12"mr.aqua cube! Drilled!

[gulfsurfer101]

I really like your tank, this is the tank I will get for my next setup, probably about a year from now. I like the par38 on it. could I trouble you for some more pics? specifically your plumbing. and what kind of pump do you have for the return? if i'm not mistaken that is your only source of flow in the tank right? I really like the idea of plumbing a sump into this tank if only for the additional water volume and more stability. I just dont know much about plumbing so I was hoping to imitate yours

 

Thanks and sorry for not replying back to you earleir, I must have somehow just read over your post till now. I'll get some more pics of the plumbing for you when I do my next water change that way I can turn the tank to better photo it and explain. I came up with a similar design when I was playing around with pvc drainpipe desings in my garage.

[qwiksilver711]

Thanks and sorry for not replying back to you earleir, I must have somehow just read over your post till now. I'll get some more pics of the plumbing for you when I do my next water change that way I can turn the tank to better photo it and explain. I came up with a similar design when I was playing around with pvc drainpipe desings in my garage.

Thank you. It may be a bit before i get it set up, but i do want to have it drilled and plumbed, and as yours seems to be working good, i'll just shamelessly copy you

[gulfsurfer101]

Lol, ok. I'll see if I can get it done tommorrow. I should've done a wc today for both my tanks but I'm just letting it ride for now. Water quality looks good but my sand could use somecleaning up.

[gulfsurfer101]

Just got home today from a 4day trip and found that old man winter took a whizz in my tank. Rolling power outages look like the culprit. Looks like my battery backup was able to keep things in line on my larger tank but who knows how long this tank sat w/o power during some freak artic blast. I lost my fish and some frags but did a 5g wc and noticed all of my hermits and at least one pom pom crab survived. I will most likely add some carbon and do another major wc in about another 3 days or so and see from there.

[gulfsurfer101]

I dunno, I'm thinking of just placing everything in this tank in my 30g and tearing it down for a little bit giving me some time to put some final tweaks on this tank and getting things cleaned up after the latest little mishap with it. I want to expand my stand, add a 5.5 fuge/sump, cover all plumbing and biuld a floating canopy attached to my stand to conceal my par30.

[NUWildcat928]

I dunno, I'm thinking of just placing everything in this tank in my 30g and tearing it down for a little bit giving me some time to put some final tweaks on this tank and getting things cleaned up after the latest little mishap with it. I want to expand my stand, add a 5.5 fuge/sump, cover all plumbing and biuld a floating canopy attached to my stand to conceal my par30.

 

Sorry to hear about the tank going down. Just curious, before you changed the light fixture to a hanging fixture, what type of fixture was that in the earlier pictures? Looks like some sort of clip on... did it fit the PAR38 lamps okay?

[gulfsurfer101]

It tottally sucked. It was just a cheap wal-mart clip on that was way to cheap. I had trouble with parts breaking, and the weight of the bulb would not hold unless I set it up backwards which looks retarted. The biggest problem with the fixture besides the fixture was the bulb height gave me some serious dark spotting in the tank. I plan on keeping the bulb at the current height just building an enclosure around it to conceal the plumbing and bulb, giving me the room I need to add a more effecient sump.

[gulfsurfer101]

Well things look a ton better after doing a 5g major wc upon my arrival then a 2g wc a few days ago. I noticed my elegance starting to open back up once again, my torch is toast, along with my sps. all other lps and zoas seem to be doing better now that things have stabled back out. Quicksilver I got the pics for you and will explain how the overflow works but I can't find my usb cable to get them uploaded. Hopefully I'll find it before I decide to tear this things down for a few days to get things where I want them. I won't tear this tank down till I have the sump put together and all stand peices cut and ready to go.

[gulfsurfer101]

I tore it down today! My tankis taking a lil hiatus while I get things in order. Everything is crammed into my 30g for now. White sand is not in the future since it always ends up looking like dookie.

[gulfsurfer101]

Got my stand nearly finished to set everything back up. I will finish sanding and painting it tommorrow and will work on getting a better sump put together also. I may just do the display with dry rock and seed it with rock and sand from my sump and just let it fully recyle again. I also got my boost MU series for my 30g in today as well and I can't wait to get that thing over my 30g.

