Aquascaping...it's my thing ;)

     So, I'm engaged now! I've also recently lost about ninety pounds (remember those Atkins bars and shakes?) so, I'm feeling pretty damned good too. Life is good! Now, it's time to put on another demonstration!

     I hate getting these things ready and feeling as though I'm going to bore the audience. As I'm putting together the powerpoint, which only needed tweeked from my last one, I kept running over certain areas trying to make them more interesting...nope! Sometimes it's just boring shit. I guess it's all in the demonstration which everyone always raves about afterwards however, putting these things together makes me want to drink Maalox for a week.

     Emarco Rocks apparently heard about our presentation and decided to donate rock if we named him as the sponsor of the meeting. I had told Rich I was up in the air about this as we were teaching people how to use a more economical approach with the emaco concrete (which is the same thing...you should know this if you've read my other posts) but, if he wanted to accept the donations, it was his club, his choice. He did.

     I tweeked the presentation a little more to not so much deter people away from our meeting sponsor but, it still gave money comparisons at the end for the two concretes.

     Day of....Rich introduced us to the small crowd of people that gathered in the Providence area they have selected to have their monthly meetings. Despite all the advertising, there was only one or two newcomers to this presentation. OSRAS is having a hard time getting people to come aboard...

     Then I start the presentation (I look suuuuper smart here right?)

     While Chris builds small structures to raffle off at the end of the presentation. 

     Rich shows off his piece to the crowd in order to not only show off my masterpiece and what he will be putting in his tank at home but, to show everyone how well the concrete holds once cured.

     Chris also shows everyone one of his favorite tricks. Placing epoxy into the tank to put in a large colony and then propping it up with sticks (we use skewers) overnight while it cures. We wanted to show this to people at the CTARS presentation as well but, Ego never gave us the chance. 

This Photo Courtesy of Rich Hogan

     A look at the structures after they were built...and yet another clueless look on my face. Can't anyone snap a photo of my looking intellectual? 

This Photo Courtesy of Rich Hogan

     I always ask people to send me photo's of their structures later on down the road so I can see how they are doing and possibly use them in later demo's. I can't remember who won these structures so, I can't ask or look for their tank photo's anywhere. However, on a search I did happen to find Rich's. He built the rest of his in his tank with the remaining concrete and the one we made for him is over on the right hand side. Rich has never been able to keep a tank very well. Chris was helping him for a while (more on that later) and with these photo's it goes to show that he still needs some major areas of improvement on his tank knowledge and care. 

Photo found on OSRAS.com

Photo found on OSRAS.com

     Someone even posted a message that he had some corals ready for fragging. Huh?!!

     *Sigh* Anyway, until next time, smart reefing & happy aquascaping!! 





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The search for cement...

     It's Thursday morning, and bright eyed and bushy tailed is far from what we are. This damned tank build and switch over has us tired and I'm just downright bitchy (more than usual anyway). We have been discussing since the decision to put the tank in how we are going to do the rock-work in the new tank. This is my specialty and actually something I really enjoy and look forward to. Chris wants three main pieces this time and I'm thinking that PVC may be the way to go to accomplish this. He tells me that some folks on Reef Central directed him to look up some sort of cement but to look up the PVC first and see if I get any good idea's.

     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...

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! 

Chris explaining what happened to the tape...

Chris scolding Bugsey for once again taking the tape. Notice his ears? He knows he's been bad! lol!!

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...