Tank build thread for my 9 gallon CADlights Bonsai Aquascaping.

Phase 1 -- LR Shaping -- Page 1, Post 1

Phase 2 -- Bonsai Assembly -- Page 2, Post 23

Phase 2b -- One Last Shelf -- Page 3, Post 47

Phase 3 -- Stand -- Page 3, Post 49

Phase 4 -- Extreme Durso -- Page 3, Post 53

Phase 5 -- 7.5 Gallon Sump (cut down 10 gallon tank) -- Page 3, Post 54

Phase 6 -- Tank Prep -- Page 4, Post 62

Phase 7 -- Sump Prep -- Page 4, Post 63

Phase 8 -- Electrical and Plumbing -- Page 4, Post 64



Current FTS as of 01/05/2010





Phase 1 -- LR Shaping

Ok i'll admit I was a little bored today

After reading some posts last night about Bonsai style of aquascaping I thought I would see if it was possible to do for my 9 gal CADlights build I have coming up. So lets go grinding


The project began with some rock, a paper footprint of my tank, a hand grinder w/ stone cutting wheel, some safety sunglasses and not pictured is a box fan to blow the dust away so I didn't have to breath it.




I started with a really dense, heavy piece for my foundation and ground the bottom flat for stability.




I ground a flat shelf on top of the foundation piece and did a little shaping.




I ground a flat area on the bottom of this rock (right side) to match the flat shelf on the foundation piece. Did a little shaping.




A little shaping on the bottom of a third piece for a nice snug fit. I also shaped a small fourth piece for a snug fit.




I made a little bit of a mess.




This is how it will look in the end. Front view from right side




Another front view from the left side this time.




The overhead view. Although it looks too big for the footprint that is just the camera view. It should fit nicely in the tank. Also the CADlights 9 gal have a slightly bowed front panel so there is even more room then whats showing with the footprint.




For now I have the rock sitting in a bucket of fresh water since 2 of the 4 pieces came out of a friends tank. After A few days I'll leave the rock sit out and dry completely. Since I custom fit all the pieces, I should be able to just epoxy them together. This will make one huge piece of rock. Not really fond of that but I'll deal with it.

Also to mount frags I will probably pop the frag off any plug it came on and glue directly to the rock structure. I did it this way in my last nano and was pleased with the results. You just have to be sure of the placement as you can't just move things around on a whim.[size="3"][/size]

I would take the one flat rock and grind some slits or contours into the bottom of it. Having it completely flat on the bottom of the tank will cause some nasty dead areas which is why some people suspend their rocks on a pvc structure. You could just grind it to make more contact points and keep it from just laying on the bottom. Other than that, the aquascape will look awesome in the tank!

Good idea travisurfer I hadn't thought about that. I only knew I had to have a nice heavy, stable foundation since it has to support the weight of the overhanging pieces without tipping over. Once I have it epoxied together I will probably have to do a little bit of extra grinding for a custom fit into the tank. Will grind some channels on the bottom at that time.

i like that....

i really like that.

power tools are awsome!

i like it too, we need a final product in tank fts to see how it turned out.

definitely waiting for an in-tank shot!

cool. love nice aquascaping.

All right guess I will have to start a third tank!!!!! Will just epoxy be enough to hold the rock in place. I am going to have to give this a try!

I used really light pieces for the upper rocks and with their small size I am hoping epoxy will be enough. They are really to small and thin to do any type of drilled in stabilizing rods.

The other threads where I got this idea from were big tanks with really big pieces of rock so they drilled the rocks and installed acrylic rods along with epoxy

I am going to take the rock out of it's fresh water dip tonight and let it start drying out. I want it dry so I can get the best hold possible with the epoxy. I figure a week or 2 to dry and then I will epoxy and post some pictures of the epoxy process as well as a in tank shot.

Okay following along here.

Drilling and using acrylic rods is really a good idea. Epoxy putty won't work so good, though liquid may work better. Still, mechanical attachment will last longer than just the chemical attachment.
I'd recommend not risking such a great job with iffy attachments. What if the Mona Lisa had been done with chalk on the sidewalk?

Agree here, also i have seen the use of plastic coat hangers for this purpose too.

