My new 93g cube!!!!

[Super Bad]

I am extremely excited to say that my new tank is up and running!!!! This is my first post so I suppose there is a lot to cover... I have been in the hobby for close to 4 years now. But thanks to some dear friends of mine I have learned a lot in a short time. My best friends started a saltwater maintenance company many years ago and when my wife and I moved closer to them I got very interested and started to "help". Meaning get in the way I'm sure!!!! But never the less they kept me around and now I help when I can. Carla and I do some of the tank maintenance and Kevin and I (more Kevin than me) build the stands. Then we do the installs. I love it!!!!

My first tank was a 34g Solana tank that we built a custom bar height stand for that matched our office furniture. Here are some pics of it in our old apartment.

In the beginning"¦. Sorry about the poor photography skills!!!

In the later years of its life"¦

It was a great tank, but unfortunately my appetite for a more room and larger tank could not satisfied with this setup. A while back I was in a LFS (MidWest Reefs in Kansas) and fell in love with a 30x30x24 tank. Some time went by and the tank never sold so owner of the store decided to raffle it off for a local saltwater organization fundraiser. After I flooded the box with raffle tickets, and I do mean flooded, I got lucky and won it!!!!! The nice thing is it came with a pump and sump!!!!! I did not tell my wife for some time because I totally thought she was going to upchuck the boogy

when she saw this thing!!!!!

So after I broke the new to my wife (Jenna) we started the grueling discussion of where to put the tank"¦ if it were up to Jenna it would have stayed at the LFS!!! Any ways it ended up going in the living room. We built the stand to custom match the style and color of the rest of my furniture. In order for it to not stick out into a doorway we did the plumbing into the garage, which backs up to the living room. Enough talk here are some pictures"¦.

The whole family getting into it!!!

The empty corner that my buddy is standing near is were it will go. And the tank bellow is the refuge that will be next to the sump and drain into it.

and the Canopy...yes it is as big as a couch (my wife and I can sit in that together!!!)

and now everything together, befor the plumbing that is...

My favorite part is the stand and the tapered legs!!!! There are also plans later to do fill pieces in the corners so it doesnt look like a massive floating canopy.

More pictures to come, I have to find my camera:eek2:!!!! Thanks for looking!!!

 

[Reefobsession]

Nice another 93 cube owner. I have a 93 cube from marineland. I am looking to building a new canopy ans stand for my tank. I love my tank.
Any idea for lighting?

 

[Super Bad]

Nice another 93 cube owner. I have a 93 cube from marineland. I am looking to building a new canopy ans stand for my tank. I love my tank.
Any idea for lighting?

I actually have it finished and running!!! I just have to find my camera to post the pics. I am using the large lumen bright pendant with an icecap 250w ballast with a 14k pheonix bulb... LOVE it. I also have x2 24 inch T5 actinics running with it and a reefbright mini mag LED for my moon light. I have it on a dawn-day-dusk-night light schedule. If you have never seen the mini mag LED I highly suggest it the output is awesome, I only have it about 7 inches of the water and it covers the entire tank. Heres the url.... http://premiumaquatics.com/aquatic-supplies/RB-MM2-B.html

 

[Super Bad]

Found my camera!!!! Thank god!!!! Now for some more pics...

Here is were all the Mayhem will happen in the garage

Thank god Jenna wasnt home for the drilling!!!

The nerve-racking thing was cutting the holes and making sure everything would go right into place!!! measure twice cut once right? the other crapy thing was we had to carry this thing into the corner while trying to fit the pipe into the hole:eek2:

On the other side we have this thus far. The drain to the Sump and the supply for the pump.

Next we built a table for the madness to come!!! Later this will be enclosed with doors to appear to be a cabinet. For my wife sanity

So the plan was to make a simple water changing station with a spout to drain into buckets and then have a drum to gravity feed the new saltwater back into the system... and then somehow after some long and hardthinking it turned into the amazing piece of pvc art!!!!! Not that Im complaining or anything!!!! I have a 3-way switch that controls the main pump both inside the house and in the garage and with the turn of a few ball valves the tank drains into a drain in the basement!! with a few more turns the pump sucks the new saltwater from the vat and pumps it back into the Tank!!!! How amazing is that? I could not be happier!!!!

And here is the complete setup, minus the cabinet. Gotta love the nasty green pain the the garage though right? The extra hole in the top left will be for the wiring and electrical in to the canopy.

The way the drain is set up is that it comes down and T's off were it drains into the refuge and the Sump , then the refuge drains into the Sump as well. There is a ball valve (unfortunately cant be seen in this pic) that controls the amount of flow into the refuge. The refuge has one side painted black so when a light is placed I wont get to much algae growth in the sump.

So thats pretty much it as far as the build goes!!!!! Once again I have to thank my wife, Kevin and Carla for all the help and support!!!! Couldn't have done it them. Now lets put some water in it!!!!

Thanks for looking!! I will post more pics soon and more is to come about the equipment that I am running.

 

[Dave VG]

Nice job man!!!! Love the plumbing for the water change station.

 

[Reefobsession]

Really nice work man!!! Is there any reason why you won't just put your sump behind the wall instead of under teh tank? This way you could put a 55 to 75 gallon sump on the other side and benifit from more water.

