New pillars of LR

[bwoody62]

Here are a few before and after pics of my 210 reef. With the help of Aquabucket we drilled holes in the LR and secured them together with acrylic rod! Worked pretty slick, tank is more open, better flow and looks better also. Same amount of rock!!! Thanks Spike.

[The_Browns]

Looks awesome

[LobsterOfJustice]

Wow, MUCH better!

[SCR]

What a differance, how long did the change over take to complete?

[bwoody62]

About 6 hrs., plus a little prep work, went pretty smooth. Some rock drilling went easily, some not so much. All in all was a fun experience.

[H2OLUVSME]

Your new scape looks awesome!

[The_Browns]

You should of snapped lots of pictures while you were in the process, I would of liked to learn how to do that.

[crt81]

You said you secured them together with acrylic rod, right?

Where did you find the rods?
Like at a harware store, like Home Depot?


Also did you use epoxy or twisty zip ties?

You drilled holes right,- what did you use to drill the rock with? Just a standard drill and bit?




It looks GREAT!

I just love the open look but at the same time it isn't!

[Racing1]

AWESOME >>>> Is all I can say...... Looks way better and more room for the fishies>>>>>>>>>>

[bwoody62]

I have some acrylic sheets that I cut into 1/2 & 1/2 sticks. Round hole, square peg, but hey, It worked just fine, let gravity do the rest.

[crt81]

Originally posted by bwoody62
I have some acrylic sheets that I cut into 1/2 & 1/2 sticks. Round hole, square peg, but hey, It worked just fine, let gravity do the rest.

How did you round it, or did you leave the sticks in a square shape form?


You also made the square peg?



And one last question- how did you get the pilers to stay standing up? They don't want to fall over?

[The_Browns]

Could you put together a detailed description on how you accomplished this?

[crt81]

Originally posted by The_Browns
Could you put together a detailed description on how you accomplished this?

Yeah that would be great!!!!!!

[nanoDude]

You did too good of a job! Now everybody is going to DEMAND a play-by-play.

That aquascaping looks GREAT. It's the most open design I've seen in quite a while.

[bwoody62]

The pegs stayed square. didn't do anything to them at all(round rods would have been easier). Just started with the biggest rock that sat very level on the bottom, kept working and staggering the LR as we went up. Put all the large rock I had in a seperate bin, kept choosing, changing, twisting, turning, balancing etc. as we went up. Just eye up where to drill the hole and slide the LR down the acrylic rod! Not as difficult as one would think. It was important to balance the pillar as we went higher. When we got to the top, we used the pillar next to it to help secure the other pillar. 4 pillars total. The bigger the rock the easier the balancing act! ALL pillars stand perfectly by themselves!

P.S. Go slow drilling the holes!!!!

[msuzuki126]

Incredible!

[m2434]

Fantastic! I like that you combined a semi-wall with pillars instead of just pillars, it looks more natural that way and really flows together.

[ninjamini]

But how did you drill a hole clean through the rock with out it breaking in half? How big were the rocks? What was the smallest rock you had success with?

[Aquabucket]

Originally posted by ninjamini
But how did you drill a hole clean through the rock with out it breaking in half? How big were the rocks? What was the smallest rock you had success with?

We used a very long masonry bit ~ at least 10" long. A couple of rocks did break in half during drilling but for the most part they held up well. The smallest rocks are at the top and I'd say those are about 6-8" in size.

[Aquabucket]

Originally posted by The_Browns
Could you put together a detailed description on how you accomplished this?

Besides what has already been mentioned. The first thing we did was drain 40 gallons or so of water from the tank into 2 bins. The first bin had a heater and a powerhead in it. In this bin we placed all the corals that we removed from the tank and rock. The second bin was for the larger pieces of rock we took out for the pillars. This bin only had a heater. The rest of the rock stayed in the tank. We replaced the tank water with new saltwater so essentially the tank simply had a good sized water change.

[stevedola]

great job guys. looks 5000x better. like that overhang with the anenome.

[Kannin]

If I were a fish... That's where I would want to live. I am trying to create a similar scape using Marco Rocks and foam. You two really did a great job.

[seagirl]

great job guys. looks amazing

[JillNairn]

Great job! I love how it looks open and natural. So many tanks are just a massive brick wall of rocks with corals everywhere. Yours rocks!!!