I was reading about plastic coat hangers this past weekend. I am going to put all the LR together this Thanksgiving weekend. I have some plastic coat hangers and will see what I can do. Will post pics of it going together along with a FTS hopefully by Sunday evening. There is really only one piece of LR that is of real concern and that is the left side, it is the one that sticks out the most with the least amount of attachment area.

I defiantly don't want my Mona Lisa falling apart six months down the road

Just hurry up, POKEY!!!! You spent way tooo much time on pics and not enough on your reef. Hurry up already, we want pics of the reef, damn it.

Looks cool, but I wouldn't want to start a tank with dead rock.

Yes that is a big draw back but ............ I am planning on doing a corner overflow w/ full sump and a separate refugium so I will add some fresh LR to those filter areas and let it seed the "base rock". Of course this method takes a bit longer to get really nice looking LR in your tank but I have the patience. I feel in the end the time it will take will be well worth it.

You often surprise me Mike, and that is the biggest so far. The dead can be brought to life with the proper rituals.

even if you add a small piece of lr to the main display. after your cycle is going you can either remove said lr or move it to the sump.

eh, not a big deal.

that's very cool.

Can't wait to see the final product!

That is going to look real nice! great job

Phase 2 -- Bonsai Assembly

After running into a minor problem Phase 2 is complete. It actually came out better then I expected with a removable right side. I am going to use this as my tank build thread so stay tuned for more after the Holidays.


The tools needed for Phase 2. Got to use fire in this Phase I used plastic kitchen spoons for the support rods since they are stronger then coat hangers and food grade. The drill bit I actually used was a 3/8" cement bit. I made a new, exact footprint. This project actually took 4 tubes of epoxy.




Here is the bent and cut support rod. I drilled and channeled the base piece and reshaped piece 1 a little more on the bottom to accept the support rod.




Closeup of the support hole and channel. While I had the grinder going I also made some groves in the bottom of the base piece to help alleviate any dead spots underneath.




Epoxied support rod onto the base. Epoxy is still workable so I can attach the top piece all at the same time. I had to work fast as you only get 5 mins work time with the epoxy.




Here is the top piece after being epoxied to the base. Unfortunately the piece is so thin I broke it during this process. I used a bit of epoxy on the top to help fix the problem.




This is the bottom view. The support piece is there under the epoxy. I used a little extra epoxy since the piece broke.




Continued with next post ...............................................

A few more tools to complete the job. All good projects require a hammer and chisel




I started by epoxying piece 3 and 4 together making a right side assembly. Piece 4 is so small and light that epoxy alone should do the trick. It also fit into/onto piece 3 like a puzzle piece.




I drilled and epoxied a support pin into the base to accept the right side assembly.




The natural hole in the middle where the support pin will go up. This is the bottom view of the right side assembly.




Here is the left side w/ base piece inside the tank waiting to accept the right side assembly. By doing this with a support pin and custom fitting the right side assembly the two halves do not need to be epoxied together. I was not happy having one big rock for the tank so this was a much better solution. I usually glue frags directly to LR so being able to take the two pieces out separately should make this task much easier.




The front view with right side assembly sitting down onto the support pin. The structure as a whole is very stable.




Front view looking left.




Front view looking right.




View looking in from the left side.




View looking in from the right side.




Overhead view. There is enough space that a Mini Mag Float will clear the rock all around the front and 2 sides. Also I still have some room down on the sand.




Overhead view near the overflow. The black lines represent a round corner overflow and the bulkhead hole. I left a little room to play since I have yet to cut the overflow or drill the tank.




Once again the front view. The pictures really do not do this project justice. Starting with base rock will take a bit of time to get Coraline encrusted but eventually you won't even be able to see the epoxy.

This was one of the funnest LR projects I have ever done. I got to use a bunch of fun tools and the result was a unique LR look better then I expected. With Christmas fast approaching my funds for this project has dried up till after the 1st of the year. Stay tuned for more updates in Jan.

are you going barebottom? or are you submerging/setting on sand?
Also, it looks great, but maybe a little more height would help? I'm a fan of minimalist rock scapes, but it seems short (not minimalist as in minimal work put in, but a few scaped pieces of rock rather than a mountain).

