Jayson's 66g SCA Cube build.
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coral tarracino
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Soggy Tees' neat!
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JMLewis
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Yea watched a couple videos about it, looks like it works well. We'll see.
Yours looks great man, I'm really looking forward to this tank up and running. It's a downsize from my previous tanks but I think it'll be my best looking.
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JMLewis
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Have you tried running your mp40s on the back wall? I'm planning on running mine there so to not block any of the side view.
coral tarracino
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HAPPY 2016 REEFING TO ALL!
FROM CORAL REEF!
FROM CORAL REEF!
nelson.jdautobody
Valuable Member
I wish I could but I didn't leave myself with enough room on the back side for the power side of the pump-lol. And I really like mushrooms so I think if I woulda put my mp40 on one side and my mp10 on the other there wouldn't be any light flow areas it my tank at all. As it is I turned them down to 1 notch below half just to minimize the flow. In big part because I went with a fluval sea sp4 and it has a ton of return flow already. I originally went with the sp2 and it didn't have enough return pressure since I made my stand taller so I wouldn't have to bend over to stare at it-lol. No draft spots tho at all
nelson.jdautobody
Valuable Member
No "dead" spots. Stupid smart phone. Lol. It is a really nice looking tank with quality glass for sure. Looking forward to seeing your build. Cheers!
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JMLewis
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Thanks man!
Jimbo662
2500 Club Member
The overflow is designed so that it sucks water from the bottom (usually from behind rockwork) and up into the overflow to help prevent too much detritus from collecting and better flow back there.Trying to figure out the deal with this overflow. They have an internal glass overflow encased with acrylic that has about a 1/4" gap between them. Its not sealed at the top and at the bottom are slits in the acrylic section of it. Not sure if this is intended to be some type of plenum but to me it looks like its gonna be a place for detritus to settle. Gonna do some research on this but at the moment im leaning towards siliconing it in to keep water out of it all together.
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JMLewis
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Just a quick update, didn't get nearly as much as I wanted to this weekend since the entire family came down with a nasty 2 day bug that wiped us out.
I was able to get my Apex updated and had a chance to paint the plumbing in the overflow:
Also I added a receptacle in the garage (being an electrician has its perks) and a "feed through" for my ATO and doser lines. The feed through will have flexible plates to close up the holes and will close over the wires and 1/4" tubing. This is in the garage directly behind the tank. I plan on keeping my ATO and dosers in the garage controlled by my Apex.
I was able to get my Apex updated and had a chance to paint the plumbing in the overflow:
Also I added a receptacle in the garage (being an electrician has its perks) and a "feed through" for my ATO and doser lines. The feed through will have flexible plates to close up the holes and will close over the wires and 1/4" tubing. This is in the garage directly behind the tank. I plan on keeping my ATO and dosers in the garage controlled by my Apex.
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JMLewis
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Thanks, yea I did some more research on it and found out its a pretty nice feature. When I was doing my leak test I grabbed a little piece of some moss looking stuff out of one of the wife's plants and put it down there and it sucked it right up. So I'm good with just leaving it as is.
nelson.jdautobody
Valuable Member
yea mine is plugged up with sand and now that im going to the bare bottom im gona get it cleared out.
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My Tank Thread
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Looks nice!
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JMLewis
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Knocked out a coupe more items on my punch list tonight. I'm planning on using the center section of my sump as a fuge mainly for chaeto. (I will have some Marine Pure 1" pieces in there as well) I prefer when the light from the fuge doesn't completely go into the other sections of my sump but i wasn't quite sure how to go about blocking it, and I didn't want to paint the weirs themselves.
So what i decided to do was to buy some very thin acrylic and paint one side white and silicone the painted side to the taller weirs in the sump. I painted the acrylic white using Krylon Fusion spray paint. I went with white since i figured it would help reflect a bit of light back to the chaeto. Last minute decided to paint the bottom of the center chamber of the sump while I was at it.
