60 Gallons of Barebottom, Metal Halide Rockin, SPS Dominant Cubeness

[RCS82]

The 2 black gladiator clowns never pause for the picture lol. I do like them a lot. Also theres a pair of Bengai Cardinals, a firefish or 2 I see seldom lol, and a bicolor Blenny who zips around a little. Corals theres just a few older favias, leptos, cyphastreas and chalices from the old tank. When they start to look good I really want to stock back up on a few good chalices and montis and then all sps sticks after that. I always like a lot of rock for the aquascape for a lot of coral mounting to happen. I also added another tunze so the water is just swirling.

 

[S.Pepper]

Looking good. The scape doesn't look bad at all. Once your corals fill out, it'll look great. I think everyone has that problem of changing their scape several times. I got mine after 3 changes. lol

 

[MaugieDawgieCorals]

So back in October I got a little break between jobs and while trying to get packed and moved to the new place I got some work done in the garage. Added some lighting arms to the stand, put a new black bottom into the cube, got the cube sump glued together, got some old rock bleached and cleaned and cycled. This was all on a real tight schedule as I ended up getting my house rented out real fast so I had to get my old 90 moved right away

Sorry if I'm jumping all over the place lol.
Here's a couple of pics from October and getting the new cube wet. Then maybe we can go over some equipment choices. My awesome dude Memphis is always on hand and I think is just happy he has his old couch back lol.

I built a big sump. One thing about the old 90 is it had a small sump and I always wanted more space there. Especially with going bare bottom I wanted a big fuge for pods, bacteria and all that great stuff.

what size tank is the sump? It looks very clean for a diy simp.

 

[RCS82]

what size tank is the sump? It looks very clean for a diy simp.

Thanks, I built the sump with a roughly 20"x20" footprint, it's been working great with a long refugium section on one side and then a skimmer and return sections for the other half. I even made the space between the baffles a little larger, maybe 1 1/2", so a bag of carbon fits nice.

 

[RCS82]

I did some measuring and the sump is about 22"×20"×maybe 16" tall. First compartment is 12.5 gallon of refugium calculated with about 13" of water in it. I didnt bother to account for rock displacement and what not. Also I'm trying the Miracle Mud on this build, was real easy to add with 2 tupperwares. Then just skimmer, baffles, return. The baffles I put 1 1/2" apart so a bag of carbon can be added easy, or maybe the bio spheres media or anything else. In the return section I just added the SmartAqua sensors for the AWC system as well as it does the ATO as well. Just hooking up the pumps they include and running some more hose. Looking forward to seeing how that all works.

Sorry about the bad cable management. Next job is to mount the power bar above the sump and tidy up cords I promise lol.

 

[RCS82]

Power bar is mounted above the sump. Worked perfect with a couple of tabs screwed in. Got some cords cleaned up but still have work to do there. Got some new glass lids cut recently, big news yup. Also for the last week I've been using the AWC feature from the Auto Aqua unit. Really liking it so far, tough to trust just 2 small sensors but it's been working good. I've been using the ATO feature for the last month and it hasnt missed a beat. For the price and for what it does, it's been awesome. Next up might be building a little stand for the doser which is sitting on the cabinet beside the tank, or play around with some different fuge lighting, or one day we will put some panels on this stand and clean things up a bunch.

 

[RCS82]

We have coraline. Big news and happy too see at roughly the 3 month mark. Also the fuge has pods crawling everywhere.
I added another 10 pounds of old established rock from a LFS close by. This rock had some nice sponge growth and more pods too, very happy to add all that to the fuge and sump. I think I enjoy my sump more than the display, it's way more fun down there lol. Next step will be stocking up on some new and different frags. Plus we'll test the waters with some SPS because it's too tempting

 

[RCS82]

Not sure if a lot of people follow the cube section of this forum but,
Here is the first SPS test frag. Just an inexpensive no name from the Lfs down the street. But it had some nice color and was encrusted nice so let's see what it does.
Pics taken under daylight, no filter, just dimmed a little on the brightness.

Also found a nice Utter Chaos Zoa frag, a fav zoa for it's price.

 

[RCS82]

Good update here.
I had a few sps frags at my buddies house the last little while, a few I managed to save when my old tank had a bit of an sps crash. He kept them real healthy while I got this new cube set up and I'm really thrilled to have them again.
From left to right its RRC Holy Grail, Pink Cadillac, Pink Floyd, kinda green floyd right now but we'll get these colored up, and on the right is the Walt Disney. Can't wait to glue these to their forever locations on the rock work real soon. Sorry pics are just daylight and no filters or nothin lol.

 

[RCS82]

Tank is 5 months and I'm pretty happy with things. Needs a lot of frags.

 

[RCS82]

Beautiful spring morning we have here lol

 

[temfinger]

Tank is 5 months and I'm pretty happy with things. Needs a lot of frags.

Im in the process of removing all my sand, did you paint the bottom black?

 

[RCS82]

Im in the process of removing all my sand, did you paint the bottom black?

