Thanks to all the welcomes so far, i do appreciate it! It seems this community is a tad more welcoming than others I currently reside in I have also been contacted by some of you trying to help me obtaining tanks, and I appreciate it!
I would like to bounce a couple of ideas I have around with you all, and I'd appreciate some feedback from anyone. I can only learn.
I want to buy a 28 gallon JBJ cube, measuring +- 460mm (height) x 550mm x 550mm. I think a 28 gallon is a good start, as smaller will just be too much for me to handle, and the unit as is seems pretty reasonable for the price. I can always buy a whole new bigger and better tank at a later stage, and keep this on in my study! These marine tanks are mezmirizing!
I want to have this unit as self sufficient as possible, as I frequently go away for a day to sometimes a week at a time, and also at short notice, so after a considerable amount of reading and learning, I want to know whether these possibilities might work. I also only want to use sustained methods, i.e. dead rock that has been in someone elses aquarium for a while (I found some), captive bred fish and invertebrates (don't know how easy this might be), and frags of corals. Thus, I want as close to zero impact on the ocean as possible. I am not a tree hugging hippie, but I feel that, due to being a nature lover, and avid diver, I would prefer to leave Nemo and co where they were born.
1
I want to make 'half' a deep sand bed:
I do like the look of a small layer of white sand around the perimiter of the glass, but also the benifits of a dsb might be benificial to me, especially with my lifestyle!
Would I be able to slope the sand from aproximately 2 cm's in the front of the tank, to +- 10 cm's at the rear of the tank, and use this slope as part of my aquascaping? Would it be benificial to only have the rear hidden part of the tank as a dsb?
Is it a case than better something than nothing? This would equate to approximately 0.15m2 of dsb, or 50% of the tank.
Also, my lfs does not have live sand. Where can I obtain enough to start this tanks dsb?
Will the egg crate also alow the deep sand bed to thrive with rocks on it?
2
Burrowers and deep sand beds...?
Now, if I make this work, would it be possible to slope the sand to the rear, and then cover all of it with egg crate. I then want to complete it by convering the egg crate with more above mentioned white sand around the perimeter, leaving 1-2 cm's (?) of sand above the crate for burrowing animals, thereby creating the best of both worlds? The sand at the rear bottom can not be disturbed by critters, whilst they can frollock and have fun in the front loose sand
3.
I love diving overhangsand wrecks, thus creating a small overhang in my tank is a must for me. Would I be able to stack the rocks, then have an overhang 2/3rds the way up reaching to the forward glass of my tank, and stack more rock on top of that to keep it stable?
Will the weight of the rocks be enough for this to work, and would I be able to join the rocks with aquascape without drilling?
How much of the available light will this divert from the rocks below, and would I be able to place low light corals beneath it, or would the light be too low? Any ideas of how I can keep the dark side of the slope interesting and teaming with life?
The dead rock I found spent years in someone's tank, and look very good. Is this almost the same as live rock as my lfs guy said?
Well, that is that for now. I am leaving the in depth research of which marine animals to choose for when the tank is cycling, so there is plently of time for that. I would also like to keep it local, i.e. indian ocean, and I want to use my Indian Ocean Marine book to stock it. Local is mos lekker!
Any ideas, advice, whining?
I take it all on the chin
Cobus
..... only issue is its damn pricey as complete structure is made of tonga branch only and for me,seeing the local 1 with softies etc,i think sps does it more justice,also the lfs in fishoek had exact scape FO system filled with beautifull triggers