[gulfsurfer101]

Ok, here's what I been working on the last few days. You can see the light from my boost MU in my tank next to this one blasting through the tank in this pic.

Redesigned the sump and gave myself some more room to work with.

[picoreefs87]

Very nice, good looking tank.

[gulfsurfer101]

Thanks, the open design keeps my par30 bulb nicely ventilated so my water temps remain pretty cool.

[.Newman.]

very nice, what is the evap on that thing? how many gallons per week? also you do manual top offs correct?

 

if you want to keep this open top, i advise you get no fish.

[gulfsurfer101]

I've had it running and re-cycling for only four days so far but the evap has been less than a gallon so far with 12hr lighting cycles. I don't know if I plan to keep it or not. I might just craigslist it and focus on setting up larger tank using my mu pendant and mh/t5 pendant since my finnex sprung a leak and I need to find a more permanent home than the sumpless 20 tall everything is in now. If I do decide to stock I'l most likely just do small inverts and softies, zoas, n shrooms.

[gulfsurfer101]

I am noticing a bit of red slime in both my tanks after adding live sand in both. I don't have anything in this tank currenlty so I'm thinking I could just keep the lights off for the next couple of weeks.

[gulfsurfer101]

Well this tank has sat empty for the last two weeks and I'm thinking of bringing back up for my dwarf octo. I'm fashioning some better overflow teeth for the overflow box and trying to fit a lid on the tank to keep him in here.

[gulfsurfer101]

This tank is still failing after messing it with it half the day today. The overflow is slurping really loud and I can't get the water level to drop from dangerously close to the rim. This would not be good if I decided to put a lid on it as it would drip and create salt creep all over the tank. I may just remove the overflow panel and shave it down a 1/2" or so to see if I'm able to pump some better flow in here and not flood the tank. I really want to get my merc in here since there will be a much higher oxegyn level with all the surface agitation going on in the sump are, plus it will give me a place to hold more food for him.

[Builder Anthony]

Ya i have to design a stand too......... theres just so much to throw in the bottom of things.Haveing all the things exposed may look ugly but it does make it simple to adjust things.

[gulfsurfer101]

I may decide to get a tempered door to keep it open looking since I plan on adding macro's and inverts to the 5.5 that I was using as fuge. It also let's me keep an eye on water levels till I set up some style of ato. There's not much room to work with under a 12" cube so expanding the stand a bit by running a few 6x1's down the back gave me the room I needed to add the 5.5. I shaved the overflow down by a half inch and I will adjust the teeth I cut for my overflow today to rest flush with the top of the tank so I can place a lid over this tank so my carribean dwarf octo doesn't set sucked into the sump and face possible death.

[Drift Monkey]

Nice...corpus huh?

[gulfsurfer101]

Yep, corpito's all the way,lol. I got the water level dropped to where I like it and the silicone has cured over the last 2days but I still can't get the overflow to quite down. It is loud as f#@#, and for a bedroom tank that is unnaceptable.

[gulfsurfer101]

I finally got the sump to quite down and got everything transferred over rather quickly. I had a lid cut for the tank and plan to cut two grooves into the stand that will allow me to place the glass into them and kinda lock the glass in place from the rear of the tank. My carribean dwarf octopus has found his new home in the large barnicles I have in the front right corner. He's come out to explore his new home and look for weaknesses in my design.

 

Getting some good water agitation on the surface. The teeth I cut rest just 1/16" or less from the lid.

I quited the sump by adding this valve from some old pump and by having it opend by less than 1/8 a turn it almost cushions the water splilling from the overflow to a soft lap. Works very nicely.

and here is a pic of the little booger who rents here now! Pics of him in my 5.5

[Drift Monkey]

Whoa! That is INSANELY awesome! How big do those get? Hard to keep?

[gulfsurfer101]

Thanks, it is full grown and it's as easy a small weekly wc. They are remarkable escape artist's though hence the need for the new lid. They require live foods though and that could mean trouble to some.