Bo0sted Cube Build Thread

[bo0sted2g]

After about a 5 year break from the hobby I'm back to give it another shot.
My last tank was a 55 gallon tank that I had to sell for pennies on the dollar after I received a job offer and ended up moving from NY to Colorado. Unfortunately my tank was only about 7 months old. Had a yellow tang, fire fish, cardinal, and a pair of clowns. For corals only had gotten to put a few in before breaking everything down but had a Ricordea mushroom a Duncan which was growing nicely and a ball of 40-50 zoas.

So onto the new tank story. I now live up in the high Rockies of Colorado near Vail. I was down in Denver planning to pick up a few new Cichlids for my FW tank ended up picking this guy up

While I was there I took a walk around the store to check out the saltwater section and came across a used acrylic AIO setup. It came with the tank and stand, heater, return pump and a little led light. So I asked the owner how much he wanted for it and he responded with $150. So I told him if it would fit in the back seat of my car I would take it.

It is about 26 gallons based on a quick volume calculation based on the tank dimensions.


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[bo0sted2g]

So after getting it home I started trying to plan out what I could fit in the back chambers of the All-in-one setup. There was a cylinder in the overflow section permanently attached to the chamber that I couldn't figure out what it was... I'm assuming it was the leftover skeleton to a skimmer maybe

So I decided that I wanted to equip the tank with a nano skimmer and that the cylinder would have to be dremeled out so I could put one in there.

I also could not figure out why there was an already pre plumbed bulkhead at the top right corner of the rear wall of the tank....

I started to research the nano skimmers that would fit in the rear chamber once I cleared some space for it, but I really wasn't all that impressed by the performance or design of any of these micro skimmers.

That is when I had a mad scientist idea to just take a hammer and smash out all the useless equipment in the back chamber and demolish the false wall made of black acrylic hiding all the internal plumbing and equipment.

Since it already had one bulkhead plumbed into the back I decided that I would cut a door into the solid front of the acrylic stand and build a 10gal sump in the bottom of the stand

Here is the tank after I went hammer crazy on the AIO system

After the wall was removed I had to paint the back wall black to give it a nice contrasting back wall again. So I taped off the top and sides and dragged it out to the porch to give it a couple coats of spray paint

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[bo0sted2g]

In order to be able to access the sump I was going to build I needed to take the dremel and cut myself a door into the stand

Since I didn't want to compromise the structural integrity of the stand I cut some wood to reinforce the inside of the stand

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[bo0sted2g]

Now the next step was to use a three step Novus plastic restoration system.

Before scratch removal and polishing

Novus 3 first to remove the deeper larger scratches, did about 7-8 rounds of the Novus 3

Then onto Novus 2 to take care of the fine scratches did about another 7-8 rounds of this formula

And finally after a few hours of manually buffing the acrylic by hand it was time to wipe it down with the Novus 1 finishing polish. (The sand was removed for the entire polishing process)

The finished product

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[bo0sted2g]

Bo0sted Cube Build Thread

Next order of business was to figure out the plumbing. I saved the pieces of the AIO wall and decide that they would be perfect to build the overflow box out of.

So after planning the dimensions of the box and cutting them to size I mocked it up and siliconed the pieces together and let it cure overnight

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[bo0sted2g]

Drilled the tank and installed the bulkheads. Also siliconed the overflow box into place

And got a quick mock up of the pvc plumbing still have to add in some unions and I am waiting on the gate valve to arrive in the mail again because they sent me a threaded valve instead of the slip fitting I ordered

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[bo0sted2g]

The past week has been kind of crazy with Christmas but I managed to get some work done on the tank.

I learned a valuable lesson that I should share so others can learn from my mistake. In the post above you can see the 10g sump I built out of a standard 10g tank from the pet store. I had some white acrylic sheets laying around so I figured for the price of FREE, they would make great baffles for my sump.

LESSON LEARNED: The bond between silicone and acrylic is no where near as strong as the bond between silicone and glass.
The acrylic baffles held water and didn't leak but a firm wiggle with my hand and the silicone peeled right off. Where as for the silicone that was bonded to the glass tank was impossible to remove, so I had to buy another 10g and start fresh.

So I bought a sheet of the thickest glass Home Depot sells (3.5mm I believe). Purchased a glass cutter and decided to give it a go.

Cut the baffles to size (cutting the glass was easier than I had imagined)
Taped them up and siliconed them in place. (I have the silicone skills of a 8 year old). But it came out ok!

