My 24" x 25" shallow cube

[xlzerolx]

Current FTS:

 

Cube is made from Starfire. Was drilled at the bottom but had to patch it up. I added a acrylic corner over flow siliconed into place. Behind the over flow sits a maxijet pump, pumping water into the aquafuge as well as the float switch for the auto top off.

Contents of my 10 and 20 gallon were transferred over. Tank has been up for 2 weeks.

Filtration:
-Aquafuge HOB (medium)
-bubble magus nac 3.5 modified to fit inside aquafuge
-2 innovative marine desktop reactors (best purchase ever!). One is holding a small amount (15ml) of biopellets to start, and the other has seachems phosguard.
-carbon is run in bag in the last chamber

Lighting
-Kessil a 360we.
I was originally going to go dig with 2 nanobox led chips. However I ran into problems with making it look tidy. I decided to go with the kessil 360w. And I am glad I did. It lacks control. But it is still a great light

Controller
-Reefkeeper lupe
I have been using this for years. And I am not liking it when it comes to setting timers for the peristaltic pumps.

Dosing
- 2 Cole Parker pumps. One with 2 heads and the other with one easy like load head. They are not being used right now so I still have to set it up

Pics to come in a bit

[Arkayology]

Interesting dims.

[xlzerolx]

Interesting dims.

They are! And I got it for a steal! Was built by a local aquarium business for someone who decided not to use it in the end. I wanted to keep my 20 gallon going but then this came along. Can't beat a 1/4" thick 4 sided rimless starfire for $150!

 

So here is the current FTS. All of the sps lost colour in the other tanks due to neglect while I got this one set up, coupled with me not rinsing hydrogen peroxide cleaned filter sock before putting it into the old 20 gallon tank, most of the corals weren't doing to well. The yellow fiji leather is in rough shape but I am hoping that it will recover in the new tank.

 

When I first set up the aquafuge it started leaking at the outlet bottom. I now have shimmed the two triangle pieces up and the slow leak as stopped. I guess there was too much pressure on the outlet? weird because it was totally level.

 

Tank has been up and running for a little over a week now. Nothing beats the clean look of a brand new tank huh? That is until the algae takes hold?

 

Current FTS

 

 

 

 

I made the NAC 3.5 skimmer fit by sawing off some of the edges on the white plastic that frames the pump. It jusssst fit into the Aquafuge. I have the skimmer on a ziptied eggcrate "skimmer stand" to keep it at the correct water level. Here is a shot of it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here a picture of what is behind the over flow section showing the MJ pump and the ATO float switch. The biopellets can also be seen in the IM reactor. It is placed just before the skimmer:

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a top down view showing the. Kessil and the rest of the setup

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the view of the tank from the couch . Stand is a DIY from 2x4s

 

 

 

 

If anyone is wondering what those white blocks are, they are cermedias marinepure ceramic block and plates. I had them cycling in a 5 gallon bucket for 1 month. I dosed pure household ammonia and seeded it with zeovit bacteria and a prodibio vial. I didn't bother testing for a cycle for it. I figured it would be ok since I already had live rocks I was adding from my other tanks.

 

I need to find a better solution for a ATO pump... the aqualifter is struggling to pump fresh RO water to the tank.

[xlzerolx]

Still dialing in my kalk dosage. I think I have it close. so far it's 3ml every hour (72mls/day). The kalk mixture is 3tsp kalk mixed with 50 mls of vinegar and 1 gallon of RO water. I am looking forward to the sps colouring up when alk stability is reached. When I first checked my alk 2 weeks ago it was at 6.4 dKH (yikes!). This was from not doing regular water changes in the "holding tanks" till I got this one set up. right now I have the Alk at 7.4 dKH

Also about a week ago added 20 mls more of biopellets to bring the total to 50ml, Still well below the recommended for my tank size. Still no sign of cyano *crosses fingers*. Nitrates are below 1 ppm ( can't remember the exact #) and phosphates are reading 0... Debating on whether to take the phosguard offline, leave it in for a few weeks, let it get exhausted and have the phosphates climb up slowly. For now I'm leaving it in so it exhausts itself. If PO4 starts creeping up I'll replace it.

[xlzerolx]

Looks like things are starting to colour up

Here's a shot of the ponape birds nest that had browned out. It's getting some bright green and the green birdsnest polyps seem to be more shimmery than before.

 

 

 

And when things are going good they go bad... my skimmer has sprung a leak. Is this worth fixing with weld-on or should I just get a new one? It's splitting at the cone seam.. It's a bubble magus NAC3.5

 

[farkwar]

Its easily fixed with weldon 16. Weldon 40 is the really thick stuff, but you have to buy it in a pint can ($40).

 

Weldon 16 is just a little thinner than old fashion model glue, it will run if you put too much. I use a syringe and large guage needle, suck some weldon in, then carefully apply. Cant actually see the care yet with my own acrylic jobs...

 

 

 

Anyway, that said, that Nac is already an eyesore. I would skip Starbucks and fastfood for a couple weeks and get a nice low profile hang on back skimmer, myself.

 

Its a nice tank, and when it takes off I think it would look better without equipment being the main focus or the first thing seen.

 

I would also,,,

Get a couple feet of black TechFlex 3/4" and trim the Kessil cable through it with the gooseneck. Still looks kinda industrial, but clean industrial. I would put doors on the stand as well.

[xlzerolx]

I already have the weldon 40 somewhere in a small tube so i think I might give that a try. Thanks for the info.

 

Hah! I don't drink starbucks pr eat fast food ... but I do have a $500 speeding ticket to pay this month . I used to have a pls-50 and it was such a touchy skimmer that I got rid of it. But I am deciding to give CADlights another chance and I was also looking at the pls-50 elite as a replacement down the line. Willing to give this one a try once reviews are in.

 

I will see if I can find techflex or something similar locally.

[xlzerolx]

Just purchased this HOB skimmer:

 

 

:

 

 

 

Should be here in 2 weeks. Going to get rid of the aquafuge. The thing has been slow dripping at the outlet. I propped it up on the two triangle pieces and the drip has slowed. Wedged a paper towel in there to absorb whatever else drips.

 

Plan is to have the intake in the over flow corner and place the innovative maring reactor biopellets in there too. I'm hoping that I can somehow fit my heater inside the skimmer body.

[xlzerolx]

Skimmer is a beast. JNS/aquamaxx make great skimmers! after about a2 weeks break in period, 3 days worth of skimmate

 

 

 

Now using T5s only. Will add a nanobox led board in between the 2 when I get time to figure out how to make it look good as a DIY

 

 

Also broke up the huge square marinpur bloc into quarters and did some rearranging of the aquascape. I think it looks much better than before, more open.

 

 

Corals are still quite pale though, So I'm increasing feeding, dosing zeovit AAs and considering getting another fish. Was thinking a canary blenny and a hybrid neon goby (both ORA). Was really interested in the Randalls assesor but then I read that they hardly ever come out.

 

 

4 of the sps frags I had were in my old 20 gallon which suffered from peroxide burns. I used to clean my filter socks with peroxide and rinse them out. One day I skipped the rinsing part and plopped it in the sump (totally forgot to rinse it), Everythign closed up. The 4 sps I have are just not colouring up since then and seem to be getting paler and paler. polyps are out but there is almost no colour to them. I am keeping them just in case they recover, although it might be wishful thinking at this point.

[xlzerolx]

Things are doing good. Key to SPS stable alk! going to hook up my cole parmer pump soon for dosing alk

 

New additions and FTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a FTS

 

[xlzerolx]

So made a few changes.

 

firstly all the LPS were moved to a newly set up 20 gallon long.

 

 

Noticed that the Sps were losing colour and becoming paler. I attribute this to too much light.

So I added a double eggcrate screen. ( unfortunately I can't move my fixtures up or down as they are attached to legs.

 

 

Replaced the Alkalinity doser with this and the diital aquatics controlling the on/off time:

 

Tank photos starting with an FTS

 

 

Finally got my hands on a red planet... although when I purchased it, it was and still is a "brown planet"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pics are crappy unfortunately because all I have is my tablet to take the pics. I tried adjusting the contrast to get the colours closer to what they are but it just made it look worse

[ABC]

Keeps us posted on how well your corals do, and if they color up.

[xlzerolx]

So since blocking off some light there has been an explosion of coralline algae on the floor of the tank.

Colours are alos definately improving. I seem to be having problems with pink as my pink birds nest and pink milli aren't pink at all. The milli went through a peroxide bleaching incident in my old tank and was almost completely white. I'm glad it got it's colour back but it's a little too much colour to the point that it almost looks borwn.

 

Here are the pics showing the corralline explosion:

RIGHT SIDE

 

 

LEFT SIDE

 

 

Photos are unedited and taken with my nexus 7. Colours are slightly off.

 

I was getting slow coralline before blocking off some of the light but it was bleaching and turning white.

 

I am now also feeding frozen food (pacific plankton) and flake. Also looking for a 4th fish candidate Had to banish my blue and yellow damsel to the lps only. He was picking on my sixline who I found in the overflow one morning.

It's amazing how aggressive the blue damsels can be.

[xlzerolx]

I have decided to switch over to metal halides and try it out. I have a on order a cayman sun pendant (150W), a luxcore ballast and a 150W radium bulb. Any idea how high this should be hung over a 12" deep tank?

[xlzerolx]

[xlzerolx]

 

New frags and a top down shot

[xlzerolx]

Have a 2 gyre setup (aka Jedimasterbens setup).

 

This is just set up so there is a LOT of detritus getting blown around. The MP10 in the video is turned off.