Phlounder's 140

[Paramecium]

I have it like an upside down overflow, and have filled it with rock rubble. Hmmm, I have a iwaki 20 rlt running mine, and the key was to get the water level just above the top of the baffle that goes into your return area.

[phlounder]

The tank has been running for a couple of weeks now. Everything going well, except I hadn't spent any time on aquascaping yet.

So, today I thought I would give it a whirl and try to stack some rocks. I am a little out of practice. I was doing ok removing the rock to start scaping it, until I got to the base rock. I had turned off all of the water circulation and I still stirred up a sandy, agagonite silty cloud that quickly turned the whole tank white. Like trying to stack rock in a tank full of milk.

Anyway, after fighting poor visibility for a couple of hours of rearranging rock, this is what was remaining after the cloud settled out a little. I call it my "Hole in the Wall" scape The stack is more in the center of the tank and not piled up against the back wall. There is some depth to that "cave" under the arch.

I will stare at this for a few days to see if this is the way I want to leave it. Will probably tweak it some more though.

[Tangboy]

Wow, that is pretty darn good looking. You have some really nice pieces of LR and they fit together pretty darn well! Keep the pics coming!

[phlounder]

Thanks! The arch is epoxied together. I really couldn't see what I was doing, so I will have to wait until the water clears some more and see if there is anything else I can do to it. It didn't come out like I thought it would, but not so bad - maybe.

[ChuckG]

I like it. That sand is a bear though. In hindsight, I wish I would have rinsed mine.

[phlounder]

I hear ya. I started to rinse it, but didn't want to rinse the sand out with tap water and I was busy trying to make as much RO water as I could at the time, so I didn't want to use it for rinsing. Almost wish I had gone with a slightly coarser aragonite substrate.

[Tangboy]

Why mre coarse? Just so you don't have the sand storms? I thought that would settle down a bit after it's been in the tank.

[ChuckG]

It does settle, the problem is that anything that starts burrowing or sand sifting will create a new cloud. I assume over time that it will get better and it actually already is in mine. I wish I would have gone with just one more step up in grain size as well. Even once the super fine particles (silt) either come out or completely settle the normal grains are still so small that they can easily be picked up and once caught in the water column of a power head or something they will go flying all over. They will settle quickly but it's generally on top of your rock somewhere.

[phlounder]

Have you stopped up your 4 way yet? I accidentally dumped a load of sand (off of one of the rocks) right in front of a return and it blew it straight into the closed loop intake screen and eventually it jammed the 4Way. Had to take it apart to clean it, but it is fine. Be careful of where you point those returns!

[ChuckG]

Yes, I did stop it up once already. It started making a load clicking noise. I had to call Paul and have him walk me through taking the thing apart. The drum was so jammed I had to go to HD and buy a piece of threaded metal pipe to stick in the end of the drum and thread it in until the drum started moving and I could pull it out.

IF and I repeat IF, you continue to have this problem, Paul makes a slightly off sized drum that has a hair more clearance for folks like us. I read about it on their website and questioned him when mine got jammed. He told me not to switch unless it became a real problem.