tinyreef: Yeah, I just want to line the bottom of the tank because I will be going bare bottom. IMO, eggcrates look ugly. I know several people lined their tank with starboard, which is same thing as cutting board, on a bare bottom tank and worked great. I wanted to originally try to cut it to fit, but this one seems to fit pretty well. We'll see what I will ultimatly do.

Rick J G: LOL I actually like that show alot. Although, I like American Chopper better!

gman0526: I actually thought of plugging the hole on the board but I am not sure if I really need to do that!

MadTownMax: I am defunatly interested especially if he has lots of sps and cool zoos. Let me know!

who's that?

I was kidding by the way (if you see some of my posts on RC I say that alot... thats all)

Maxvan1 - Yea, just kidding too.
We like Zonies (people of the Arizona persuasion) ‘round here.
They come & spend their money here all summer then head home for the winter.

Oogie - Sorry to hijack your thread

Here are couple shots of sump I will be using.
And yes, with sump, it will definatly be under 12G of water!

Its very basic design.


Shot of sump w/ gravity fed auto topoff unit!

Here is pic of first coat of paint done. Since I am getting way delayed in starting the tank, I might just leave it as is but we shall see.

Very sweet! Good job oogs!

NICE, i think it could still use a few mre coats of paint

Nice shirt.

I painted couple more coats to my hood.

Here are some pics of finished hood.





Thanks for looking!

SWEET, that's awsome how you bondoed the hle thing, sanded it down, and made it look perrrrty lol. nice work, can't wait to see the final product

Cool!

Excellent start Oogie. Love the progression.

Bob

Here are shots with 80mm fans installed. I decided to go with led fans so that they can act as moonlights also! I can't reproduce the effects with camera but fan blade spinning makes nice shimmering effect for the moonlights!







Thanks!

Wow, that is nnniiiiccccee~ i begrudge your DIY skills.

WOW, that's awsome Oogie. I think you are the leader of the "Open" Cattagory

bare-bottom... Booooooo.

Wow... this is out of control, really good work.

I see you just ground out the hole with the dremel... what bit did you use for the inital hole? Does that make sense?

I've had trouble with small cracks coming out of the inital hole, so I normally penetrate the tank in the middle of my hole, then grind out...

haha... looking really nice. Good work.

talk about bling bling... all that light for a measly little 6 gallons! you're going all out on this competition

good stuff w/the hood mod, i wonder if anyone else can catch up

ojyarumaru, Travis, Uchina: Thanks for your comments!

Stanley: For circle, I do start in the middle then work my way out. For squares, I just use cutting wheels then sand it smooth. I use re-enforced cutting wheels and I use those little sanders for grinding. Works great on plastic.

Thanks!

Hey Oogie, any chance we can see the underside of the hood? Just curious how the light mod looks under all that... Can you get to it from above or is the hood all one piece now and only accessable from under it.

hey oogie, its looking great.

i do have a small suggestion though, you need to chromepaint the pvc pipes at the back for the real monster tank look

Love this cube!!

Maybe a fan installed in the feeder hood blowing in for flow-through ventilation. A case fan w/leds in the feeder hood would add even more of the moon-light effect and also be functional for temp reduction, think you're gonna need it!! I've got 2-80's & 2-60's in my hood with a feeder vent. Want to install a fan there but haven't gotten a-round-tuit. Living vicariously through yours as I hope mine breaks...(posted elsewhere).

calvin415: Here is shot of under the hood. I am not done smoothing out edges but this is what I got so far. I used 1/2 CPVC pipes to hide all the wiring.



brianemone: I love chrome! But those pipes will be hidden under the hood!

trumph: Thanks for that suggestion. I have 2 80mm fan blowing in and two 40mm fans in the MH ecloser blowing out. I had MH on for about 11 hours today and i did not burn my house down! So far it seems like a success!

spray that pvc black!

my suggestion is to take out the pvc. they're for like for protection rite? so water doesn't affect the wires?. try heat shrink tubes. it'll look sleeker and give you more room to do god knows wat. 2 more 13 watts PC?? haha keep up the good work. you can get heat shrink tubes at radio shack btw.

alexbush: Well, you can't see it when hood is closed!

CARPUS: I actually have lots of them but, i didn't want it to melt under the hot MH lighting!

Great cube oogie.

I actually have to agree with chroming the exposed pipes connected to your SCWD in the back. That would be very monster garage. I would have to sit in front of my computer and applaud for a good hour.

I hope the metal halide works out from a heat perspective. It's a big step forward for nano cube mods if it does. I've been googling and haven't found anybody else who has tried it yet. You're pushing the envelope .

Thanks fot your comments.

Here is pic of MH running for past 12 hours. Seems like nothing is melting yet! Splash guard is bit worm but not hot at all!

No need to post pics. I can see it from here. I thought we'd gotten a second sun for a minute.

Snoogie: Take a picture of that vent action you got going on.

NICE OOGIE!!!

nice nice. you should start ur own business and mod people's NC for them. like nanocustoms. partner up and rule the nanocube world

yeah i would totally shell out for that hood

Thanks eveyone for kind words.

No I am doing this for a fun and quite honestly, my skill isn't good enough to sell it to someone else!

Anyways, I finally started to plumbing for this tank.

Here is some pics of plumbing being started!

NICE OOGIE!!!!

nice ''master oogie''

oh god. your lighting is just..MAGNIFICENT! the led fans are an awesome touch. i might look into that

Thanks for kind words!

I finally added some freshwater for testing. It has been running for about 10 hours and no leaks! YAY!

Here is pic of whole setup.


Here is close up of sump including gravity fed auto top-off system.

ill buy it! heheh its very good to sell!

Are you SURE you haven't exceeded the 12-gallon minimum very nice!

oogie,
What's a gravity-fed auto top-off?
I know what those words mean, I just don't understand when/how it transfers the top-off water into the system.
Sorry if it's a stupid question, just never heard of it before you mentioned it...

embryoguy: Thanks for that comment!

InuYasha: I wanted to make sure I so I used 1 gallon kug to measure. Right now there is 11 gallon in the sytem without the rocks and other things in the tank!

artamon42: Gravity auto topoff is basically a air tight box containing top off water. Then its plumbed so that end of the pvc is at the waterline. When water evaporates, tip of pvc will be exposed to air since waterline will fall below it. Then air will enter the topoff box. Since box is air tight, in order for air to enter, it needs to release exact same amount of water as air entering, and it will do that until pvc tip goes under water.
Hmm, does that make sense to you?

Yup, makes perfect sense.
As always, thanks for the education oogie!

Any reason why people don't use that more often? Would seem to be much more cost effective than float-switch electronic/electrical ATOs.

Doesn't that type of topoff require the freshwater in your reservoir to touch the saltwater in the sump? If so, won't osmosis cause the salt to creep it's way into the topoff water?

Also, wouldn't you have to wait until the topoff is completely empty to refill it? As soon as you open the top, it'll all dump into the sump right?

Maybe I'm not understanding how it works.

artmon42: I decided to use this type because I didn't want to add another powerhead. Matter of fact, I don't have any PH in the water with this setup, just one big 480 GPH external pump. I am testing it now, and it seems to work just fine.

Upright Joe: I have used this before and it didn't seem like topoff was turning to saltwater but, its good thing to find out. Thanks for that idea. Also, you can refill anytime. I have attached ball valve so I can just close it, take the box, fill it, then use it again.

Gotcha on the ball valve - makes sense now. I would definitely set it up with saltwater in the sump and freshwater in the reservoir and check the salinity of each after a day or so. I'm curious as to what happens.

It's been tried before with the same idea revolving around those automatic refilling waterbowls for dogs and cats. The specific gravity of the water in each container would eventually equalize. Thus, the idea was scrapped because it didn't work.

Let us know if you've found a way to get around it, oogie.

hey for the top off, would that work if you had two lines in the air tight container one for the air and one for the water? put the one for the air out the top of the container an the one for the water like you have it (out the bott) but don't put the "water" one into the SW keep it above the water line in the sump...just a idea not sure if it would work...and I hope that makes sense to you..

I get what you're saying - seems like it could work to me providing the diameter of the feed line was small enough that air couldn't get up it and let the water dump right out. Then again, it might not work because line that supplies the air might suck up a bunch of water dumping part of the reservoir and locking the system up. Ug, head hurts thinking about it.

What about having the feed tube end above the water line then capping it with some sort of a hinged flap or valve connected to a float. As the water rises, the float could mechanically cut off the feed.

I thinkn you may be right about the air line suckin up the water did'nt think about that...sorry oogie for takin up space in your thread...I was just tryin to help..LOL

Some thoughts on the topoff system and its effect on salinity...

The tank system is 12 gallons. The topoff is 3/4 gallons.

The concern is that salt will be drawn from the tank system into the topoff water, dropping the salinity of the system.

Starting with the worst case scenario, if a full reservior of .75 gallons was instantly, completely mixed with the tank water, the tank system salinity would drop by 2.1 points (i.e. from 35ppm to ~33ppm, or 1.026 to 1.024).

But, that much of a swing is unlikely to occur. The topoff water that will contain the most salt will be at the bottom of the PVC pipe, where the mixing would occur. That same water is what will be dosed to the system as evaporation occurs, so, salt that enters the PVC pipe will keep getting dumped out.

Another factor is that saltwater is heavier than freshwater, which discourages mixing somewhat. Any Black and Tan fans?

Part of the effect is dependent on evaporation rate. The faster the water evaporates, the less chance the salt has to mix with the fresh topoff water.

Something a little more realistic than the worst case would be complete equalization of salinity when the topoff was half empty (half full for you happy people). That would give you 1 ppt of swing, which isn't much, and I think even that would be a stretch.

There's my 2 cents, only the swing arm will know for sure.