afex's 135g Rimless Cube

afex

afex

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(I update my blog with tank info as well, feel free to read it there as well or subscribe via RSS. http://www.afex2win.com/stuff/reef/ I also post all my pictures to flickr here: http://flickr.com/photos/afex2win/)

I am the proud owner of a 135g rimless cube tank purchased from A.G.E. I ordered the tank around the end of June. Today the tank and stand met in my apartment and it was love at first sight. (I'm a big fan as well :D) I figured now is as good a time as any to start a build thread, even though all i have going for me right now is a big glass box.

so let's get started

Last week they were delivered via freight. They arrived in great condition, the crating was superb.







Unfortunately, I didn't have a way to get the tank upstairs (3 flights!) so it sat in my garage for a week. The stand was easier and my friend helped me bring it up.





Today I hired some college students to come help me bring it upstairs. They were worth every penny! I am so glad that we got it up with no incident. Here is my tank dry, hopefully not for very long.









so what's next? first i'm going to skin my stand. instead of your standard stand with doors, my plan is to make the stand look like a sealed box when closed, but have the sides not permanently attached so i can remove any side at any time. i’ve already ordered the magnets to secure the plywood to the stand, but was waiting to get the wood until i had the tank setup so i could measure exactly. the skin will cover the base of the tank as well as the silicone. for the back panel i’ll be using some peg board to help with ventilation and attaching stuff.

this tank will be primarily SPS, with maybe an LPS here or there. here is a rundown of my equipment plans:

Lighting:

* ATI Powermodule 10Ã"”39w T5HO fixture

Filtration:

* Custom acrylic sump 24Ã"”16x16 (2 compartment)
* Nutrient export via bacterial strains supplied by Prodibio system (or similar: Zeovit, etc)
* ATI Bubble Master 160 Skimmer
* 2x TLF Phosban Reactors (1 carbon, 1 GFO)

Flow:

* Quiet One 3000 return pump
* 2x Tunze 6055 Nanostreams

Supplementation:

* “Balling light” method via Profilux dosing pumps

Monitoring/Controlling:

* GHL Profilux Plus II Ex reef controller

Heating/Cooling:

* Standard aquarium heater
* GHL Propeller Breeze 3-fan

Auto Topoff:

* Undecided RO/DI reservoir*
* via Profilux controller and dosing pumps

* I still haven’t found good containers to store water for top-off and water changes. Since these either have to fit under my stand or behind a nearby screen I’m limited by size, so BRUTE trashcans or anything that big just won’t work. These containers look promising, but mixing salt water doesn’t seem feasible since they are not open top. Still looking for suggestions!

You’ll notice a few “key” components missing.

1. Chiller. By using T5HO instead of metal halide, this allows me to use evaporative cooling as the primary means of temperature control. Also, since I live in San Francisco, other than for a few weeks in the summer the average high temperature here is between 60-70° F.
2. Refugium. Due to the fact that I plan on using bacterial means to remove nitrate and phosphate from my tank, a refugium would only effectively serve as a home for pods. I don’t plan on keeping fish who have pods as their primary diet, so I should be OK there.
3. Calcium Reactor. As you can probably tell by now, my tank is heavily influenced by successful European tanks. (Both functionally and stylistically) Even though I have no personal experience with this, I’ve decided to jump in and try out the “balling light” method. It seems very similar to popular “2-part” methods currently used in the US, but more robust in terms of overall element balance.

i'd love any feedback/suggestions on either my tank or my equipment plans.

thanks for looking!
 
Hey cool! Its nice to have a complete setup all in one! I did not know AGE made a cube model. Look at that big smile too of that proud owner :D

Balling- Absolutely, its more precise imo.

the flow, nano streams seem too small for sps imo. But you know 2 of anything is better than one. I was going to say just get one high flow tunze rather than two nano streams. But you could probably get a better flow pattern with 2 anyways. But I dont know your budget.
 
thanks! :D

i custom ordered the tank from A.G.E. working very closely with one of their reps to make sure all measurements were correct. i'd recommend them to anybody.

