Cuacuac's 200G Cube Reef

[Cuacuac]

First of all I shall introduce myself. My name is Federico and I am from Argentina. I'm a biotecnology student and I've been in this hobby for about 5 years. I currently have a 90 gallons mixed reef (sps, soft corals and a few sps).
Recently a friend of mine moved to a larger reef and gave me his old display tank, it is a 100cmx100cmx65cm cube (40'x40'x25.5') plus a 65 gallon sump wich I had to improvise and repair. The bad thing about the display is that it doesn't have an overflow, it has four 1' drills at the top and it's imposible to cut the glass without breaking the tank. I'm thinking of building an internal overflow but due to it`s shape it's complicated.
Here in Argentina it gets really difficult to get decent equipment and if it gets here it is ridiculosly expensive, so acuarists from my country have to improvise and depend on DIY builds and use low-cost techniques. For example, this tank was built from an old glass table and pieces of windows. In this thread I hope to share with you my attempt to make a low-cost decent reef.

Here's some pictures of the building process so far.
Cleaning the display:

Making the light fixture:

Testing one of the 2 led lights:

The sistem will consist of the following equipment

lights: 2x160W compensated spectrum led lights
Return pump: OTP-5000
Skimmer: Super reef octopus 3000 internal
Display circulation: 2x WP-40
Calcium reactor: Bubble Magus C-120 with DIY washing chamber
Filtration: Carbon + GFO reactors + Algae Scrubber
Chiller: DIY made with a 2,5kw split air conditioner compressor

This is my DIY chiller installed in my current reef:

I'm open to any suggestions, your experience is very valuable for me.

 

[Cuacuac]

Update
I finished the plumbing and tested the return pump. I had some problems and I need your advice. Te return's real flow is 1180 gallons per hour it's too much for the return pipes and the water starts flowing through the emergency return pipe. I'm trying to figure out how to solve it. Removing the 90º elbows provides enough pipe section to compensate de water flow but the water level of the display is too low. I could remove the top reinforcement and lower it making an internal overflow, what do you think? is it a viable option?
Some pictures of the current setting and a sketch of a possible solution:

 

[leveldrummer]

You can build a very simple and effective overflow box out of 2 peices of glass for a "coast to coast" overflow, or 2 peices of glass for a small corner overflow box. Those holes that are already drilled will be perfect.

 

[Cuacuac]

Since I'd have to remove the top glass so my hand fits in the overflow I believe the "coast to coast" option is the most suitable. This way the glass will stand the water pressure.
Let's hope I can propperly remove the glass, it's really glued!!!

 

[Bilk]

You don't need to remove the top Euro-bracing glass. Perhaps you can make the overflow utilizing the four holes in the side of the tank and make it on the outside.

 

[Cuacuac]

The problem of doing so is that the water level would be 5 inches lower, that means 20% less display tank volume and i'd have to add filters to the holes so they don't suck any fish. By adding them the return lines wouldn't handle the 1180 gallons/hour. That's the minimum return flow I need to propperly feed the skimmer (super reef octopus 3000), if not it will lose performance since it's internal.

 

[dave.m]

Another possibility would be to use one of the existing holes in the top euro-bracing to run a U-shaped pipe up and over the top to an external hang-on-the-back (HOB) overflow. Here are some links to commercial HOB overflows that you might buy or get some ideas from for a homemade solution:

CPR Continuous Siphon

Eshopps Overflow Box

Tunze Overflow Tube

Note that these external overflows have problems with air accumulating at the top of the pipe and breaking siphon, so they are not considered an optimum solution. In the case of an electrical power failure they often can't restart themselves without manual intervention from the owner. That's why the better commercial units include a pump in their design to recover the siphon. Perhaps you can experiment to find a solution that meets your needs.

Dave.M

 

[Cuacuac]

Thanks for your advice, I could finaly solve the problem, a friend came home and drilled 2 more holes on the display tank. Yesterday I tested the piping and it works perfectly. I also finished the lighting fixture.
Here's some pics of the advances and how we drilled the holes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BStYqsN7M8Y




This weekend I'll be moving all the rock and livestock from my previous reef to this one. Do you have any safe protocol to do this? I want to avoid any cassualties.

 

[Noamurmac]

Cube tanks are awesome such a great shape. I have never seen one this large! Biggest one I have seen is a 120! will be following progress

 

[Cuacuac]

Today is "the big day", this night i'm moving al the livestock and rock!!!

This is what i've planned:
- Prepared 100G of new sea water at 1030 kg/m3 (this is because the cube and it's sump are the only recipients I have to make new sea water)
- Transfer 70G to the sump, the other 30G disolved to 1025 kg/m3 (same density in my current reef).
- Add 90% of the water from my current reef to the cube. The impact on the livestock will be something similar to a 25% water change.
- Transfer the liverock/make a quick aquascaping
- Transfer all the livestock
- Transfer small amounts of sea water from the sump with some RO/DI water to the cube, this will lower the density to 1025
-Move all the hardware to the cube (skimmer, return pump, wavemakers, electrical sockets, calcium/gfo reactors and else)

What do you think?