135 gal Cube Build Thread - WooHoo!

[golfnut1232]

Okay, I've been working on this for about 8 months so I thought I'd better get things started for the thread. Tank has been running now for about 5 months. I wasn't in a huge hurry and wanted to make sure to do things right and also make sure I could pay cash for everything rather than go into debt for it. I decided that I really liked the look of the cubes. A friend of mine has a 93 cube and it just seemed like there was so much space in there that I just had to have one. Of course, I had to "1-up" him on size right? lol

As far as my history with reefing goes, I had a 120ish gal tank about 10 years ago, moved it into my father in law's basement where we were living while building a home. When the new house was done, I really didn't feel like moving the tank again so I decided to take a break. Well, 10 years later, I decided to jump back in with a small 28g nano. I was amazed at the changes that had taken place in the hobby like led lighting in particular. The frag scene also amazed me. I remember thinking, "where the heck were all these amazing z's and p's back when I had my other tank?1" Anyway, with about 65 corals in the nano, I was obviously out of real estate for more corals which we all know is unacceptable! lol So, hence the insatiable desire to upgrade. Here goes.

First, the nano

The new cube 36 x 36 x 24

Next I will post pics of the stand build.

 

[golfnut1232]

Okay, here are some pics of the process of building the stand.

 

[golfnut1232]

Painting the stand.

Prep for paint:

Sorry about the blurry pic

Stand painting complete with 3 coats of paint.

 

[eliramos]

wow this is going to be beautiful

 

[golfnut1232]

Next will be the custom DIY sump complete with filter sock holders, fuge, baffles, skimmer chamber, suspended frag rack area, etc.! A huge shout out to my friend Kelly Keel for helping me with this (actually doing most of the work! ) If anyone would like Kelly's contact info, I'd be happy to provide it.

Progression pics:

Main and emergency drains

Filter Sock Holders

Main baffle, fuge, and suspended frag area are in.

 

[golfnut1232]

Sump continued:

Sump completed.

Blurry pic again, sorry.

 

[golfnut1232]

Decided to go with the Bubble Magus Curve-7.

 

[golfnut1232]

Side shot of the stand cover. Painting and attaching doors is next.

 

[Tradewinds]

You have some crazy skills my friend! Beautiful, simply beautiful. You do some of the best work I have seen. I look forward to watching your progress.

 

[golfnut1232]

You have some crazy skills my friend! Beautiful, simply beautiful. You do some of the best work I have seen. I look forward to watching your progress.

Thank you for the kind words.

 

[914joe]

Nice!!! I like custom.... Thanks for sharing

 

[revhtree]

Wow you better keep us updated. This is too good!

 

[Sahin]

I agree, crazy skills. Awesome build.

 

[golfnut1232]

Here's a quick update.

After dealing with a eunicid worm that wiped out a lot of zoas and other corals, I decided to go with dead rock. I think it's worked out nicely so far and not having to wonder what is residing in the rock has been nice. Now if only I can keep it that way!

Plumbing the return pump. Went with the reeflo snapper/dart and really like this pump. It's incredibly quiet and really doesn't run very hot. I plumbed this away from the stand for reasons of heat and sound and it turns out that it probably wasn't necessary, but happy with where it is.

Filling the tank with RO/DI.

Most of the rock is in and the tank is running! Put in some Seachem Stability to help get the tank cycling. Seemed to work well although I wasn't going to be in a hurry as stated before.

 

[golfnut1232]

The next update will include the following:

Tank shots with coral placed
Apex set up with explanation of the various equipment that will be connected to it.
Shots of the mechanical (fish) room to show how I'm fitting all this into a relatively tight space.

 

[golfnut1232]

A couple of tank shots and coral shots. My photo skills are, well, not skillful! Please excuse. One day I'll hopefully be better at it. In the meantime, iphone 5 is what I'm using. On to the pics!

First attempt at rockscape.

Final decision on rock work (for now! lol)

More to come soon. Thanks for looking.

 

[golfnut1232]

Couple more pics:

Left side view:

Right side view:

I'm working on trying to keep parameters stable. I'm not happy with my past inability to keep sps happy and colorful. I'm bound and determined to be better at this. I mean, I'm a z and p freak, but I also love acros. Sometimes I wonder if this is an exercise in futility and hear that sometimes it's hard to keep both completely happy in the same system, but I still have to try. I've seen some pretty amazing tanks with both in them, so I know it's possible! Just started dosing alk and mag and I'm currently trying to get it dialed in. I use the Bubble-Magus dosing 3 pump dosing pump and so far so good. Seems pretty user friendly. Next I will have it attached to the apex to shut off in case of a large ph swing. Haven't set up the calcium side of dosing yet, that's next. Still trying to determine what the consumption is. Here's a pretty sweet deep water acro:

 

[golfnut1232]

I will try to get some pics of the fish that are currently residing in the tank. Here's a list:

Pair of Black Ice Clownfish
Flame Hawk
Coral Beauty Angel (behaves)
Yellow Coris Wrasse
Spotted Mandarin Goby
Purple Tang (2 weeks in the tank and already acting like the boss)
Golden Angel (had him in there for 2 weeks as well, absolutely love this angel. Jury is still out on whether he'll pick at anything (or live for that matter). Coral Beauty is being a bit of a bully towards it, but he seems to be able to avoid the CB for the most part. This angel is also VERY shy. I hope he gets a bit more comfy in the tank. As far as why I put those two in the same tank goes, truthfully I tried to get the CB out of there but for the life of me couldn't get the darn fish to go in the trap! I ran out of time as the tang and the golden angel arrived and had to get them stabilized from shipping. So, FINGERS CROSSED.

 

[Sahin]

Nice update. That new deepwater looks sweet! Look forward to this tank progressing!

 

[Sahin]

Forgot to ask, but what lighting are you using over this tank?