Rebuilding the 220

[AndyR83]

About two months ago, my biggest tank was ravaged by all sorts of previously latent parasites. A tropical storm passed through the area and my house was left without power for several days. The gyre pump battery backup and was able to maintain circulation, but everything else was down for some time (skimmer, heaters, dosing pumps, power heads, UV, etc.)

Some “before” pics

The livestock were extremely stressed during the outage. Soon, they started to exhibit signs of numerous diseases. Unfortunately, this tank was started before my personal “enlightenment” about the importance of good QT. Lots of fish were placed straight into the DT from the bags they came in back in the day, and all manner of unwanted pathogens were present (but being held at bay reasonably well for a long time.) This proved catastrophic, and most of the livestock died over the next few days despite my best efforts. To say this was heartbreaking is a massive understatement. My wife and kids and I truly loved these fish and considered them pets. They had names, we knew their personalities, and we were simply devastated by their loss. The tank ended up having to be completely dismantled for me to catch the survivors and put them in QT for treatment. All told, microscopic exam of the fish found many to be brook, velvet, and uronema.

Here’s the tank today:

It’s a bit of a sad sight, to be honest. This tank is in my living room, and its absence is felt on a daily basis. All of the above being said, today’s the day I’m starting to get this tank back up and running!

Several weeks ago I sterilized the tank via chlorination at 100ppm. It has been fallow for a little over 50 days at this point.

I’ve finished treating the survivors from the pre-crash era. They’re sitting in my observation waiting for their “home remodel” to be completed so they can have some room to stretch their legs*

*(none of them actually have legs now that I think about it)

In addition to the survivors, I’ve gotthese guys in QT. Shortly, they’ll be finished with their initial treatment and will move into the observation system (as soon as it’s vacated by the others.) The clownfish on this list are the only ones not intended to join this tank. I’m setting up a “clown harem” tank in the near future and they’re going through QT in anticipation of that.

I’m going to use this thread to keep track of the setup and progression of this tank. Looking forward to getting it back up and running!

 

[Humblefish]

Good luck man! Sometimes something really beautiful lies on the other side of a disaster!

 

[AndyR83]

Today is aquascaping day! I went to Home Depot and picked up a 4 pound hammer to break up some of the rocks. I’m looking to do something a little more interesting this time around, and hoping to avoid simply stacking rocks. I thought smaller pieces would give me more options. My goal is to maximize visual appeal of course, but also to provide plenty of caves and spaces for the fish while also avoiding anything that will impede strong flow through the tank. I’m going to use basic cyanoacrylate gel glue along with an “accelerator” product to speed up drying. After that, I’m going to go over all the joints with E-Marco 400 mortar for extra stability. Given the number of livestock that have a tendency to move things around (and also the big clumsy ones that tend to knock things over by bumping into them) I want to make sure everything is completely stable.

 

[phatduckk]

bummer you and the fish had to go through that but it looks like you have a cool project on your hands!

good luck!

 

[AndyR83]

So aquascaping has taken lots more time than anticipated (and I’ve still got a long way to go!) It’s been difficult for me to find spans of uninterrupted time to really devote to something as detailed as this. I’m essentially building all the various shapes out of dozens of small pieces each, so experimenting with fitting them together and then securing all the little points of attachment is quite time consuming. The good news is that I’ve got about ten times as much rock as I’m likely to actually need, so there’s no shortage of cool/unique shapes to incorporate!

Here’s what I have so far. These three “pillars” probably incorporate around 80-100 rocks total.

 

[phatduckk]

Lookin good!

 

[Humblefish]

Lookin good!

I agree

 

[intense37716]

Awesome! Have you used the e mortar yet?
i need a tank that size

 

[AndyR83]

No, but I’ll be trying it for the first time soon. My plan has been to get everything out together with glue and then go over it with the mortar at the end. I’m debating whether to do just the attachment points or skim coating the entire structure to help it look more uniform.

 

[mikeintoronto]

I wouldn’t bother to glue then mortar. I’d use the mortar for all joints. If you mortar the joints out of water, in 24 hours you will be able to lift the entire structure by a single rock. The mortar is insanely strong. Glue will be a weak point. Mortar small rocks to cover any large joints between rocks.

