Large Cube or Square Aquascaping, Flow, & Lighting

[enveetie]

Hello, planning to build a 36x36x24 or 48x48x24 soon. This will be largest square I've owned, and I'm curious how others have aquascaped such wide tanks and how they handled the flow issues. Also, what did you go with for lighting? Prefer LED & T5s.

I'm planning for this build to be viewable from 3 sides. Would really appreciate any pics, descriptions, and/or links. As you all know square builds are not dime a dozen so tracking down builds can be a bit difficult. Thanks.

 

[Eric Tang]

36 is already a very nice cube size but if you can do 48 that would be even better. You will need almost identical equipment but probably just 1 additional light for the 48. 2 islands with one slightly larger that goes on the side of the overflow would be nice.

 

[VR28man]

IM Nuvo 40s are also square (though a perfect cube, not a 3/4 or 1/2 cube like the tanks you're looking at).

IMO: lighting: if you were to use Kessil 360s you could just hang 4 of them above, each covering a different 24x24 area. Not to say that's what you should do, but it's one option. (I have one Kessil right now for my future tank). Looks fairly simple and elegant to me; I'm sure you could come up with similar or better options for other lights. You can control them with their controller (simply link them together with cheap 3.5mm stereo cables)

Flow: if you were to use maxspect gyres, you could just place 2-3 of them on the back wall and just control them all, again either with their controller or an apex. Similar goes for other pumps.

Scaping: I had a lot of problems with this conceptually when I was thinking of getting the IM Nuvo, but I saw a very elegant solution in this month's coral magazine. I looked online for other pictures of this dude's (Zayn Sibda) tank:

https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t...437_432430623815080_6418050019315679232_n.jpg

I like that a lot. Alternate scape ideas, inspired by my snorkeling this weekend in Hawaii, include:

- the ones in the OP: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tips-and-tricks-on-creating-amazing-aquascapes.97209/

- You could put up a wall of rock on the back of one side, and then a bommie towards the middle back of another side.

- you could mix 2-3 walls of rock, allowing for a canyon (where one powerhead could flow), and allowing for the largest top, on one side, to be a consistent 4-5" deep (and other pumps directing water to this top area from the opposite side of the tank).

- You could have just one big wall of rock, with a few areas protruding out, on a slope to take up about 33-50% of the tank. The top would be another area of consistent depth, perhaps 5-6"deep, protruding maybe 8-10" out, and taking up most of the length of the tank. You could load up finger corals on top, various branching corals in the middle, and plate-type Monitpora or Porites on the bottom towards the sandbed. You could keep some LR and other things on the sandbed to make things interesting. (inspired by the Place of Refuge reef on the Big Island of Hawaii).