Bottom of Sump:
Sump with white weirs:
I also had a chance to install the Apex into the stand tonight. Still a bit of cleaning up to do but overall its not to shabby. Not going to do any final clean up until i have all the wiring for the skimmer, return pump, etc Inside the cabinet.
Instead of worrying about running a CAT5 cable from my router to the Apex I used a spare wifi "extender" and plugged it into the power strip in the garage, then made about an 8 foot ethernet cable and plugged that into the extender and from there to the Apex. After a bit of tinkering and researching I worked it out and was able to get Apex Fusion going. Was fun turning on and off a drop light i was using under the tank from the other room and making my toddlers puzzled and crack up.
So what i decided to do was to buy some very thin acrylic and paint one side white and silicone the painted side to the taller weirs in the sump. I painted the acrylic white using Krylon Fusion spray paint. I went with white since i figured it would help reflect a bit of light back to the chaeto. Last minute decided to paint the bottom of the center chamber of the sump while I was at it.
Bottom of Sump:
Sump with white weirs:
I also had a chance to install the Apex into the stand tonight. Still a bit of cleaning up to do but overall its not to shabby. Not going to do any final clean up until i have all the wiring for the skimmer, return pump, etc Inside the cabinet.
Instead of worrying about running a CAT5 cable from my router to the Apex I used a spare wifi "extender" and plugged it into the power strip in the garage, then made about an 8 foot ethernet cable and plugged that into the extender and from there to the Apex. After a bit of tinkering and researching I worked it out and was able to get Apex Fusion going. Was fun turning on and off a drop light i was using under the tank from the other room and making my toddlers puzzled and crack up.
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JMLewis
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Things are still moving along slowly but surely. I built an acrylic stand out of some black acrylic I had laying around. I had planned on using egg crate but didn't want it to turn into a detritus trap. So used the acrylic and put some short leg pieces under it since I only had to raise it up an inch.
Tank has sand now, spent a good half hour rinsing the sand in a bucket to get it clean. Took way longer than I thought it would...I purchased 60 lbs of it in 10 lb bags and ended up rinsing 30 lbs in the first go round which turned out to be just about perfect if not a little too much for about an inch to inch and a half depth. I'll put up a couple pics a little later.
Tank has sand now, spent a good half hour rinsing the sand in a bucket to get it clean. Took way longer than I thought it would...I purchased 60 lbs of it in 10 lb bags and ended up rinsing 30 lbs in the first go round which turned out to be just about perfect if not a little too much for about an inch to inch and a half depth. I'll put up a couple pics a little later.
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JMLewis
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I am very conflicted as to which direction I want to go for the refugium section of my sump. So if anyone has advise please let me know what you think. This is an area I could really use some experienced help.
So my refugium section is not very big, it's about 8 inches wide 15 inches long and 7 inches deep. My first thought was to run some Chaeto to help with phosphates and help my pods populate. As well as to have an 8" x 1" Marine Pure block that's been cut into 3 pieces (I already cut a 5 x 5 section out I'm running on my 20 for now so I was just gonna put the rest in there that I had left over).
But I'm reading alot about the Marine Pure blocks leeching aluminum, and I'm also reading that in order for chaeto to actually be effective I would need a WHOLE lot more than I have room for.
So now I'm looking at filling the section using Seachem Matrix, but I have zero experience with the stuff. From what I understand the water flows really slowly through it so it acts like a deep sand bed would for denitrifying bacteria.
In my research I've also found that the elevated levels of aluminum only affect soft corals, which I don't plan on having any of.
So im thinking maybe fill it up half way with Matrix and put the marine pure on top of it? Alot more to think about than I thought I'd have to for this small section of sump...lol
I don't plan on having a huge bio load. Maybe 7-8 small to medium size fish.
And for the record I do plan running GFO and carbon 24/7 via a phosphate reactor. No plans for biopellets atm.