Was figuring a 1" sand bed. I might add some acrylic blocks underneith the base to raise it up the 1 inch.

It's hard to tell but the top of the upper rock to the water line is only about 5".
Right side overhang about 6 1/2" to water line.
Left side overhang about 8 1/2" to water line.
Sand to water line about about 11"

I have an Eco-Lamps LED lighting system for this tank so any corals up top will get plenty of light especially as they grow up in height.

actually starting a tank with aragocrete or base rock of some kind mitigates drastic impacts to the coral reef ecosystem by avoiding taking natural live rock from the reef.... IMO base rock or homemade aragocrete is the future of reefing -- we cannot continue to enjoy the hobby at Mother Nature's expense, we must work WITH Her...

I like it!! Nice job

This is really cool. Did you use all the rock you had laid out in the first pic with your grinder and goggles? The end result looks more compact than I'd have thought.

WOW, looks great! now lets see some water!

Nice overhangs! It's hard to get nice rock shapes if you're only limited to "authentic" live rock.

Nice sentiment. However, virtually all live rock is collected in easily accessible waters such as the 'rubble zone' behind reefs since this is where it is easiest and most economical to collect. No need to dive, chip, hammer, etc. You can think of LR as 'leaves' that have fallen off a tree, in a sense, and have been 'blown' by storms and wave action towards the shore. If not collected, this LR and rubble is eventually turned into sand by wave action and organisms.

It can be argued that the transportation of LR is an environmentally unfriendly act since it currently requires fossil fuel (added CO2 to the atmosphere, indirect funding of terrorist activities, etc.) to transport it half way across the world. But, same can be said of the many goods that we regularly consume.

I feel that the choice of which rock to use in our aquariums is more a personal decision than an environmental one. I've used both 'man-made' rock and LR with good results.

No -- I originally had 6 pieces laid out so I could pick and choose what would work. I ended up using 4 of the 6 and some got ground down a bit

Thanks for the nice comments everyone.

I did want to have a minimalist look in the tank. The pictures make it look really minimalist. It does NOT look so minimalist in real life. I did want to leave some room for growth and maybe a few more small pieces of LR if I got a nice coral on LR.

There is room for one more piece up a little higher. It would come off the top of the right hand assembly and go towards the middle of the tank but back up against the back wall. If I can find the right piece of LR sometime I will go for it.

Future plans for this setup (subject to change as I have already chaged the plans a couple of times):

• Eco-Lamps KR91-14 LED lighting -- already have this
• Drilled w/ round corner overflow
• Drilled return w/ loc-line
• MP10 power head for movement
• Sump w/ refugium ............ or
• Sump w/ external refugium
• RKL for pump control, ATO, heater control and monitoring
• etc ....................... LOL (leaving this list wide open)

Unfortunatly I have no money in my budget for this till after Christmas. Will post more updates sometime in Jan as things progress. Yup it's killing me that I can't just slam this thing together and get it up and running but ................. it's taken a while to get to this point so whats another couple of months anyway

Makes me want to re-scape.

For the 10th time.

This weekend...

looks good.

i hope mine turns out 1/2 as good. I just placed an order with reefcleaners for some of there base rock.
All in due time

excellent tutorial.

Those live rock beds do eventually turn into sand, but not for quite some time. In the meantime, they serve as a nursery and as their own little ecosystem separate from the reef. If it was there before we started taking it, it probably serves a purpose and we can't expect that we make no impact by doing so. Having said that, I'm sure there is a sustainable way to harvest it, but I think aquaculture is probably the way to go.

I was recently in Fiji for work and dove three times. There are corals in this so called rubble zone all the way up to the beach. Some are exposed when the tide goes out. Full blown SPS colonies were in 3' of water.

OP scape looks very nice.

This LR originally was aquacultured LR from Gulfview. Eventually I broke down that tank, cleaned and dried out the LR and set it aside in a tub in my house. I have since given away most of that (now Base Rock) to friends but I did keep a little for myself which is what I used to build this setup.

I sort of agree with both sides of the argument. Yes the world would be better if all LR was aquacultured but .....................

I have also personally helped in the harvest of wild LR from the FL Keys back when it was legal to do so. The rock was taken from the reef flats area. The rocks were lone rocks 1/2 buried in the sand. We did not take any LR that had stoney corals growing on it. I don't see where that hurt anything.

Now if there are collectors out bustin up reefs or taking wild LR from the main reef zone then that would be a different story and some collectors probably do this

i'd be willing to bet much more "live rock" is destroyed in the production of cement than it is in the aquarium trade...

^Dat's a fact.

How? Portland Cement is made primarily from limestone.

There is no such thing as "seeding" dead rock to the same quality of rock taken from the ocean the biodiversity simply isn't won't be there, as Anthony Calfo puts it (correctly). This is one area where my marine bio degree comes in handy Although of course not necessary, it's not something I'd want to skimp on.

Looking forward to the project from an aesthetic perspective, though!

You ask how, but then you answer yourself... Calcium carbonate.



What kind of species diversification are we looking at, say, fresh out of the ocean, versus a month into cycle, versus, say, a year down the road?

Would you consider any of them keystone species? And if so, why can't they be introduced? How long is their lifespan? Do they reproduce?

I can somewhat agree but only to a point. If you put a few pieces of high quality "Fresh" LR in the tank then eventually all the little feather dusters and tube worms and pods and Coraline etc... will migrate over to the base rock although it does take some time.

Also I have seen a lot of premium LR that didn't look much better then base rock as far as micro organisms go. The wholesaler or LFS cured it so long it was no longer really "Fresh" LR.

If it takes a year or more before the LR really looks right that's OK too.

I did add one more small shelf going from the right top rock over towards the middle of the tank along the back wall. Makes a big improvement for the straight on view. Unfortunately I couldn't really get a nice picture. My camera skills aren't that great but will try again tomorrow.

[quote name='HecticDialectics' date='Nov 30 2009, 09:14 PM' post='2549098']
You ask how, but then you answer yourself... Calcium carbonate.



Sure live rock is limestone, But limestone for cement comes from quarries, They're not out harvesting it in reefs to pulverize it into cement!

Phase 2b -- One Last Shelf

Ok I made a new small shelf on top in the middle. I used 2 small pieces of rubble matched to fit for this. I only had to do a little grinding to get a good fit. Since they were so small I just used epoxy to cement them in place. I first epoxied the 2 pieces together and after the epoxy setup I epoxied it the the right side assembly. This took 1 tube of epoxy.

I put some brown paper for the background and a fake blue poster board overflow. The picture came out decent so everyone should get an idea of the size and height of the bonsai structure compared to the tank size and water level. When I actually finish the setup it will be a black round overflow and a painted black background but this should give you an idea. I think the new small shelf is a big improvement for the front on view.




I also needed to cut away a small bit of the tank support molding so the lights will sit back just a little farther. I marked the plastic and then used a small hacksaw to carefully cut through the plastic. I used a razor blade to cut back the Silicone under the cutoff plastic. I did this on both sides. Here is before and after pics.

eeeeeeeekkkkk I guess that ruins the warranty but then again it will be ruined once I drill the tank anyway.

looking good, can't wait to see it wet.

Phase 3 -- Stand

I'm not much of a wood worker but here goes ..................

I started with a solid Oak stand made for a 10 gallon tank. I have had this stand for years just sitting around.




The problem with this stand -- it is only 20" tall. To add a little more height I made a 7" riser using standard framing lumber scraps and painted it black.




Since the stand was built for a standard 10 gallon tank I had to make a top adapter. This is the underside so you can see the bracing I used (hard to see) and the hole for the bulkhead. This was made from plywood and some 2 x 4 pieces ran through a table saw. Painted it black.




I also needed to raise the light a little off the rim of the tank so I cut these from 6" diameter PVC and painted them black using Krylon Fusion.




So here is a current FTS of the stand. The bottom of the tank now sits 28" off the ground -- a perfect height for sitting at my computer desk and watching the aquarium. Would also make a good height for in the living room. The project is moving forward slowly but making progress.

Using the old and making it new again. Sweet, I like it.