Tim's 7.5 Gallon Cube

[timothymarsh]

After moving into a house for my senior year I figured that I might as well set up a new tank to celebrate. I bought a Deep Blue 7.5 gallon cube, stand, light, and temp probe on craigslist for $65. Went ahead and painted the back black, and ordered the rest of my hardware from Dr. Fosters and Smith. So far I've got just over $100 put into a very promising little tank for my bedroom.

 

System goal: Heavy emphasis on high end pieces that will stand out against the black background and black substrate. Design will center on a central Neon Green Torch with several small clusters of high end zoas at the base and possibly one rainbow acan next to the zoas.

Filtration: 50% weekly or biweekly water changes. HOB Finnex fuge with some cheato and substrate. One Koralia Pico pump for water movement.

Lighting: Either stock 18w LED fixture (unknown brand) or a PAR38 LED 20k lamp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Spiderguardnano]

Awesome check out my build I have a huge green torch as my center piece maybe you can get some ideas

[timothymarsh]

Your tank is awesome! I can't believe I didn't find it when I was looking around at other 7.5 gallon cubes. I'm planning on going with less base rock in order to make the tank look as open as possible. Great job though, thanks for sharing

[Spiderguardnano]

That's one of my regrets is using to much rock if you look up AlexB wife's tank it looks amazing with little to no rock

[timothymarsh]

Yeah I thought about going BB on this system but I didn't really like the look of it when I went BB in my 15 gallon. The black back and black sand are both new experiences for me so we'll see what happens, I might end up hating it lol.

[Dylan.N]

just put eels in it. lets do it.

[timothymarsh]

not having it

 

[timothymarsh]

Shipment comes in tomorrow. Getting the sand, pump and glass cleaner. Base rock is going to come from my 15 gallon tank. Cycle officially starts tomorrow...

 

[timothymarsh]

So UPS arrived with the package today and what do you know, it was totally crushed. Like any good UPS driver would do, the man asked me if I thought the contents were still okay as black gravel and water seep out from one end of the box. (The Koralia box was totally crushed and the nano mag was completely missing) Long story short I returned the box to Dr. Fosters and they are shipping out a new order today. I'm not too worried about it since there is no charge to me, but it does suck that the cycle gets pushed back another 5-9 days.

 

In other news: I'm currently working on setting up the finnex HOB fuge that has made two prior appearances on my 15 gallon tank. I'm using a different pump setup this time, I'll post some pictures once its completed.

[Dylan.N]

This is why we can't have nice things.

[timothymarsh]

Added a torch and zoo rock from my 15 gallon system. Fuge is set up and running (still need to paint the intake line black). Taking some pictures now

[timothymarsh]

 

 

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Very nice any new updates?

 

Check out the 7.5g I had.

[reefernanoman]

Good start. Good luck. I agree about not adding too much LR at the beginning, since when you start adding corals, some of them come with their own LR.

[timothymarsh]

Started the system up again with regular white sand after a couple months of dealing with the "Black" Caribsea mix. 1 week into what I think will be a very short cycle. Here's some general pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Looks great. Following along

[ImNew:]]

Another cube ! I Also started with a Aqua Clear and Par38, i found that 10-12 inch off the water allowed for good growth. Cant wait to see what you have instore sir

[timothymarsh]

[timothymarsh]

Please be advised that all future updates for this system can be found here:

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/369488-the-merge-12-gallon-mr-aqua/