 

[np60]

I wouldn’t bother to glue then mortar. I’d use the mortar for all joints. If you mortar the joints out of water, in 24 hours you will be able to lift the entire structure by a single rock. The mortar is insanely strong. Glue will be a weak point. Mortar small rocks to cover any large joints between rocks.

Apparently glue does not hold forever in water so I'm contemplating adding epoxy or mortar to the rock joints to prevent rock tumbles.
The rock is in place in my 400 gal tank and water is drained since it's a new build. What mortar or epoxy would you recommend I add use?

 

[mikeintoronto]

Apparently glue does not hold forever in water so I'm contemplating adding epoxy or mortar to the rock joints to prevent rock tumbles.
The rock is in place in my 400 gal tank and water is drained since it's a new build. What mortar or epoxy would you recommend I add use?

I used the Marco e-400.

 

[AndyR83]

So to update this thread...

My wife stole appropriated the rockwork I had done so far to start a clown “harem” tank in our kitchen. Interestingly, the preceding sentence may seem a bit odd in many peoples’ houses... but not mine

As such... work on the 220’s aquascape has restarted as of today.

 

[intense37716]

Nope! Mine does the same, somehow all of her tanks now have titanium heaters and controllers amongst other things

 

[AndyR83]

Progress so far includes establishing several “touch points” where the rock structure will contact the bottom of the tank. I’m planning to build up a bit from each touch point and then interconnect them all to create a network of caves, etc. I think I’m going to make the structure in three or four big pieces that look like they’re connected so I can actually fit it into the tank when I’m done (taking into account these support braces)

This is a start on the “leftmost third” and a bit of the middle. Plenty of rocks left to work with!

 

[AndyR83]

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this post. “Life happens,” as they say, and I’ve still not completed this reboot.

Currently, I’m working on refinishing the inside surface of the glass. I noticed lots of deep scratches and recently purchased an orbital sander along with some abrasive discs made specifically for use on glass in the hopes of repairing them. Progress has been slow, but I’m hoping to have time to get it done over the next week or so!

For the record, not everything you can see in these pictures is a scratch. Lots of it is just a bit of grime and dust that will come off with a good cleaning… but there are definitely a bunch of scratches too.

 

[AndyR83]

I feel like I might be doing this wrong...

 

[don_chuwish]

Nah, you're just catphishing us.

 

[Max_nano]

How’s the big tank doing these days? Water?

 

[AndyR83]

So it has once again been quite a long time since this thread was updated. Several factors kept me from making much progress in recent months. Certainly my crazy work schedule is one, coupled with the fact that I’m often awake late at night when everybody else in my house is sleeping and am thus unable to use loud tools.

The glass restoration part of the project ended up being far more complex than I had anticipated. I’d say I probably wasted about 3-4 months and at least $600 on various products and tools that all claimed to be the best approach to doing this sort of work… only to find they either did nothing at all or actually made things worse.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say the lack of progress with the glass repair quickly eroded my motivation. Eventually, with lots of time and money wasted, I found myself with no idea what else to try. I contemplated replacing the glass ($$$$$) and even just scrapping the tank completely and getting a new one some day.

I’m not sure what convinced me to try one final technique this week after not touching the tank for months, but I’m glad it did. I finally stumbled upon something that actually worked! It turns out my approach to the restoration was fundamentally flawed from day one. I came to the realization that my issue was related to failure to recognize/obtain the correct tool for the job. I found an article that discussed using a “radial” tool rather than anything labeled as “orbital.” I had initially purchased a dual action orbital sander from Home Depot for this job. After reading the article and determining the source seemed reasonably credible, I bought a radial buffer from Amazon and got to work. This ended up being an absolute game changer for me.

Here’s what I was starting with this week. Nothing I had tried previously did
anything to improve this.

Surface grinding in progress using a radial buffer and an extremely coarse sanding disc:

After many hours of grinding with the extra coarse abrasive, a uniform hazy texture/appearance was achieved:

After dozens more hours of work and a slow progression from coarse to medium grit abrasives, the glass is finally clearing up!

I still have lots of work to do. I’ve only gone through about half of the abrasive grits I’m expecting to need to use. After that, and tons of polishing, this should (theoretically!) look great!
Hoping to get this wrapped up soon!