JZinCO's incredibly slow build

[JZinCO]

Hello everyone.
Well it's that time. I've only had my 125 gallon up for eight months but I'm ready to replace it. It was always intended to be temporary. I purchased a 140 gallon cube and 270 gallon tank. It's really soon to be thinking of a new build considering my tank is barely come into its own. But I figure, (1) these tanks have the dimensions I WANT going forward for the long haul, and (2) I want my garage space back.

The plan for the 140 cube is to house the hodge-podge, random collection of corals that are currently in my 125g. The plan for the 270g is to create a Caribbean biotope. Well, I'm not going to be setting the 270 up any time soon, but there's no reason why I can't have the 140 cube up and running now.

The 'upgrade', as I might call it, from 125g to 140g isn't much of an upgrade in terms of real estate. The footprint is smaller (6'x2' to 36"x30") but the cube is 30" tall so that will cater towards my taste for aquascaping in tall structures. I currently have a 55g sump and will trade that out for a 75g sump.

It's winter. I have the equipment ready to finish getting the scratches out of, and polishing, the acrylic cube. But my garage is cold. So let's start thinking things through. Like Michael Hoaster said, the best part about a new tank is attempting to circumvent all those things you overlooked on the last build.

Let's start with aquascaping. I haven't put alot of thought into this and will explore this more in the future. For now I am thinking (imaging viewing the tank from above) of an asymmetrical horseshoe with one leg longer than the other. Cubes are new to me, so the aquascaping may be a challenge.

How about lighting? I started a thread earlier asking about RapidLED and other options. Turns out, I will retain my trusty MarsAquas. They give coral the light they want. The only downside is little control with spectrum or scheduling. boohoo, I can live with that. Here's what really bugs me though. Shadowing. This limits coral placement and kills SPS undersides. It really bugs me. Shadowing is really problematic with a long tank where you have a single row of fixtures (I have 4 MarsAquas in a line). These are centered over the rock so any concavity in the aquascaping leads leads to excess light on the ridges and shoulders of the aquascape and shadowing on the toe slopes of the aquascape. But I think that will improve for two reasons. One, I will have a grid of 2x2 units of the tank. This means the middle 1/2 of the tank or so will have light coming from two different angles, alleviating light being obstructed. Two, I have decided to add Sunblaster 24" t5s. This should alleviate shadowing.

I think that's enough for now. I hope to have the cube up by Fall. As far as the larger tank, as long as I take less than a decade, I'll beat Chasmodes. :lol2:

 

[JZinCO]

And just to give some eye candy until I post more relevant photos. Here are some photos of the fish destined for the cube.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Sounds like fun!

I had a 60 gallon cube once upon a time, and loved it. I positioned it in the corner of two couches at a right angle. As for aquascaping, cubes lend themselves nicely to tall central pinnacles or bommies, as the Aussies call them. This should help with shadowing as well. With my corner overflow, I ran a sort of ridge from it towards the center. Anyway, my two cents on that.

Nice pics! Especially the Starry Blenny! Good luck with the project!

 

[JZinCO]

Thanks Michael.

This will be viewable on three sides with a center overflow on the back if that makes any difference aquascaping. I can see how a ridgeline would look good considered the two viewing angles you had.

This is maybe what I am thinking. Black border is the tank and overflow (looking from above). Gray ovals are powerheads. Brown are the rocks. If you've ever used a topo map or seen any kind of isocontours, you'll get it. Closer lines are steeper, the more layers of lines, the taller the object.
In the lower left is a large one piece arch. So I think these all retain decent sightlines from all angles. Let me know what yall think.

 

[divad]

I am really looking forward to your build. Regardless of the time frame

 

[JZinCO]

Thanks Divad. We've had a few weekends in the upper 50s so its high time to get going.

The 125 gallon is still doing fine but it is a bit packed in anticipation of the new build...

The 125 is filled to the brim with frags and palm sized colonies. Pictured here without blues.

I have ideas that I have formalized below.
The system
My goal is a successful mixed reef tank dominated by leathers, zoas and SPS (I know...carbon will be used) on the top, and a Caribbean planted/reef tank in the sump. A big idea behind this new build is that I get to design the system from scratch. I want to make maintenance slightly easier and have a plan for all the components thought out ahead of time. Everything that would go in a sump will be externalized including return pump, filtration, and heating in order to make the sump a secondary display. I also plan on using a poor man's controller of some sort. To keep up with parameters, I will continue dosing kalk and build in spots to dose 2-part should the need arise.

Lighting
I'll be reusing my MarsAquas and will make a minimal canopy that includes three of these units along with 2 dual t5 units. I decided to go hybrid because I've seen too much die on the bottoms and underside of corals. The shadowing drives me insane. The sump will also have one marsaqua and a dual t5.

Circulation
I run Jebao wavemakers but they make too much noise for me. So, I'm going to try and pick up Vortechs. I feel good with gph that are 25 times my tank size but I'm going to creep that up over time.

Heating
I'm going to try out the inline heaters. Hope that works out.

Filtration methods
Since I won't want to plop a bag into the display sump, I'm going to pick up GFO and carbon reactors. I've recently also toyed with the idea of using vinegar in my kalk to get some bacteria to convert N and P into sponge and coral biomass since I've read they consume bacteria. I do already attribute my healthy sponge population to available dissolved organic materials.

Sponges!

Livestock
I've already got more than enough varieties of zoas, sps and leathers to grow in. But I do suffer a bit from wanting to try everything... In the sump, I plan on having Caribbean macroalgae, hard corals, which I got from a friend (legally), rock flower nems, gorgonians and zoas. Most of the livestock I already have. I will add some fish own the road in both the top and bottom tanks.

 

[JZinCO]

Where am I at as of the beginning of March?
The two big to-dos are the stand and polishing the tank, as well as get additional equipment together.

The stand is typical 2-by construction. Considering how overbuilt the 2x4 stands are, I wanted to try 2x3s. The sides and top are skinned with 1/2" plywood, and the front, back and bottom have 1/4" plywood. Everything was cut by a chop saw or a handheld cut off wheel so I liberally used 2x1s for trim to correct for not-straight edges. I think everything is costing me around $300 between lumber, paint, sandpaper, etc and it is all softwood so I hope my cheapness doesn't bite me in the rear later. The taller doors are on hinges while the smaller top doors (one on each side and one on the front) are held by magnets. I did some caulking, sanding and painting today. I have more painting tomorrow. The one thing I did not like was having visible screws on the sides, but I need to disassemble the skin in order to move the stand through my window.