Michelle's 125 gallon is getting a makeover

[michelle9491]

Hello all, besides my 55 reef, I also have a 125 fish only tank. I used to have a very large v. lion & lime green wrasse, and after a disaster of last xmas vacation, all I have now is a stars & stripes puffer. The tank is pretty boring right now & since the loss of the other fish I've really done nothing except "have to" maintenance & feed the puffer. I want to make some changes to make it more exciting.

First change I would like to make is the boring aquascaping. Since the fish I have now is large & so would be any addition, I have to keep it at a minimum to allow for plenty of swimming room. I was thinking of maybe trying to mimic the underside of a pier. Something like wood/wood-like poles (or whatever they are called that hold up piers) with ropes.

Any ideas? I am totally open to anything, only idea I have so far.

Then of course next would be a new fish addition......

Here is how it looks right now.






It's hard to get a FTS with a foosball table in the way & my camera skills dont help either.

[Dentoid]

That's a neat idea! Would you use real wood or plaster replicas? I would expect real wood to leach impurities into the water over time. I guess you could use teak, but that's costly.

That is one big puffer!

[Rue]

I'd be hesitant...anything like that would take up a lot of valuable swimming room.

Have you tried grouping your current ornaments? For example, have a larger group to the left, a smaller group to the right and leave the center open for swimming...

[sambrinar]

Hi Michelle, just checking in... that is a huge puffer!! interesting thought on the pier, I think it would look kinda cool.

[Jeremy0322]

I like the idea of the pier poles, it would be something interesting. The other thing that i saw recently that was really cool was from an aquarium in North Carolina, it was modeled after a ship wreck. I cant find any pictures right now, but if you want to look for some it was called the Fort Fisher Aquarium.

[michelle9491]

Jeremy, I cant find any pics of what you are talking about. Let me know if you do. Sounds interesting.

I was thinking something sorta like this:


Just a few on one side of the tank, then on the other side of the tank, maybe constructing a wooden lobster trap with an opening large enough a fish could swim into it. But I'm still waiting on pics from Jeremy to see what this ship wreck looks like too.



There has to be something that would be safe to use. I really dont want to use anything fake. Guess I got some researching to do. You would think if its safe to put epoxy & super glue in a tank, that there is something out there.


Hey Brenda, thanks for stopping by!!

[BigAl07]

Me LIKEY this idea!!

don't use WOOD!! It's a "good" product in the OCEAN but those pillings/columns/poles are usually "Treated" to resist decay but that wont work in a closed system.

Can Jon "Fire" you something Ceramic? This would be the best option rather than plastic or WOOD.

[stonedfish]

You could split them in half lengthwise and just attach them to the back. What does it look like where puffers live anyways?

[michelle9491]

Originally Posted by BigAl07

Can Jon "Fire" you something Ceramic? This would be the best option rather than plastic or WOOD.

Al, you may be on to something. I will have to give him a call.

[vdituri]

Oooooh. Love the idea.

My first thought would be plastic 1 gallon buckets cut in half.
stacked top to bottom with super glued shells, barnacles and maybe liverock rubble to rough them up. The wood planks of the "pier" could be suspended above the tank to keep the water purity o.k.

Look forward to updates on this thread.

[Jeremy0322]

I am still pictureless, sorry michelle

[michelle9491]

Thanks for following Victor! Good ideas too. We go to key largo every August so I always have rubble of this & that, even have some already. I'm sure some of the locals there wouldnt mind me removing lots of barnacles from the bottom of their boats, lol.

Originally Posted by Jeremy0322

I am still pictureless, sorry michelle

Just picture what you would see if you were diving under a pier, the pilings with things growing on them like barnacles & ropes from where you tie your boat up & fish swimming. I just want to look like it does naturally in the ocean, like what I see when I go diving.

[Jeremy0322]

oh no, i know what you are trying to get at. I was talking about my picture hunt for the ship wreck thing I was talking about..haha

[potterjon]

I like the idea! Anything different is cool. I could make you something. I am a little baffled by the chemisty behind putting cearamics into a saltwater environment. I am under the impression that earthenware clay leaches phospates into the water but I am not sure why it would. It is much more porous than stoneware, and I work in stoneware. The actual absorbancy rate of fired (or vitrified) stoneware is somewhere around 99.993 percent non absorbant. Porcelain is technically the highest at around 99.996 percent nonabsorbent. Where earthenware is somewhere around 90 percent non absorbent. That is why you see red and white earthenware used for planters and such. Don't quote me on those statistics but it is something like that.

Anyhoo, my point is that I don't see why stoneware clay or porcelain would not work. You see earthenware in freshwater tanks all the time. I was even considering mixing in some vermiculite or something that would burn out and you could make some rock looking things with alot of holes and random voids in it. I have been thinking about this for awhile, but hey, you know how it is.
I used to put fired ceramic in my tank years ago when I was not such a control freak and I personally never saw any adverse effects, but I don't know that I was really paying any attention back then. I just thought it looked cool.
Now the question really becomes what exactly do you want? I can either glaze them or leave them as natural clay but the clay body I use is not the most attractive stuff without glaze. Another idea is maybe to put it in a friend of mines kiln that would be wood or salt fired. or both.
So many choices. A bunch of hand thrown cylinders would look cool and I could just cut holes in them for hiding places. Or cut them in half to glue to the back or your tank. or both. Just give me a call and we can work it out.
By the way, I really want to use this avatar

[sambrinar]

Michelle, what about using large pvc pipe, covering it with some type of adhesive, rolling it in sand then glueing shells, barnicle etc on it.. just a thought