Ray: LOL, I've never seen a stargazer, but they are neat fish. I have caught toadfish, ugly but cool and efficient predators. Unfortunately, they eat anything that will fit in that gaping ugly mouth, and won't get near my blennies! It's funny that it was in a boot. You can bet that I'll be checking bottles and stuff like that for clingfish, blennies and gobies!
I'm sure that when I finally get the tank cycled and go collecting, I will be just like a kid out there! I am still sore from shoveling snow, and lost a day of working on my tank because of it
Scuba, thanks! Hopefully when this is done it's worth the wait. When it's stocked, I'll post videos and pics for sure.
Update:
48 hours passed and I pulled my DIY rock with the PVC frames out for a look. As of now, they're sitting on the side of my stand until I get home from work, and then I'll soak them for 6-8 weeks. Man, they are heavy, like a concrete block (duh)
I have one more to make. I made the first two without salt, so I think that I'll try using salt this time in the mix to make the rocks a little lighter. If I like how those turn out, then I'll make new frames and redo the other ones.
Overall, I'm happy with how they turned out. The weight issue is probably no big deal since folks put hundreds of pounds of rocks in their tanks and sumps. Most people making DIY rock don't pat it down like I did so they get that texture. For me, it doesn't matter because most of what you see on the bases will be covered by oysters/foam. This way, I get the shape that I want. I was going to create a mold, but as it turns out that wasn't necessary.
After soaking them, the next step will be to use the pond foam to attach oysters around the base to fill in those gaps and make the oyster reef complete to the sand bed (which will be 2-3").
Showing the new bases:
One thing that I liked was the flat bottom, no chance of my reef collapsing. I may put egg crate under them to evenly distribute the weight. What do y'all think?
