How to use acrylic rods

People often ask me the best way to create bommies, so here goes;

+ Get a drill and 10mm masonary drill bit
+ Purchase 10mm diameter perspex rods (clear is better) off ebay
+ start each column with a large flat peice of rock - chisel it or sand it if you need to!
+ place rock on a peice of wood, ensure the drill is at a right angle when drilling the first pilot hole (about 2" into the top of the rock)
+ decide how hight you want the column and cut the rod using a hacksaw
+ insert rod into pilot hole
+ drill the next few peices of rock all the way through and slot onto rod
+ place the whole structure back in the tank

Stats and Full Tank Shot

Bit more info about the set up.

Lighting

Main tank is lit by a twin 150w Geissmann halide pendant with 2 actinic. The halides are on for 8 hours and the actinic for 14 hours.
I'm using 14,000 Kelvin bulbs (non branded)with normal light spectrum.
The sump is lit for 16 hours by single 100w household bulb - the macro algae likes this and even zoa's are growing! (I have subsequently installed an ARCPOD using 11w bulbs to save energy)

Water

Water is pushed round the tank in a number of ways and I believe this is critical to a quality setup. My old tank had dead spots and always got cyano build up in these areas. The main tank has two weirs at the back corners which ensure there is no surface scum to block the light. The water travels down the two waste pipes and enters the sump via a T joint. The sump return pump is rated at 3600 litres per hour so actual throughput is probably around 1500 litres due to head hight loss. This equates to four times the tank volume.
The first part of the water treatment is skimming, I'm using a V2 400 skimmer which does a very nice job removing the proteins. Water then passes through a live rock rubble section for additional filtration. The final cleansing section is the refugium, where excess phosphates are removed.

There are four BOYU powerheads in the main tank rigged up to a wave maker which ensures a good random flow. Each powerhead is rated at 5,000 litres per hour but only two are on at any one time. Therefore total 'flow' is around 12,000 litres per hour (sump return and powerheads)

FTS (Sept 09)

Hole in the wall

Following a succesfull switch over of the inhabitants, its was time to start enclosing the structure and get those sleek lines I envisaged.

I got the MDF pre cut in two parts and then joined together on site. I cut the side pannel to fit. I also got the woodshop to cut me the access pannels which 'should' be flush.


Almost there




Looking sleek


The four powerheads are now in place and connected to the wavemaker unit. This is a BOYU WM-3 wavemaker unit & I am very pleased with the turbulence it creates. Considering its costs less than £100, I can put up with the ugly heads!

Slightly green tinge to this picture - I think there was a mini algae bloom!