Let it dry overnight then leak tested it and all is good! DIY Sump V2.0 is way stronger! Figured I would throw it under the stand and let it run for a little while.

I also pulled the trigger on the IceCap K2-50 skimmer. The few I've seen up and running pull some NASTY skim. And with its small footprint it allowed me to expand my refugium chamber a bit!

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[nursedude]

How is the build coming along, any more pics? Do you have it filled?

 

[bo0sted2g]

How is the build coming along, any more pics? Do you have it filled?

I wasn't going to update this build thread until I had some livestock in there because we are enduring the boring cycle phase but since people are interested, here's what we have been up to!

The tank is filled! I used 20lbs of live oolite and 16lbs of live ocean grade and 10 lbs of dry aragonite. I rinsed the dry aragonite and then mixed it in to the live sands. I originally wanted to go with Fiji pink for grain size but this was all the store had in stock. But to my surprise I actually like the diversity of grain sizes. Here is the clouded up sand storm after laying the sand and finally getting saltwater into the tank!

It cleared up overnight and I added a chunk of Live Rock to help move the cycle along. I used the pure ammonia dosing method to cycle this time.

Other than waiting for the cycle to finish up the IceCap K2 came with a faulty pump and died after 48 hours but coralvue customer support was awesome and had a new one out to me the same day. I've had it running 24/7 since and it's breaking in nicely. It's been pulling some tea colored skim, this is a days worth. So I am happy how it is breaking in and pulling some gunk from the water even though I don't have any livestock polluting the water column just yet.

I was also getting a lot of evaporation since I'll be running this topless, and we live high up in the Rockies and the air is very dry. (Also run a wood burning stove in winter). I was having to top off the sump 2-3x a day to keep the pump from running dry so I invested in the Tunze ATO. I went with the full size unit instead of the Nano because I really like the optical eye with the float switch back up. For me it was worth the price increase to have the peace of mind that it won't dump the whole container of RO into my tank at once. However with a tank as small as mine the first time I powered it on the pump was spraying too hard for my little 10g sump. So I had to open up the controller and turn down the flow to accommodate a nano tank. It was very easy to take apart,adjust,and reassemble. Now it works like a charm and keeps my water level and salinity rock solid.

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[bo0sted2g]

Tank finished up cycling a few days ago, so we picked up this juvenile Banggai Cardinal

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[solitude127]

any chance you can post some pics of the skimmer body filled with bubbles? Or even a video? I'm considering this skimmer for my red sea 170.

 

[bo0sted2g]

any chance you can post some pics of the skimmer body filled with bubbles? Or even a video? I'm considering this skimmer for my red sea 170.

All in all, I'd recommend this skimmer, it's a workhorse for its size, I only put the cardinal fish in last night and you can already the skim it's pulling from such a small bioload. It fits in a very compact area and is extremely quiet. I tried putting up a video but it kept failing to upload. So if you want I can email it to you.



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[bo0sted2g]

Got my ball of Chaeto mailed to me from a local reefer in Denver. Package got delayed in the mail and it had been cold here so I think most of the pods are dead but the chaeto looks alright.

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[solitude127]

Thank you for the pictures. I think I may give it a go

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[solitude127]

Sorry, another question. How many inches is the neck of the skimmer?

 

[bo0sted2g]

Sorry, another question. How many inches is the neck of the skimmer?

1 1/2" at the neck of the skimmer

 

[bo0sted2g]

My certified sump inspector and water change supervisor -Meeka

I couldn't pass up going to reefstock this weekend! Ended up meeting some cool people and getting some great deals on coral for my tank. They are in and getting settled. Will update once everything is opened fully and happy.


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[bo0sted2g]

Looks like the candy cane is the winner, first to open up for the camera. Couldn't pass up $15 for 6 Heads! A few of the heads have 2 mouths and will likely split off soon!

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[solitude127]

How's the skimmer performing so far?

 

[bo0sted2g]

Bo0sted Cube Build Thread

How's the skimmer performing so far?

Still going good! between the skimmer and refugium they have been keeping my nitrates at 0. I still do a weekly water change just for good practice. I still have a really small bioload (2 fish and one of them is a baby clown fish a little bigger than my pinky nail) and only feed a tiny amount. That being said I still run the skimmer 24/7 and it is still pulling skimmate, I usually have to empty the cup every few days.