d2mini's 130g Rimless Cube
- Thread starter d2mini
- Start date
d2mini
Premium Member
hmmm.... considering some of the limitations that come due to the fact that this is a full walkaround tank, i've been pretty happy with it. I think the only thing I would have liked to try and figure out (without making the overflow any larger than it already is) is to make the dry pipe 2" instead of 1" so i don't have to remove the wiring from my light or vortechs when installing or uninstalling them. The plug ends are too big to fit. Now if it wasn't a full walk around, I would love to have a house with a large fish room. I never feel like i have enough space to do everything i want to equipment wise. And my house always has fish stuff laying around which I hate and so does my wife. And we don't have basements here.
Other than that it's mostly little niggly things that don't bother me now but if i ever did another tank I might take into consideration. One would be to investigate a metal stand with some sort of wood or other type of skin. Tank size wise, i might go a tad shorter (maybe 18" or 20" instead of 24"), and then of course what everyone does, a tad larger width/length. But this was sized for the space i have currently. Oh and I would have liked the tank to drop down into the stand a little more so that the stand hid all of the bottom pane of glass and some of the sand.
That's about it at this point.
Some of my favorite choices and things I would do again...
1. "The Package" from TBS, without a doubt.
2. The light fixture (unless LED's drop $$ dramitcally)
3. Rimless starphire cube
4. i-Tech Skimmer, vortech mp40w's, RKL, BRS dual reactor,
5. Go with as large of a sump as you can but leave room for other/future equipment
6. Lots of access to the stand if that's where the bulk of your equipment is
7. This sounds minor, but i LOVE having a wide rim around the tank to set food, test tubes, etc on while messing with the tank.
I don't think i was overly surprised about how anything worked out except for two things. One was how perfect the tank fit into the stand. It couldn't have fit any tighter. We got super lucky. Two, I had high hopes for TBS, but I'm still amazed at the life that I find on that rock and I'm still amazed at all the cool extra stuff that Richard sends out.
I had so many bags of awesome things that night I was totally overwhelmed and didn't know what to do with it all.
Good luck! :beer:
theyammieguy
Active member
Exactly like looking into the ocean.
ChadTheSpike
Reef Engineer
I erased the tanks seam lines. Some of what you see is reflections from the sides of the tank.
how did you go about doing that? The result is awesom!
Reeftanks6
Active member
Beautiful tank. Love that fts. What settings did you use on your camera for that shot? Beautiful!
d2mini
Premium Member
Do what? Get rid of the tank seams? I just used the rubber stamp tool in photoshop.
Thanks. Nothing special. f/7-ish, 1/200 sec, iso 1000. And a REALLY wide angle lens.
theyammieguy
Active member
Thats because he went out of business.
d2mini
Premium Member
Ya, that's too bad.
Well if you find someone locally who can do it, you are more than welcome to bring them by to look in person.
dollarz81
New member
Now that is a nice looking seam!
NeverlosT
A bit fishy
D2, having just finished a build myself, your attention to detail is phenominal. You have had comments from a few other design folks but let me be the first engineer to tell you that the whole shooting match looks terrific and very well thought out. I enjoy the overflow design, the tank construction looks top notch, and your attention to keeping the infrastructure hidden is paying off in spades.
I am always jealous of the graphic design folks. I bought a house recently and I just do NOT have the eye for design that you do. I would love for my kitchen to look like that! I can design you a bridge, a submarine, hell, I worked for Mercedes Benz in the crash test department for a while, but designing a living space that aesthetically pleasing evades me! Well done and sweet tank. I wish you years of success.
oh and as an aside, I dont know how you have been uploading/displaying the photos in this thread, but I can see them at work which is a real treat! (I work for the Dept. of Defense and they block photobucket, etc. so peoples pictures hosted there dont work!)
I am always jealous of the graphic design folks. I bought a house recently and I just do NOT have the eye for design that you do. I would love for my kitchen to look like that! I can design you a bridge, a submarine, hell, I worked for Mercedes Benz in the crash test department for a while, but designing a living space that aesthetically pleasing evades me! Well done and sweet tank. I wish you years of success.
oh and as an aside, I dont know how you have been uploading/displaying the photos in this thread, but I can see them at work which is a real treat! (I work for the Dept. of Defense and they block photobucket, etc. so peoples pictures hosted there dont work!)
d2mini
Premium Member
Thank you very much, NeverlosT!
The best thing we've done over the years is to find people that are in sync with your own design tastes. We found the right architect, i found the right tank builder, i found the right stand builder. Sometimes we know exactly what we want but sometimes we only have a subtle idea, and if you have the right person working on the job, they can basically read your mind and give want you knew you wanted but couldn't quite come up with on your own.
I use smugmug.com to host my personal photos. I'm actually surprised you can see them at work because other people i know can not!
Thanks again!
The best thing we've done over the years is to find people that are in sync with your own design tastes. We found the right architect, i found the right tank builder, i found the right stand builder. Sometimes we know exactly what we want but sometimes we only have a subtle idea, and if you have the right person working on the job, they can basically read your mind and give want you knew you wanted but couldn't quite come up with on your own.
I use smugmug.com to host my personal photos. I'm actually surprised you can see them at work because other people i know can not!
Thanks again!
reefanatik
Member
beautiful tank
beautiful tank
I fell in love with cube tanks when I first saw Fish Gallerys tank on 59south. maybe u know which one i am talking about. I dream of one day building a cube somewhat similiar to theirs but not so deep. God willing this year I will start building my new house and can build something similir to yours. What lense did u use for the ricordea pic. it looks great. seems like we have the same hobbies. I just bought a Cannon 50D, upgrade from the Cannon XTI. I live in Freeport. which is 1 hr south of houston and I go to all about fish alot. Kevin is very helpfull. What other places do u go to. I would like to try diff stores but dont know of any. Before i leave just wanted to tell u once more that u have a beautiful home and a very beautiful tank. keep up the good work
beautiful tank
I fell in love with cube tanks when I first saw Fish Gallerys tank on 59south. maybe u know which one i am talking about. I dream of one day building a cube somewhat similiar to theirs but not so deep. God willing this year I will start building my new house and can build something similir to yours. What lense did u use for the ricordea pic. it looks great. seems like we have the same hobbies. I just bought a Cannon 50D, upgrade from the Cannon XTI. I live in Freeport. which is 1 hr south of houston and I go to all about fish alot. Kevin is very helpfull. What other places do u go to. I would like to try diff stores but dont know of any. Before i leave just wanted to tell u once more that u have a beautiful home and a very beautiful tank. keep up the good work
reefanatik
Member
Hey
yes it is a wonderfull camera. all i have is the 28-135 body lense and a 75-300 lense. hopefully soon i will be allowed to purchase a new lense. really want a macro for tank shots. :beer:
