Building LR Pillars Pictorial

[NewSchool04]

I've decided to re-aquascape my 180, starting on the left side. The tank is 72" long and the area I'm dealing with is aprox. 30" The tank now is set into two major Islands with a channel down the middle. This is nice but seems almost old or old fashioned. It's like I have a very nice house with very bad furniture.
Either way, recently I've seen some unbelievable aquascape work from other RC members and I'm meaning to duplicate it in my own way.

I'm going to build three pillars, two being aprox. 20" high, the other one 10 - 12" high. This will be in a semi triangle. The problems I'm running into are . .

1. Should have done this before putting an ounce of water or sand in the tank!
2. I'm so stupid for not doing this before I put an ounce of water or sand in the tank!!!

I've got a 4 - 5" DSB that I'm going to have to displace to put my LR PVC frame down. That is a problem but after asking a lot of questions to some very experienced reefers, and only dealing with a DSB set up for 9 months, I don't think I will be releasing the time bomb of DSB toxins you usually hear about. At least not in tank killing quantities.
I'm going to slowly work the frame down into the sand bed and then the base rocks will lie on the sand bed, the PVC structure under the sand bed will connect all three pillars.

I thought about building 3 separate pillars at first but the stability issue kept coming up. I didn't want one of these pillars toppling in the middle of the night and sending a tidal wave toward my sleeping wife! Yep, the 180 is in our bedroom and yes, she's a Saint!
I decided that three pillars connected together would provide the most stability, if one goes, it has to take the other two with it. I looked at a design from Steverino and modified it to make it work for me. Thanks Steverino, the pic really helped me out!!

This is my frame, built with 3/4" PVC and the pillars will be coming up from the three points.



I was initially thinking of drilling the LR with a 3/4" hole or a bit larger and then using 3/4" PVC to impale the rock but I'm sure some of the rock wouldnt' make it past the drilling. I asked around and got some great ideas and decided to go with fiberglass driveway markers on the advice from JRaquatics. 5 bucks a piece at home depot but they only had two!!! I think with scraps, I should have enough for the smaller pillar if I plan out two cuts correctly.

I couldn't figure out how to connect these rods to the PVC rack and ataylo13 came up with a great idea about using PVC caps. So I bought three caps drilled them and here is what we have so far. . .



Yes, I'm sawing off the reflectors although I would love to keep them!



I found straight bottom plugs for the bottom of the PVC "T"'s so the fiberglass rods don't somehow shoot through the bottom of the glass. I'm also going to use the two part liquid epoxy to make sure the rods are secure.

Tomorrow the rock comes out and we get to it! ataylo13 and mcliffy2 are coming over to help make it happen, I'll post pics after the completion.