing rock work!

 

 

Garrett

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If you go with Garrets Idea of just putting something black back there you should check out foam core. It is really easy to work with and could be attached a number of ways. very lightweight and usually is in gloss white and matte black. Just a thought.

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wow Garrett, that rock pillar is sick! i could definitely use that. i was trying to decide how to hold rocks together, and i think acrylic rods or epoxy would work great. i will definitely use that sweet idea when i am building my rock structures. after you get some coral growing off of it, it will look so amazing.

 

thanks everyone, i am super excited. i actually painted today, and it looks great. i contemplated painting the side or not, and i went ahead and did it, it will come off very easily and i should be able to do it without scratching. it turned out very nice, but cant get real good pics with all the glare. will probably have to wait until i get some lights on top, so that the inside is brighter than the outside.

 

i am going to pick up sand and rock this sunday. MadReefer and I are going out sunday morning. he used to live in corvallis and be on the forum here, anyone remember him? we have all the good spots and should be able to get a couple hundred pounds of rock, and a bunch of sand. planning on getting enough sand for display and deep sand bed.

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Acrylic rods would definatley work better! I thought about it and just decided to try it with pvc first before I went down and picked up the acrylic. Turned out to work great. With a littel epoxy and rubble in spots to cover up some cracks it should be complete.

 

I think the krylon should scratch of just fine aswell. Its just a bit scary lol.

 

Sounds like you will be having some fun this weekend and some nice pics to post for us!

 

 

Thanks,

Garrett

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Well, Garrett you were right. We had a blast and got some great pics. I got some sweet corals too (Tyree-he-he), but you will have to wait on those.

 

Had a great time today loading up rock and sand. It was very tough to find rock, but sand was pretty easy. Once we found a hot spot for rock, it went pretty good.

 

Oolitic Sand

collectingrock003.jpg

 

Jesse Came with to play in Sand

collectingrock007.jpg

 

There were some pretty good views out there. Pictures dont do justice.

collectingrock010.jpg

 

collectingrock013.jpg

 

And here is where we finally found rock. Hope you all recognize it.

 

collectingrock015.jpg

 

Got it all loaded up, some nice pieces in there!

 

collectingrock017.jpg

 

Here it is all unloaded at home.

 

collectingrock018.jpg

 

Me holding a medium sized rock...lol....we got some big pieces.

 

collectingrock019.jpg

 

Finally a close up of some of the rock. Not perfect, but pretty good.

 

collectingrock020.jpg

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