SteveDola
Good Tings
Im starting a new build for a Red Sea Reefer 250 I bought and wanted to attempt the NSA aquascape that I think most have seen on BRS_TV and other hobbyist YouTube channels. It appears to be inspired by the Asian bonsai reef concepts that many amazing reefs employ abroad.
I started by cutting out a piece of cardboard the same size as the interior of the tank. The sides were marked out with duct tape to give a clearance of about 2" from the glass for water flow and glass cleaning. I purchased 2 pieces of base marco rock that has the flat cut bottom and then about 15 lbs of std Marco dry rock. Purchased a bottle of ultra thin super glue from glue masters, a stick of 2pt epoxy and a couple smaller tubes of BSI thick super glue. After the supplies, I drafted a basic mark up of my intentions with the aquascape on paper.
I broke up the standard Marco with a chisel and hammer and then started positioning the pieces back together trying to keep the scape open and provide shelving for frags. When you break the rock apart, there will be dust and small particles, that you can use to combine with the glue and rejoin the rock together in the arrangement you want. Also, kept in mind the height of the scape to allow for vertical growth. I want to eventually have corals filling the void of the upper tank, rather than rock.
The gluing of the rock isnt hard but takes some patience. You can always start over by breaking off the glued rock and repositioning for re-glue. The best method I found was to place some of the thin super glue to the rocks to be jointed and then pour in the powder from the rock into the joint and then reapply some thin glue and dust with powder. During this build I ended up running out of the rock powder and had to buy some very fine sand to finish the build. Otherwise , I would be grinding rock to get the powder and that wouldn't be fun. I wish Marco sold the rock dust in bags so I could avoid this issue but the fine sand worked well enough. The rock powder is definitely better but the decision to use the sand was time and mental saving.
After the rocks are glued together I would flip the structure over and then apply 2part epoxy in the open joints to reinforce their bonds and hopefully make this structure more solid. I feel like I achieved what I intended when I set out on this project. Take a look at the photos and videos and tell me what you think. Thank you!
I started by cutting out a piece of cardboard the same size as the interior of the tank. The sides were marked out with duct tape to give a clearance of about 2" from the glass for water flow and glass cleaning. I purchased 2 pieces of base marco rock that has the flat cut bottom and then about 15 lbs of std Marco dry rock. Purchased a bottle of ultra thin super glue from glue masters, a stick of 2pt epoxy and a couple smaller tubes of BSI thick super glue. After the supplies, I drafted a basic mark up of my intentions with the aquascape on paper.
I broke up the standard Marco with a chisel and hammer and then started positioning the pieces back together trying to keep the scape open and provide shelving for frags. When you break the rock apart, there will be dust and small particles, that you can use to combine with the glue and rejoin the rock together in the arrangement you want. Also, kept in mind the height of the scape to allow for vertical growth. I want to eventually have corals filling the void of the upper tank, rather than rock.
The gluing of the rock isnt hard but takes some patience. You can always start over by breaking off the glued rock and repositioning for re-glue. The best method I found was to place some of the thin super glue to the rocks to be jointed and then pour in the powder from the rock into the joint and then reapply some thin glue and dust with powder. During this build I ended up running out of the rock powder and had to buy some very fine sand to finish the build. Otherwise , I would be grinding rock to get the powder and that wouldn't be fun. I wish Marco sold the rock dust in bags so I could avoid this issue but the fine sand worked well enough. The rock powder is definitely better but the decision to use the sand was time and mental saving.
After the rocks are glued together I would flip the structure over and then apply 2part epoxy in the open joints to reinforce their bonds and hopefully make this structure more solid. I feel like I achieved what I intended when I set out on this project. Take a look at the photos and videos and tell me what you think. Thank you!
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