Legacy High School's 300 gallon aquarium

**TropicalReefCorals** · 12-31-2010, 07:56 PM

The sandbox is in place! We fit the sandbox in place first to make sure it would fit, and it was perfect.

This is a view from the top down.

David has been keeping the seagrasses that were donated my MOFIB in the official quarantine tank at his home. He placed a layer of fine aroagonite sand in the sandbox, then added a layer of refugium mud and then added more sand. We then lowered the box into the aquarium.

The seagrass was then planted, being very careful to not expose the plants to air. He then topped it off with sand.

The tank was then filled with a medium grade of aragonite sand. It took some work to get the sand into the rock stilts, especially as the visibilty decreased. We will be anxious to see what it looks like tomorrow.

Happy New Year and a happy new tank.
Rick Loewen

**Coach** · 12-31-2010, 08:46 PM

BlazinNano,

Sorry I missed your question. Your frags are doing just fine in the tank at home, I might be moving them tomorrow into the tank. Midnight's frags are doing ok also.

**Iggy** · 12-31-2010, 08:53 PM

The custom seagrass bed is awesome. The cliffhanger... not so much. Keep up the good work!

**AquaNomer** · 01-01-2011, 10:02 AM

So cool to see your progress! Great enthusiasm and support from everyone on this project!

**jestr** · 01-01-2011, 03:59 PM

i so want a 300 looking at that... and i thought my 180 was massive!!!!

**Coach** · 01-03-2011, 06:31 PM

Everyone was impressed. The tank has sand, LR, two clowns, some corals, and a coral banded shrimp.

Tank -- first day by dashhills, on Flickr

**BlazinReef** · 01-03-2011, 10:12 PM

Dave you gonna be at school on friday? Or even sat? I would love to see the tank. You have told me so much about it. Would love to see my little frags in that monster tank...lol

**Michael** · 01-04-2011, 10:31 AM

Hey could you explain the whole stilts set up, benefits, tricks to setting it up right etc?

I will be upgrading tanks soon and would like to perhaps do something like this. Do I just cut up bunch of pvc of say 3" diameter and drill holes through them and then set rock exclusively on them?

Great looking tank!

Thank you!

**Coach** · 01-04-2011, 12:40 PM

BlazinNano: Yes, I will be at school on Friday. Will probably leave around 5. What time are you thinking about coming by?

Michael: Rick can better answer your questions about stilts since this was my first time. But the major benefit that I see is that if anything happens to the sand, the rock structure stays and does not topple into the glass. And yes, the stilts were 3" PVC pipe cut at varying heights, but none above 2 2/4 inches. We are planning on a 3 inch sandbed when it all settles.

**rayray** · 01-04-2011, 12:57 PM

As you look at the tank, try to imagine lighting up the eyes of one of the students with the wonders of some amazing colorful coral. Right now, it is all about the fish (for them). We would like to change that. This is basically going to be a softies tank with some lps... and we are looking for some colorful donations. We have lots of room...
Putting things in the tank will be a process... (Dipped and quarantined) but, please let us start pest free. Please pm me with anything that you have and we will coordinate picking up the donations.

Think of it as planting a garden for future reefers...

Thanks everyone!
Ray

**Michael** · 01-04-2011, 12:58 PM

Thank you for reply.
As I read from the pictures you set the rock work first and then add the sand, correct? Also rocks just sit on those pvc tubes they aren't attached to them in any way?

**BlazinReef** · 01-04-2011, 01:37 PM

Dave I lost your number. And me pm with it so I can give you call when I am gonna head out there.

Thanks
Andrew

**Coach** · 01-04-2011, 02:53 PM

Michael: Yes, the rocks are just sitting on the PVC. From my understanding some people glue or attach, but I personally like to have it as natural as possible. We chose the rocks that would lock into place on their own. I appreciated Rick honoring my request. We did have a couple of pieces that wouldn't lock and for safety sake we used plastic ties to hold them in place. We also had the shish-kabob of rocks because we didn't have a big piece to span the top of our bridge. So we used an acrylic rod through the three rocks. When and if I ever have to do this again, I would place sand in the tubes after the first layer gets set. Trying to get the sand to fill in the tubes now is a little difficult. In time the currents will take it and that is why they have holes drilled into the sides. I would like for it to fill in a little faster. We have a couple extra that you can look at if you are ever out this way.

BlazinNano: PM will be sent in about 1 minute.

Ray: Thank you for the request. I would like to turn the attention to the corals, several of the kids are already getting excited about the different types of life. The excitement about the fish isn't hard; in fact, I have to slow them down. The kindergarten classes are already planning on "adopting" some fish.

**Coach** · 02-06-2011, 09:08 PM

I know I haven't posted or awhile, but the tank is coming along. I will post pictures after this. The behind the scenes water production "facility" is almost complete. We were having a little trouble with algae; however, once we added a clean up crew and a Kole tang, the algae is almost gone. We do have a few spots of cyano, but they are small. We added 10 cucumbers, 20 margarita snails, and about 50 blue-legged hermit crabs. The sea grasses did not die off too much when we moved them from the quarantine tank, so hopefully they will start reproducing shortly.