This cube tank i bought used and it had a piece of maybe 1/8" black acrylic glued into the bottom that was cracked almost in 2. I removed it and cleaned the pounds of silicone they used to glue it down, lot of elbow grease and scraping. Underneath were the holes for the old internal overflow that had been removed, I cant believe this tank held water lol. I cleaned up all the silicone around the bottom and put a new piece of glass over the existing and then a piece of black acrylic all glued down. It turned out great and I'm real happy with the barebottom approach.
I watched a bit of the BRS/WWC barebottom tank and mine seemed to be very similar. Off and on cloudiness at times for the first 2 or 3 months but by month 4 the water is sparkling. What kind of rock you use will definitely decide on how your tank fairs IMO. I cleaned and cycled this rock for a bit before hand and added another 10 pounds of real old established rock from an LFS that had great sponge growth and other microfauna.
But you're just removing sand so you should have some good established rock already.

 

[temfinger]

This cube tank i bought used and it had a piece of maybe 1/8" black acrylic glued into the bottom that was cracked almost in 2. I removed it and cleaned the pounds of silicone they used to glue it down, lot of elbow grease and scraping. Underneath were the holes for the old internal overflow that had been removed, I cant believe this tank held water lol. I cleaned up all the silicone around the bottom and put a new piece of glass over the existing and then a piece of black acrylic all glued down. It turned out great and I'm real happy with the barebottom approach.
I watched a bit of the BRS/WWC barebottom tank and mine seemed to be very similar. Off and on cloudiness at times for the first 2 or 3 months but by month 4 the water is sparkling. What kind of rock you use will definitely decide on how your tank fairs IMO. I cleaned and cycled this rock for a bit before hand and added another 10 pounds of real old established rock from an LFS that had great sponge growth and other microfauna.
But you're just removing sand so you should have some good established rock already.

Thanks for the info, I am going to look into getting the black acrylic for the bottom, it might be a pain to break down and add but might be worth it in the long run. I know you said yours came with it but any idea when it can be found? . The rock is well established for about 6 years now. I'm just getting tired of the sand on everything when my gyre ramps up, and clown fish always making it worst.

 

[NHgoalstop]

So dumb question, but how do people with bare bottoms keep them from becoming dirty and junk building up in areas?

 

[RCS82]

So dumb question, but how do people with bare bottoms keep them from becoming dirty and junk building up in areas?

The last 2 comments go hand in hand. #temfinger If the tank is running then I would just slowly remove the sand. No big deal. If you have a fuge section in your sump I would literally just put the existing sand there for a while. But as far as draining the tank and doing the bottom all nice in acrylic, no way I would do that. Coraline and other stuff is gonna grow on that nice new bottom if you let it. I wouldn't go thru too much work if I were to do it again. Probably just paint the underside like you would do to the back and after a year or 2 it won't even matter.

 

[RCS82]

Time for some end of the month updates. Pics are with halides on, no orange filters, just the Samsung lol. I will try to improve the pic quality in the future. These sps pieces have actually only been in here for a month so not a lot to report. Colors I can see a difference already though, especially in the Pink Floyd, definitely seeing a little more yellow and less green.

RRC Pink Floyd

Walt Disney

RRC Pink Cadillac and Holy Grail

 

[NHgoalstop]

The last 2 comments go hand in hand. #temfinger If the tank is running then I would just slowly remove the sand. No big deal. If you have a fuge section in your sump I would literally just put the existing sand there for a while. But as far as draining the tank and doing the bottom all nice in acrylic, no way I would do that. Coraline and other stuff is gonna grow on that nice new bottom if you let it. I wouldn't go thru too much work if I were to do it again. Probably just paint the underside like you would do to the back and after a year or 2 it won't even matter.

Thanks for the response. I just picked up a new 20 gallon long tank I was going to set up and was thinking of going without a sand bed. Do you out something under the rock so it's not putting all its weight on a single point of glass or is that not an issue?

 

[RCS82]

Thanks for the response. I just picked up a new 20 gallon long tank I was going to set up and was thinking of going without a sand bed. Do you out something under the rock so it's not putting all its weight on a single point of glass or is that not an issue?

I wouldn't over think this one. Unless you are literally dropping your rock in the tank, it will be fine.

 

[RCS82]

With all this self isolation and time at home, things are getting a little boring lol. So I had this old Kessil360 that has no blue in it, just all white light. Don't worry Kessil was great about sending a replacement and didn't even want me to bother sending this one back. So it's been on the shelf for a few years and I thought it could replace my crappy little home depot bulb on my fuge. It's only live rock and rubble in there anyways and it puts out a ton of light still. Didnt have the nice eyebolt for it but managed to get it hangin. Quite happy with it.

Also added some more black material behind the sump, looks a little cleaner now. Also moved my dosing pump into the side cabinet instead of just sitting on top of it.
Tomorrow if I feel like it I will start on some panels to cover the stand. Will need a trip to Lowes for this lol.