I go online and start looking. Don't get me wrong here, I saw some wonderful work and some fantastic tanks but this is most definitely NOT the way I want to go! We want three solid structures, not a mess of PVC and zip ties with a ton of small live rock all over the place. I was looking for more of a base structure with the PVC to just help hold the rocks for me. The cement might be the way to go. However, I know that most cements have some dangerous heavy metals in them which makes them very, very unsafe for the reef! So, I call Chris upstairs and ask him what the people on reef central were talking about. He direct's me to Marco Rocks. They sell a product, E-Marco-400 10 Lb Kit. Of course when I look, it's sold out. Not to mention, I need this stuff now, not later so what to do? What I always do, research...
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| This is a photo I stole from Marco Rocks. This is the product they sell. Right now it's $29.95 for 10 pounds of the dry mix and two bottles of the polymer and apparently the handy dandy red knife :) |
In the meantime Chris is downstairs starting the plumbing for the tank. We have a huge array of pieces of PVC fittings all over the table and I do my best to try to be artistic in my photo's :)
You can at least ooohh and ahh over my artistic photo's okay? I worked very hard on these...I took a bunch actually and I decided to only post these two.
So anyway, Chris is working away...
Ironically, our mail comes and our C.T.A.R.S membership cards come in. We decided to become members again after some time of not being active for a while. My name is Messier on the card :/ For some reason I have only been referred to as a Messier in C.T.A.R.S (I have a name-tag from a huge meeting we went to at the Sun once that says Messier on it too) and Chris says, "Well, you'll probably be a Messier next year anyway." This folks, is the closest I've ever gotten to a proposal in eight years...figures!
I go back upstairs and continue my research and Chris comes up and is holding something in his hand. He explains that he was looking for his pipe thread tape that he thought he misplaced as he was working when he looked over and noticed our dog, Bugsey, had instead found it was eating it for him. As he explained this to me and I was laughing and took a picture, Bugsey came up and grabbed it out of his hand again!
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| Chris explaining what happened to the tape... |
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| Chris scolding Bugsey for once again taking the tape. Notice his ears? He knows he's been bad! lol!! |
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| Busgey looks trapped...the next photo the two of them both look insane but, I figured it would embarrass my love too much so you get this sweet one instead :)
Now I'm back to looking for this damned cement and polymer. There is no way I'm going to find this stuff at any pet store. I've never even heard of it until now and Chris and I have been in the hobby for nearly eight years. It's sold out on this Marco Rocks site so I need to do the next best thing and do what every good reefer does...find the chemical compound of it! Pretty easy stuff too because Marco Rocks lists it as BASF Thorite right on their site! I find another site that calls this stuff Emaco R400 (just a bit off from EMarco) and tells you that it's mixed with Acryl 60. Okay? Sounds good. Now, where in the hell do I find this stuff?
I start with the most logical and easiest to get to from our house. Cheapo and Lowe's which of course are a huge bust! Then Ace and Agway. No luck. Now what?! I remember that we actually know someone who owns a company that sells rocks for architectural purposes so I tell Chris to give him a ring. He tells us to call Jolley Concrete. Hey, not a bad idea! Wrong! These people are friggin' clueless! Now I'm just getting pissed! So, I go to the BASF web site, pull up their MSDS sheets, find out this damned product comes in about seven different names and I tell Chris to call them and find out who they have sold the product to in the state and we'll just go there. After two phone calls we find a place. Unfortunately it's over an hour and ten minutes away but, what the hell! We need this stuff! So, off we went...
Anyone who is into reefing knows that when you talk to someone that isn't into the hobby and your going to use their product for the hobby they are one of two things:
1. Completely disinterested and couldn't give one
damn what the hell your talking about or
2. So interested that it takes nearly an hour to leave
the store that your at because they have to tell
everyone there and or call everyone to tell them
what your doing with the product that your
buying.
This guy was awesome and was number two on the list. Thank goodness he was a good guy because I hate it when they are annoying and you can't leave the store! So, we end up leaving the store with about 50 pounds of dry product and a gallon of the polymer for about $85. The funny thing is, this stuff is completely sold out here in Connecticut. I don't know about the rest of the country but here, this was the only place to get it! We had to opt for a darker color as well because of this too. I'll get to that issue later though...
Later on Chris' brother Nick and his fiancé come over. They were only supposed to stay for a little while but, Nick ended up changing their plans to stay to help Chris finish up the plumbing he started earlier in the day. Sarah and I took the opportunity to talk about wedding stuff which was a nice break from the tank for me. So, another thank you goes out to Nick for the help and to Sarah for giving up her time to hang out at the house instead of going out like she was supposed to! :)
  
Later on that night after everyone was gone, Chris and I decided to try the cement with a few little rocks. We didn't like the color at all and decided that tomorrow we would place sand around anything that we did. However, it holds wonderfully once you figure out how not to slop it all over the place. A little fine tuning and this should go great...should...
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