as far as flow, i didn't want to use a closed loop, but at the same time i didn't want bulky powerheads taking up tank space which is why i decided on the controllable nanostreams. i'm actually on the fence about the nanostreams since their cord is in the water. the new vortechs work through the glass, but i don't think you can angle them and also my profilux controller in made to work with the tunze models :)
 
thanks :D

for fish, on my "for sure" list include a purple tang, a small school of bartlett's anthias (like 3, more like a trio than a school, heh) and yashia goby w/ shrimp pair.

otherwise, i like more smaller fish that fewer larger ones. so things like some ORA clowns, blennies, and the like would probably be used to fill out my roster. i'll also keep some slots open for more functional fish to deal with pests, like rabbitfish or copper banded butterfly
 
Stunning! I love the cube and rimless look! I agree, I prefer powerheads to closed loop and think the nanostreams will be good. The vortech's are nice (a little to noisy for me)... and not sure about lack of directioning... but their flow is very very wide compared to tunze which can be nice too. hmmmmm.

I have 6101's in my tank... not "that" intrusive, wouldn't mind VT's (except for the noise)

keep us posted! when will h2o come??
 
hopefully the tank will be wet soon.

my base rock shipped from bulk reef supply today, and i'm still looking for a place to get caribsea sugar-sized sand where the shipping isn't more expensive than the sand!

anybody know of a place?
 
i'm not fully done with the stand, and won't be updating my blog until the full post is ready, but i made some progress with my stand and thought i'd share. my stand work is mostly experimental, since i didn't know if this idea would even work. so please excuse the unfinished edges and shoddy paint job :)

first the easy part, i got some pegboard cut to serve as the back wall. this serves 2 purposes: 1) allows easy mounting of equipment 2) keeps the cat out while also allowing ventilation! i used zip ties to attach it so that it is sturdy, but non-permanent



next, i took the bottom board, and 3 pieces of plywood i had cut to size, and primed/painted them. i did two coats of primer on each side, and two coat of paint on the skin pieces.





i ran out of daylight by just an hour or so, so i had to set up a bit of a drying station in my apartment.



next, i used some rare earth magnets i purchased online ( http://www.gaussboys.com/ndfeb-magnets/D1803E.html ) and glued them to each panel.



after giving the glue an hour to harden (24hr for full cure) i gave the skin it's first test. and it passed... kinda. by that i mean it works, but i have a long way to go in order to get it visually polished. probably mostly due to my crappy painting skills.



so what did i learn?

1) even though the magnets have strong hold, they cannot hold the board to the stand in a perpendicular direction due to the smoothness of the metal and weight of the boards. i had already planned on having some mechanism to keep the skin off the ground for looks, but now it is obvious that i need one no matter what. my plan is to get some simple stoppers which will attach to each side and rest on the bottom board when the side is attached. this will also allow me to have each board line up properly since my floor is uneven.

2) having a shop really helps for DIY work! although it was great weather, painting on my roof was not very fun and the paint job suffered due to compromises i had to make. hopefully i'll be able to do some touch ups to make it look better, but i'm not ruling out redo'ing the work with better materials/tools.

here are some more pics



 
thanks! i hope so as well :)

my base rock was delivered today, but since i have no sand yet i can't play around with aquascapes yet. soon...
 
i've begun playing around with aquascapes with my base rock shipment from bulk reef supply. i ordered 50lbs of small, and 50lbs of medium. here it is all laid out.



this is not final, but here is my first attempt at an aquascape. my requirement to myself were:

- don't have rock form the look i want, have it so that when the corals grow in i get the look i want (this means using less rock than most people do)
- variety of depth from the point of the viewer on each side
- a channel for the fish to swim in

here is a front and top view of what i came up with. any and all comments welcome!





or hit my flickr stream for more photos
 
Great work on that stand, it looks really clean. I may also end up buying some rock from bulk reef supply and those pics helped because I didn't know the rock would look THAT nice haha.

And that is a very interesting aquascape idea, but I really like it. I may try it on my 60g cube!
 
thanks guys, i appreciate it.

hopefully i can get my hands on some sand soon and see what the rocks look like in the tank! :D
 
Looks good. The only thing I would say is the C shaped curve of rock is a little to uniform along it's length. Maybe a little higher and wider near the rear of the tank and then getting smaller as it curves toward the front. Or maybe a center of mass in the corner opposite the other island and then getting smaller as it works toward either end of the curve. Just my opinion though. It's gonna look great no matter what!
 
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