18" cube - A write up on how and why I set up my tank.

[jemram]

I’ve been asked by a couple of people on different forums to do a write up on how my tank was built and how it works, so I thought I should set a little time aside to do just that.

 

 

 

I kept tropicals from about the age of nine, but switched to keeping marines about ten years ago when I was eighteen. For one reason or another, moving home, getting married etc, I’ve not kept marines for the last four or five years. That was until early September 2006 when we bought a CD cabinet to hold a pile of around one hundred CD’s stacked up against the wall. It was the typical cheap flat pack CD cabinet, around two foot long and eighteen inches high with doors on the front. I built up and put in out living room. My wife then said, “That needs something sitting on it.” I didn’t think of anything straight away, but a couple of hours later I suggested putting a two-foot fish tank on it, as it seemed strong enough.

 

 

 

We went down to out local aquatics shop but didn’t see anything that caught our eye, so came home empty handed. I then looked around online and found a href="."/">www.nano-reef.com, which I had a good read through most of that evening. I saw the NanoCube12 and liked the idea of putting one on the CD cabinet. However in my browsing I came across a tank put together by a guy in Canada called Chad, going by the name of ‘Fish’ on the forum. His tank was a simple 12x12x12 inch cube with two bulkheads passing through the bottom of the tank to connect an Eheim external canister filter. What struck me most was the very clean minimalist look and the simplicity with so little equipment being used. I also loved the idea of having no visible equipment inside the tank and still being able to see round all four sides. The more I thought about it the more I liked it and started to think about putting a larger version in the middle of the living room. So much for a fish tank on the CD cabinet!

 

 

 

Here’s a picture of Fish’s tank:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next week or so saw me thinking through how best to equip a larger version of Chad’s tank. Clearly I would need more flow than a Eheim external filter could provide so a Eheim external pump was the logical choice, the only question was just how much flow could I run without a column of water shooting up into the air. Following many personal messages to Chad, and a thread running on a href="."/">www.nano-reef.com I decided on an Eheim 1262 with an output of 3400 litres per hour. I settled on this design using 25mm PVC pipe for all the fittings, with hose tails and 25mm hose to connect the pump and lesson any vibrations. I also added a 12mm ‘spur’ to allow me to use a Hydor external heater. There is also a ball valve just below each bulkhead to allow me to shut off the whole closed loop for maintenance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also designed the cabinet to be built from 25mm MDF board.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then contacted Paul at www.fitfiltration.co.uk up in Rotherham for a quote to build an 18x18x18 cube with no brace bars, two holes for 25mm bulkheads all the PVC fittings and pipe. Once he replied I arranged to go up and see him to discuss exactly what I wanted. My wife Louise and I went to see Paul on the 18th September, discussed different ideas. Paul was really helpful and really thought about how the tank will work and any way to improve on the design. He did suggest adding an central weir to allow me to run a sump, but it was decided a weir would take up too much room in the tank and spoil the over all look. In the end we settled on my original design. Just four days later the tank was ready to pickup.

 

 

 

Once I got the tank home I ordered the pump, heater and the Arcadia 150W 14,000k metal halide pendant. I also set about building the cabinet. I had all the pieces of MDF cut to size so all I had to do was screw it together and paint it. I was going to spray it silver, but found silver spray paint just soaked into the MDF leaving an awful finish (I have since read that painting MDF with emulsion seals the MDF stopping paint soaking in). I the end I painted the cabinet with black gloss, but I may change this at some point as I’m not that happy with the finish.

 

 

 

Once the pump, heater and light arrived I set about putting the whole lot together. The tank was placed on a 4mm bed of polystyrene sheet and then all the plumbing was cut and solvent welded into place. Once the solvent was dry I fitted the pump and test filled the tank with tap water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once I was happy there were no leaks I drained the tank down, added the heater and started to fill with RO water. I then added the salt and left the tank running over night. I also installed the metal halide pendant hanging from the ceiling and a timer switch to replace the normal light switch on the wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day Louise and I drove down to STM in Sevenoakes to buy the live rock. The live rock was in my tank less than two hours after leaving STM, so I was hopeful of a quick cycle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was a simple case of waiting and testing for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. My ammonia spike lasted just one day and the nitrite was gone two days later. I left it another three of four days with not more ammonia or nitrite so I did a 50% water change and added the first livestock.

 

I probably went too fast with the initial stocking adding my clean up crew, four fish and about six LPS corals just one week after the live rock had been added. Fortunately everything settled in very quickly and I didn’t have any trace of ammonia of nitrite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the next few weeks everything was doing well and growing. I wasn’t having undue problems with algae either. One thing I was having problems with was keeping the temperature down to between 25-26’C, so I started looking at chillers. I decided that the Aquamedic Mini Chiller fitted the bill (and budget!) so ordered one. The next day it arrived and I installed it. I was disappointed with how noisy the internal fan was though, however this is more noticeable on my set up as everything else id silent.

 

You can see the chiller on the left hand side in this picture.

