90g Reef Build

Lets start with the rock work. The rock being used is some nice Pukani dry rock. It will consist of about 100lbs. I have a few custom reef structures in my tank that I made and he was looking for a similar look.

I have a bench top in the basement that is actually roughly the same size as his tank. We used this to layout some structures and get a feel for how it would look in his tank. Once he was happy with the look, I drilled all the rocks and installed acrylic rods for support. Silicone and epoxy was used to cement the rods into place. All voids remaining were filled with rubble so that the rods could not be seen.

The rock work consists of 3 main structures. Then ones those structures are in place some additional arches would be made and cemented in place as well.

Pros and cons with this way of setting up the rock work.

Pros - Never a worry for heavy rock falling over and potentially cracking glass. Also have a rock as moved sometimes its is always hard to get it back to the spot where it was before. Unique shapes as you can combine multiple pieces to get one nice looking piece.

Cons - You must love your rock! Once its in place that is it. So for all the rock tinkers this definitely would not be the way to go for you. This is the rock work you will see in your tank for the life of the aquarium. Unless there is some additional space where you might want to add another little piece just to create another arch cave etc.

So here it is the final rock work design. Again its in three different pieces and will be placed into the tank like a puzzle. A few of the pieces are loose at this point so the look might change just a little bit once it gets into the tank.

Here is a couple more shots after the drilling process for the overflow.

Onto the next step, drilling the two return lines which will be 3/4". I do not have step by step pictures of the drilling process here but what I did was use the same template from the overflow and just made a smaller putty well to center the smaller drill bit. I recommended to him to use schedule 80 bulkheads for the return as since it is a pressure line the larger bulkheads can be tightened more and are less prone to leaking then some of the standard bulkheads.

Here is a picture of the hole drilled with the bulkhead installed.

Once we got the tank and stand into place it was time to level. To my surprise, there was nothing to be done as it sat perfectly level in the spot that we placed it. I never had had this happen with any of my tank builds. Dennis made me take this picture with the level on it so he could brag how "perfect" his house was.



Then here is a shot of the plumbing so far behind the tank. Now when we build a canopy for this, we are planning to incorporate some type of trim piece that will cover the plumbing on the side of the tank as well.