 

[Super Bad]

Really nice work man!!! Is there any reason why you won't just put your sump behind the wall instead of under teh tank? This way you could put a 55 to 75 gallon sump on the other side and benifit from more water.

I would love to, and I thought about it long and hard!!!! But my garage is not heated or cooled, so I thought I would have huge temp swings with it. I think If I got a chiller it would be a possibility but that is further down the road.

 

[tydtran]

Congratulations! That is going to be a nice tank.

 

[Birdy]

Looks great. What are your plans for rock work? Any ideas on fish and corals that you want? What size is your sump and refuge? Sorry for all the questions all at once. Have you looked at any other cube setups to see what they are doing?

 

[Pallobi]

i really really like the "behind the scenes" part of it... great job my friend... tagging along

 

[Super Bad]

i really really like the "behind the scenes" part of it... great job my friend... tagging along

THANKS! hope to have new pictures posted soon of the progress.

 

[Super Bad]

Looks great. What are your plans for rock work? Any ideas on fish and corals that you want? What size is your sump and refuge? Sorry for all the questions all at once. Have you looked at any other cube setups to see what they are doing?

First things first I had a chance to look at toddrtrex's homepage and i have to say nice man!!!! Have you had much luck with the carpet anenomes? I have been wanting one for a while now, but just cant bring myself to do it, I hear they dont have a long tank life.

Next then to birdy's question, I have several ideas of the rock work. I curently have a lagoon"ish" type set up. Kind of confusing to discribe with typing, but here goes. There are two viewable sides on the tank, the non viewing sides have rock work built up to about 18 inches and then there is a small outcroping of rock, a small mountain if you will in the center. It leaves alot of nice open swimming area for fish and has an over all nice look. But for some reason I want to try something else. There is maybe about 50g between the refuge and sump. And I have looked at several cube setups and most these days look like they are doing "bonsai" rock work. It interests me but looks like to much work and I like the freedom of being able to move my rock work later!!!! thanks for the questions.

 

[LaOtIn]

I LOVE the plumbing in the garage! I know that sounds weird but that is the best part of the build I think. You have so much room for WC and pumps, etc. so much room to expand for reactors or whatever you want. you could even put the sump back there one day if you wanted. awesome build! very nicely done! tagging

 

[Reefobsession]

Your rock work plan sounds good, I thouhght about that but let me recomend another layout that might look great as well.

Since I have the same tank I have some experiance with the dimensions.

I would do a two island diagonly. One island towards the front towards the left hand side of the tank. And the other idland towards the back right of the tank.

I started with a bonsai style and liked it at first, but once I started adding some SPS and realizing that I need more realestate for my corals to grow that I am leaning towards a shallow two island look. I will not do this until I move again which will be in 3 to 4 months.

It really depends on what you want to keep in your tank. If you want to do a mixed tank I think your option would be amazing. If you wanted to do mostly SPS like me then I would a staggered two island look.

 

[Super Bad]

I have not had much experience with SPS in my own tanks just some of our clients, so i think I am just going to stick with "easier" corals to take care of at first. At least until I know how the tank runs. Just like you I like the idea of realestate. I may experiment later but I may just tinker with what i have now until I get it just right. ( and then probably tear it down ofcourse!!!) Thanks for the pointers though, will be posting pics soon stay posted.

 

[allsps40]

Nice build. I must also say nice plumbing in the garage. I like clean setups and cant wait to see more. What lighting are you going to use? I would suggest a 400 watt with Lumen Max reflector.

 

[Super Bad]

Nice build. I must also say nice plumbing in the garage. I like clean setups and cant wait to see more. What lighting are you going to use? I would suggest a 400 watt with Lumen Max reflector.

Thanks!!!!! Plumbing took some thought, not going to lie. Works flawlessly though, I could not be happier. It only takes about 5 min to do a 15 gallon water change, with absolutly no hoses, buckets ot mess on the floor, I think my wife likes it more than I do. As far as lighting goes I thought about getting a 400 watt, but thought it may be overkill on a 24 inch tall tank, I ended up getting a 250 watt LumenBright large reflector with a icecap ballast on a 14k pheonix bulb. I love it, ever since i chnaged to this setup, coral growth as exploded. I ran it on my onld tank befor this one to see what it would do. I also recently added 2 T5 actinics to it that are a great addition. Thanks for looking. I know I keep saying this but pics are soon to come!!!!

 

[Super Bad]

As promised here are some shots of the new tank. Sorry it took a while to get things posted, life gets busy sometimes I guess.

Gotta post the first pic of the tank all cloudy of course.

 

[Super Bad]

And here is the tank in all its glory in the livingroom. I just have to add that the paintings above my TV are done by my niece and nephews, and I love them!!!!
2 of them the oldest boy and girls (twins) are seven and the youngest is 3. Can you try and guess who did what?

I think that this picture shows how well it matches with the rest of the furniture. The people at sherwin williams do an awesome job at matching stains to existing furniture.

 

[Super Bad]

And now for some closer shots of the tank. Dont make fun of all my tiny lillte frags. Every thing looks a lot bigger in a 34g. I cant wait for everything to grow out!!!!
All shots from front of the tank.