DIY Rock Support Creations

[Reefland]

I was wondering what kind of rock work creations you have come up with?

I was thinking of using PVC to create some sort of support for a cave and then glue or tie rocks to it for the actual cave. Have you DIY'ed anything like this and if so what is your experience?

Scott Z.

[icemark]

PVC pipe is the most common. I have done a couple now, where there is a central 1 inch pipe, and then 3/4 inch side supports and additional raisers.



1 inch central pipe (actuall the overflow for the tank) and then 3/4 inch supports just under the sand, so that the rock is zip tied to the top of vertial sections of the 3/4 inch pipe.

[scubadude]

Hey Scott,

I have had a few ideas storming in my head on how to do the raising of the rocks...and I use eggcrate but Dr. Ron does say that it can prevent horizontal migration of the the SB fauna at that elevation of the SB Which I do believe this....So I improvised and cut certain sections out of my SB that I didnt need...However I do think I like the eggcrate to stay in some areas as it has provided a place for some corals to mount onto and grow


You can see 4 different types of corals already attached to this piece of eggcrate


and of course digitata will grow on anything too, I did this one on purpose! I like a nice pretty bed of Orange digitata on the bottom

The other areas that where obviously getting either buried by sand or not growing corals on them or not supporting pieces of LR I just cut the eggcrate out in those areas to give more area for the SB fauna. I have even thought of using stair stepped tier levels of eggcrate which would support the LR only until the tank is cycled then move some of the LR down to the sump for a natural filtration (this tank would have a DSB too) then use all of the tiered level eggcrate to glue mount frags and let them eventually/totally encrust over the eggcrate.....I also was thinking of one tank making one rock (maybe 2 or three depending on braces interference putting rocks in) and making these rocks out of aragocrete and having legs on the rocks if you will to keep the majority of the rocks elevated out of the SB....There are soooo many options you could do with making your own Aragocrete...and of course if your worried about phosphate leeching you could take LR pieces and glue them together by drilling holes and using acrylic rods. Im brainstorming here....Im working on some custom tanks right now for some customers and am thinking of some ideas which I might put into motion. I also liked MROK's ideas with the pipe. Also Sawjack from RC made his overflows and returns then he coated them with aragocrete so you cant even see them....I thought this was ingenious....oops am I getting off topic here...hehe

[Cuervo420]

hmm cant see the pics. Help!!

[Reefland]

Hi Cuervo420 and Welcome to Reefland!

It appears that icemark and scubadude have removed their pictures from their server which is why we can't see them.

Regards,
Scott Z.

[Cuervo420]

Thanks.