Hey Guys,
Had a perfect storm of an ich attack and (not one, but two) heater failures. Long and short of it, had to break it down. Got rid of the shoddy DIY stand and 'rock wall' style aquascape. While my livestock chilled in a 20 gallon long I rebuilt the 55 gallon tank. Below is the progress (sorry for the fuzzy pictures).
Decided to aquascape with about 40 zipties for connective structure and eggcrate for stable base. Exposed zip ties aren't pretty so I had to use reef putty to cover them up and used a phillip's head screwdriver for texturing. Creative placement of shells also helped. Used a flat piece of cardboard with masking tape to outline the usable space within the tank to ensure it would fit when done.
Everything was assembled and dry placed into the tank. Have a freestanding 'island' on the left, a 'cave/island' in the middle/right and two freestanding islands to the rightmost. God bless my wife for letting me use her dining room table for two weeks to drill and assemble!
Last picture is a progress update. Have it going for about 5 months now.
Had a perfect storm of an ich attack and (not one, but two) heater failures. Long and short of it, had to break it down. Got rid of the shoddy DIY stand and 'rock wall' style aquascape. While my livestock chilled in a 20 gallon long I rebuilt the 55 gallon tank. Below is the progress (sorry for the fuzzy pictures).
Decided to aquascape with about 40 zipties for connective structure and eggcrate for stable base. Exposed zip ties aren't pretty so I had to use reef putty to cover them up and used a phillip's head screwdriver for texturing. Creative placement of shells also helped. Used a flat piece of cardboard with masking tape to outline the usable space within the tank to ensure it would fit when done.
Everything was assembled and dry placed into the tank. Have a freestanding 'island' on the left, a 'cave/island' in the middle/right and two freestanding islands to the rightmost. God bless my wife for letting me use her dining room table for two weeks to drill and assemble!
Last picture is a progress update. Have it going for about 5 months now.

