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Mr. Microscope's Cube 2.1


Mr. Microscope

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Mr. Microscope
Love the drawing the corals on the rock!

 

Okay how do you get your red Yumas so pretty, the frag I got finally melted away last night after putting it right where it should have been happy.

Well, they came pretty nice, but keep them in lower light (well..if you can all it low light, on the farthest end away from my LED's) and also have them in relatively low current. I feed them every day as well.

 

Speaking of the Yumas. Here's a shot and tonight's happenings.

Yuma eating Asterina!

 

I really like the scape you've got going there; mainly because you did decide to put that little extra bit on the bottom. I'm curious though, what did you use to do the drilling? When I setup my pico I drilled some of the rocks and had a lot of issues with them breaking due to the vibration on the dremel. It may have just been the size of my rocks and the bit I was using though.

I used a 3/8" masonry drill bit and an 18 volt drill. I went slow and careful, though I think part of it was luck that I didn't end up cracking any in half. I used fiberglass rod to reinforce the rock pillar.

Edited by Mr. Microscope
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I did all that and they still melted.....

 

Well your yumas are beautiful I think they were burned from the store, they were under MH and not shaded at all.

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Mr. Microscope
I did all that and they still melted.....

 

Well your yumas are beautiful I think they were burned from the store, they were under MH and not shaded at all.

Yumas are temperamental at best, a straight up gamble at worst. I've read if you can keep them happy past acclimation for a few months then you're set, but otherwise they're toast. I also read that if you have them touching rics that they do better for some reason.

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Yumas are temperamental at best, a straight up gamble at worst. I've read if you can keep them happy past acclimation for a few months then you're set, but otherwise they're toast. I also read that if you have them touching rics that they do better for some reason.

 

 

:huh: really..... I was worried the rics would burn them so I placed them off to the side...... LMAO silly me. :rolleyes:

 

Yeah I knew a little about them but once they started to look poopy I really did a huge read on them and found that the reds are even more temperamental then the other yumas so I think I will stick with rics for now. IF I can find a nice Blue mushie I will snag him too.

 

Tank is going to look great!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Mr. Microscope

So, I'm continuing to work on this thing between baby feedings and mostly on the weekends. This weekend I got a considerable amount done and ran into more hurdles.

 

The plumbing is done for the most part. Here's what I've got going above and below, behind the overflow:

plumbing02.jpg

The Herbie is made of 3/4" and the return is 1/2".

 

I have since used some silicone to attach the overflow. I've been testing the seal and having issues. To start out, the seal looks pretty sloppy. It feels pretty solid, but after some research, I learned that there is not really a good way (at least not super permanent) to seal acrylic to glass!

headdesk.jpg

WTF!!! I thought everyone made their overflows out of acrylic! I'm thinking I'll go get some glass cut and seal that in place first. Then, attach the acrylic overflow in front of it.

That also means that I'm likely to have issues with my sump/fuge. I made the patricians out of acrylic for this as well. I think I'll have to redo it. At least the acrylic wasn't expensive.

Delays, delays, delays..

 

The second hurdle I encountered occurred this morning. I decided to put my rock pillar in the tank just to see how it looks. During this process, part of the structure came apart. I'm all out of epoxy and will have to get some more to re-secure the pieces. Though, I'm going use a more standard two part and super glue this time. I think the stuff I used is okay for more solid pieces, but on a small scale doesn't seem to hold up so well.

 

Finally, another thing on the list of projects to check off the list is this shelf:

lightshelf.jpg

 

I rigged this up with a couple of 20" brackets and a 15" x 15" piece of acrylic. As you can see, I haven't taken off the protective coating from the acrylic yet, but I anticipate that it will look pretty clean once I do. I'm going to set my LED build on top. It is centered over the tank about 8" up (I guess that will make it 9" from the surface of the water). I'm thinking that I might want to add some optics to my LED after a while.

 

That's it for now..

digging.gif

Edited by Mr. Microscope
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"It has lots of space for corals. Frag plugs fit perfectly in little holes here."

 

check out these new plugs

they are from a come a company called reeftap.com

 

reeftap-frag-plug-2-300x237.jpg

 

reeftap-frag-plug.jpg

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Mr. Microscope
Dunno if i missed it or not but what type of bottom are you going to have? sand or barebottom?

I'm going to use sand. I have a 30 lb. bag of Tropic Eden Reef Flakes that I ordered it from Premium Aquatics. I friend of mine gave me just a little bit to use when I got a clam, and I was amazed at how remarkably clean it was. It really didn't require any rinsing and didn't cloud up the tank at all. It's not live sand, but I'll be seeding with with the stuff I've had in my frag tank. So, it'll get nicely colonized in no time.

 

BTW, I understand the benefits of BB, but from an aesthetic point of view I just can't swing it. Part of the reason I built a rock pillar is because I really like a lot of open sand.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Mr. Microscope

Update 2012.02.22

 

Almost wet...

 

FTS 2012.02.22

FTS20120222.jpg

 

The plumbing is FINISHED! I'm in the midst of water test number two. I've put together and taken this thing apart enough times now that I could do it in my sleep.

 

The first water test was moderately successful, in that I noticed leaks and knew I could fix them. There was a small leak at a joint of the overflow, and also in some of the plumbing. I added another layer of silicone (clear this time, I accidentally bought white the first time, D'oh!) to the overflow and used teflon tape on the threaded joints. Additionally, I came across a silicone fusing tape at the hardware store when I was picking up the teflon tape. It was only $10, so I figured WTH. It was very easy to use and sticks to itself. 'Might not be necessary, but it's a little added insurance the helps me sleep at night. It's the red stuff:

Plumbing20120222.jpg

 

Here's a crappy pic of the sump/fuge...poor lighting + iPhone = :(

sumpandfuge20120222.jpg

You can see the basic layout that I sloppily siliconed in place (pfft! whatever..). Everything in there is acrylic. It should be glass, but I'm getting really tired of all this. So, I just went for it. This is the 7 gallon Mr. Aqua cube. It's a pretty low volume of water for the sump, but was really all that would fit in my stand. I'm considering to replace the whole thing down the road with a larger custom acrylic setup from glasscages.com.

 

I T-ed off the return pump and am using a ball valve to go into the fuge. I'll close it off for the most part to have a reduced flow. Also, in the fuge is a small drain at the bottom that leads to the return area. This essentially turns the whole fuge into a water supply for the return in case I have excess evaporation.

 

One thing I noticed during the first water test is that my pump was a bit loud. I'm not sure if maybe there was air in there or what, but if that keeps up, I'll have to replace it. Right now I have a Maxijet 900 in there. Verdict pending..

 

This morning, I put water in just the overflow to test the seal again (water level is above the lower pipe (gate valve checks out!)). You can see I had some glass cut and siliconed the acrylic overflow in front of it. So far, so good. If I don't see any leaks when I get home I'll do another complete water test of the whole setup. If that checks out till the end of the week, I'll be making about 30 gallons of RO/DI and get everything going.

overflowtest20120222.jpg

 

Wish me luck!

Edited by Mr. Microscope
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Mr. Microscope

Thanks JapyPagi!

 

@mattclark82: I used some buttons that I found on digikey but they're not an exact fit. So, they're literally superglued on top of the typhon buttons. I like your idea of the leads.

I just checked out your build BTW. Very nice!

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Mr. Microscope
I only razz about it because I want to fully appreciate your build.

 

B)

No worries. :) I can take it. There will be much more and higher quality images to come. Any requests in the mean time? Questions about the build?

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Madness, I think I need to start another tank.

How hard was it to make a sump? I was thinking about trying to build one for my next aquarium.

Edited by pj86
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No worries. :) I can take it. There will be much more and higher quality images to come. Any requests in the mean time? Questions about the build?

Are you still incorporating those fiberglass rods?

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