50g SPS CAD Lights Cube build

jrpdriver

jrpdriver

Active member
Hey Everyone

Time to get back to sps, I'm keeping it small and simple. And hopefully enjoyable!

I've always liked cube tanks and since this tank is just for growing sps I'm not worried about the small dimensions as I will only be adding a couple small fish that don't enjoy free swimming.

Tank dimensions 24x24x20"¦since this leaves a very small footprint under the stand, combined with the fact that this tank is going in my office so I don't want any equipment outside the stand, it will be fun to see how much I can cram in there!

I'm using dry base rock that I glued together with marco epoxy to form a simple small structure that will leave as much room as possible for growth. It will probably look funny in the beginning as I am only going to use small frags but it will make for some great progress shots.

Here is a short equipment list

EcoTech Radion LED - Prob going to just run it on a simple 8 hour on off schedule until they put out some programming updates, Once I ad frags I'm going to start the intensity off at 50% and bump it up a % every few days to keep from frying them

Tunze 6095x2 on Tunze Multi Controller

C.A.D. Lights Cone skimmer

Tunze ATO

AquaMaxx Calcium Reactor- I was little skeptical about this thing but I was pleasantly surprised with the build quality when it showed up"¦that being said, its pretty small so I'm sure once the frags start to grow out I will adding media pretty frequently, but with the space considerations there were not a lot of options.

DA Reefkeeper Lite- to control reactor ph and tank temp

I ordered the tank/stand/sump from C.A.D. Lights a few weeks ago, hoping to have it any day now. The rock has been wet for a couple weeks now and is receiving daily bacteria additions"¦.I'm on the fence about setting up a bio pellet reactor, I've never run one before and I was very happy with the growth and color of the sps in my old system, but since I'm not running live rock in this system I thought it might not be a bad idea"¦ so any input is appreciated.

I'll start to upload some pictures and try and keep the boring to a minimum but I'm starting to get excited thinking about having a sps system again and I wanted to get the conversation going.

If anyone has any of my old sps I'd love to buy some frags back, send me a message!
 
I like seeing Cube tanks with SPS...... they go so well and are very Eye Candy! Wish i had funds to build one myself.
 
Here's a pic of the reactor, like I mentioned earlier, despite its size I was very pleased with the purchase. It has machined acrylic parts, decent bubble counter and uses a decent pump...it was also the only reactor of its size that had a probe port

cal.jpg


I'm going to use this as a second chamber to the calcium reactor, going to mount it to the back of the stand above the sump, just to give the effluent a little more time to saturate and raise in ph

photo4.jpg
 
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Man I started digging through my photobucket albums and I found this cool fish-eye shot of my 300g from back in the day, this was about 6 months before the meltdown, I wish I would have taken some shots when it was more grown out.

fisheye-1.jpg
 
Excited for the build. I want to see what the light spread is for the radion. I have a cube as well. 30x30x18 ;)
 
I'm tagging along. I have the Cadlight 50 Artisan and the Cadlight 70.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk
 
I just bought a used 50g Cadlight tank with a custom stand. Take pictures as you set it up. I need ideas on how to plumb this thing. It didn't come with the stock plumbing you'll be receiving.
 
I'm thinking about running that same calcium reactor but was worry about the the ph. I saw the double chamber reactors out there but they were too big. Didn't think about what you are doing. If you have it running can you post some pictures of it?
 
mooners559 said:
I'm thinking about running that same calcium reactor but was worry about the the ph. I saw the double chamber reactors out there but they were too big. Didn't think about what you are doing. If you have it running can you post some pictures of it?
Click to expand...

I will be hooking it up tomorrow and I will post plenty of picks
 
Ok, so there was some delay with getting the tank and then I was out of town and busy with work but I finally got a little bit done, should be ready for a leak test tonight!

Here is a broad shot of what is done so far under the stand, the ATO container and calcium reactor are going in the space to the right of the sump

equip.jpg


Here is some of the controller equipment that I had to mount towards the back of the stand

control.jpg


The durso drain and return line inside of the overflow

plumbing.jpg


and I tapped and threaded a guest fitting into a double barb fitting so my return line will feed the calcium reactor

reactorfeed.jpg


Not much of an update but hopefully I'll have some better updates after the weekend. The rock structure is still cycling in a rubber bin and should be good to go by the time I move the system to my office next week.
 
Couple questions;

I will have very low water flow and a relatively low volume of water in the sump, the ATO container will have a lid. Do you think the electronic equipment will be ok as is or do I need to vent the stand?

I'm still debating on running a bio-pellet reactor, if I'm going to do it I'm going to run it from the start, anyone have any experience with using one on an sps only system?
 
awesome. I have a 50g cad. Can I see a full picture of your sump?! I want to see your layout. I also have a radion. I'm using Jon from ecotech's light schedule if you would like just to see it.
 
kevinrf said:
awesome. I have a 50g cad. Can I see a full picture of your sump?! I want to see your layout. I also have a radion. I'm using Jon from ecotech's light schedule if you would like just to see it.
Click to expand...

No problem, I'll snap some pics tonight and yeah, I'd love to check out your light schedule
 
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