 

 

A week or so after I got the chiller, I did some reading online about the temperature of wild healthy reefs. I read that reefs typically are between 28 and 33’C with rapid temperature and salinity fluctuations depending on changes in flow direction ect. After reading this I decided to experiment with running the tank at 28-29’C. Nothing seemed to suffer, in fact many of the corals were looking even more inflated and a couple of weeks later my hammer coral was sporning one evening. So I decided to keep the temperature between 28 and 29’C. Consequently I no longer needed the chiller so sold it.

 

 

My plate coral was now looking like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few more weeks had passed when I saw someone local to me selling some SPS frags and very cheap prices. I knew that a six-week-old tank was most likely too young to support SPS, but as they were local, cheap and everything previously had done so well I thought I’d give them a try.

 

 

 

I bought five SPS frags and they all had good polyp extension within an hour of going into my tank.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the next two weeks some of them turned a little brown as my nitrates were still around 10-15ppm, so I set about doing something about lowering them. Again I ‘borrowed’ an idea from Chad in Canada of turning an external canister filter into a fuge. It really is a case of just adding a small light inside the filter. I sourced a small 10W 12V light online and an Eheim 2224 second hand from Ebay. It’s simply a case of drilling a small hole and using silicone to seal the lead in place.

 

 

 

Pictures speak a thousand words.

 

 

 

Top of the filter:

 

 

 

 

Hole drilled:

 

 

 

 

Light threaded through the hole and silicone to seal it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I got hold of some cheato thanks to a local reef keeper (thanks Steve!) and threw it in. Over the next couple of weeks my nitrates dropped to less than 2ppm and the colour came back in my SPS. They are also growing really well. To maintain calcium I simply do a 15% water change every four days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that’s about where we are today. My future plans are to pass on some of the LPS and add more SPS frags, so I will have to start dosing calcium and magnesium etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ninjafish]

The tank is looking great Jeremy, definitely something to be proud of! Great summary as well.

 

Cheers,

- Chad

[jemram]

The tank is looking great Jeremy, definitely something to be proud of! Great summary as well.

 

Cheers,

- Chad

 

Thanks Chad. I hope you don't mind the use of one of your pictures.

[bento]

That was an excellent write-up for a beautiful tank!

[ninjafish]

Thanks Chad. I hope you don't mind the use of one of your pictures.

 

Of course not mate

Edited January 15, 2007 by Fish

[EnFuego]

Not sure if I ever commented in your other thread, but this tank is beautiful. Question for you though, how do you clean off the intake for the closed loop pump from the tank? It seems like you would have to take apart the whole rock structure to get to it.

[travisurfer]

great job

[Rene]

I still love this tank, it sure beats a coffee table

[jemram]

Not sure if I ever commented in your other thread, but this tank is beautiful. Question for you though, how do you clean off the intake for the closed loop pump from the tank? It seems like you would have to take apart the whole rock structure to get to it.

 

The strainer you can see in the pictures has since been changed as it did look like it was starting to block up a little. It's now a four inch length of one inch pipe sealed off at the end and with as many 1/4" holes drilled into it was I could, without any of the holes joining up. I dont think it will block up now, but if it does, I only need to remove one piece of liverock to get to it.

[Duke13]

Beautiful tank.

[VITARTE]

Beautiful tank!

Do you mind posting a picture of the 'plumbing' set up with the canister/refuge hooked up to the system?

Regards.

[avalanche1201]

im loven it...can you get some full room shots? So I can see how it looks in the open space?

[instrance]

Nice tank.

[joel sandoman]

Wow! Who needs a TV in their living room when you can have that?!

[jemram]

I think your Eheim is a wet/dry filter? Was there any reason for selecting that or does it matter?

 

Also, did you keep the pump after you got the Eheim running, and if so was it just because you didn't think there would be enough flow with the Eheim alone?

 

The filter is not a wed dry, it's permanantly full of water.

 

I've still got the Eheim 1262 as the tank needs 3400lph of flow. The external filter is only 700lph.

[ninjafish]

Hey Matt,

 

For a healthy tank, I wouldn't recommend anything less than about 700gph (20x) turnover. If it was my tank, I would be shooting for 1000gph - unfortunately with larger tanks like yours that might mean having a second pump.

 

- Chad

Edited January 27, 2007 by Fish

[auskenny]

mate your tank is bloody awsome i love it ,i was just wondering a few things how do you find it running skimmer less? and how do u go about no surface skimming from a overflow/weir etc do u get a lot of build up on the surface?

 

also how quiet is the system with the ehiem pump ? im looking at a set up similar but want a whisper quiet set up

 

cheers shane

[kentek]

When I first looked at this I said WTF? no Filters? I don't know how you're doing it because I used to be a tech for Aquarium Toronto and I used to do 100 tanks linked set up's with 8 ft Dupla bioball tower, in-house designed and installed by me. I used to do total tank teardowns and installations in some pretty posh homes. Our filtration units were usually about 10% the volume of the tank. Hense a 300 gal tank would have a 30 gal filtration unit beneath it with wet/dry trickle and sprinkler system. I have no idea how you're managing this little Bioculture without having protein issues and algae and ammonia. I'd really like to know? 

 

[ReefTaco]

@kentekb

 

Bringing back this 13 year old tread  like