So my refugium section is not very big, it's about 8 inches wide 15 inches long and 7 inches deep. My first thought was to run some Chaeto to help with phosphates and help my pods populate. As well as to have an 8" x 1" Marine Pure block that's been cut into 3 pieces (I already cut a 5 x 5 section out I'm running on my 20 for now so I was just gonna put the rest in there that I had left over).
But I'm reading alot about the Marine Pure blocks leeching aluminum, and I'm also reading that in order for chaeto to actually be effective I would need a WHOLE lot more than I have room for.
So now I'm looking at filling the section using Seachem Matrix, but I have zero experience with the stuff. From what I understand the water flows really slowly through it so it acts like a deep sand bed would for denitrifying bacteria.
In my research I've also found that the elevated levels of aluminum only affect soft corals, which I don't plan on having any of.
So im thinking maybe fill it up half way with Matrix and put the marine pure on top of it? Alot more to think about than I thought I'd have to for this small section of sump...lol
I don't plan on having a huge bio load. Maybe 7-8 small to medium size fish.
And for the record I do plan running GFO and carbon 24/7 via a phosphate reactor. No plans for biopellets atm.
Smite
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I ran seachem matrix and found it to work very well. I packed it in a tlf 150 reactor though, and put a very slow flow through it. This way, I could pull it when I saw detritus build up, rinse it in saltwater, clean the reactor and reinstall without sending debris/detritus throughout the rest of the tank. It also acted as a pod factory for me.
I ran a ball of chaeto in my 66 and I never had any excess nutrients. I'd have to pull a fist full out every 2-3 weeks but that was it. Grown under a daylight (6500-7000k) flood light from Lowe's.
I did have a fellow reefer stop by and mention that he would have had his drain go into the center chamber with the skimmer and and feed the intended drain section off the manifold to have a larger refugium. It seemed liked a decent idea. My system was already established or I would have tried it.
Your build is looking great, so clean!
I ran a ball of chaeto in my 66 and I never had any excess nutrients. I'd have to pull a fist full out every 2-3 weeks but that was it. Grown under a daylight (6500-7000k) flood light from Lowe's.
I did have a fellow reefer stop by and mention that he would have had his drain go into the center chamber with the skimmer and and feed the intended drain section off the manifold to have a larger refugium. It seemed liked a decent idea. My system was already established or I would have tried it.
Your build is looking great, so clean!
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JMLewis
Active Member
That'd actually be pretty cool, if it's not working out for no3/po4 reduction I might just give that a shot.
OK running Matrix through a reactor is a good idea, have a couple spares laying around, maybe I'll do that and keep chaeto in the fuge afterall. Thanks for the compliment, much appreciated!
Im gonna be running a filter sock and a SRO 2000int which is quite oversized, so hopefully between all that I can keep nutrients in check.
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JMLewis
Active Member
So yesterday was "Aquascape Day". My LFS just started carrying man made Real Reef Rock (www.realreefrock.com) which I have to say is amazing stuff, it looks exactly like live rock and has purples and pinks in it to look like coraline.
This time around I wanted to do a minimalist aquascape. In every past tank I've ever done I've thrown a ton of rock in the tank and moved it around to look descent. But this time I wanted to plan it out to have good spaces for coral and interesting places for the fish to swim through.
So the wife and I spent a few hours creating, gluing, reef cementing, a design that we both loved. I was a bit nervous as to how it was going to come out, but I have to say it came out as good or better than I had hoped.
I'm hoping it's not to minimalist for my liking.
Front View
Right side:
Left side:
Birdseye:
This time around I wanted to do a minimalist aquascape. In every past tank I've ever done I've thrown a ton of rock in the tank and moved it around to look descent. But this time I wanted to plan it out to have good spaces for coral and interesting places for the fish to swim through.
So the wife and I spent a few hours creating, gluing, reef cementing, a design that we both loved. I was a bit nervous as to how it was going to come out, but I have to say it came out as good or better than I had hoped.
I'm hoping it's not to minimalist for my liking.
Front View
Right side:
Left side:
Birdseye:
