Custom Cabinet for 260g Reef

[areefer01]

Thanks! Yeah I love me some Festool. They're not cheap but they're the best, and unlike the cheaper tools, they only make you cry once (when you pay for them!).

Lol - that is true. My bother in law let me borrow their shop vac and orbital sander for something I was working on and sold ever since. Picked up the track saw, sander, and jig saw. I'm a fan never the less.

The boards on the rack are from a cherry tree that was going to be cut down and thrown away on one of my jobsites years ago. I bought an Alaskan chainsaw mill and cut it into boards for future use...been sitting there ever since :)

Very nice. They will be ready when the time is right.

I didn't mean to pry but thank you for sharing. You are doing some great work and it shows. The tools help but the craftsman still has to have some skill!

All the best.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

Once I got the stand/cabinets painted, I got to work on the "device cabinet" where all the power adapters, controllers, etc. will get tucked away and out of site. I carefully laid everything out on plywood, tweaked the placement here & there, and drilled/cut holes to hide all the wiring. The complete panel is made up of 5 individual panels that can be removed for future maintenance, equipment changes, etc. I also added exhaust fans to suck hot air out of the space behind the panels, to help keep everything cool. I also installed two LED boards for the Ecotech and Neptune brands, for a little nerd flair.

 

[Tuna Melt]

that's beautiful!

 

[Fishy Guy]

Once I got the stand/cabinets painted, I got to work on the "device cabinet" where all the power adapters, controllers, etc. will get tucked away and out of site. I carefully laid everything out on plywood, tweaked the placement here & there, and drilled/cut holes to hide all the wiring. The complete panel is made up of 5 individual panels that can be removed for future maintenance, equipment changes, etc. I also added exhaust fans to suck hot air out of the space behind the panels, to help keep everything cool. I also installed two LED boards for the Ecotech and Neptune brands, for a little nerd flair.

That's seriously impressive looking!

 

[danreef55]

Once I got the stand/cabinets painted, I got to work on the "device cabinet" where all the power adapters, controllers, etc. will get tucked away and out of site. I carefully laid everything out on plywood, tweaked the placement here & there, and drilled/cut holes to hide all the wiring. The complete panel is made up of 5 individual panels that can be removed for future maintenance, equipment changes, etc. I also added exhaust fans to suck hot air out of the space behind the panels, to help keep everything cool. I also installed two LED boards for the Ecotech and Neptune brands, for a little nerd flair.

Awesome what are the dimensions?
I have to build one soon.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

Awesome what are the dimensions?
I have to build one soon.

It's about 30" x 50"

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I was hooked with all the photos and staying for the progress. I like everything about your approach... keep it up.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

The sump I went with is a Luna Reef ECCO-4418. The chambers consist of a Red Sea ReefMat1200 roller mat -> Reef Octopus 200-INT skimmer -> refugium with Kessil refugium light -> return section with dual Ecotech Marine Vectra return pumps. Two Neptune flow sensors allow me to monitor the return pumps via Apex Fusion. The right return pump flows through a Aqua Ultraviolet 57w UV sterilizer, and also feeds the frag tank housed in the upper right cabinet.

The far right end of the stand houses the ATO reservoir and three additive reservoirs which will likely hold Alkalinity/Calcium/Magnesium mixes made from BRS 2-part kits. I went with a Tunze Osmolator for top-off control and a Tunze RO Water Controller to keep the ATO reservoir full (the RO/DI is connected to the reservoir with a float valve for added redundancy). A Neptune LLS allows me to monitor the ATO water level through Apex Fusion.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

I added some LED tape light strips to the underside of the stand, to provide light in the sump area for maintenance. The lights are connected to a remote bluetooth light switch in the device panel that I picked up on Amazon for cheap.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

For the aquascape, I used dry Marco rock that I super glued / epoxied together to create a negative space aquascape that I learned through the BRStv videos. The "foundation rock" pieces are crazy expensive, so I made my own using the regular rock and griding down one side on my disc sander (woodworking is my other hobby). I also made a full scale plywood mockup of the tank, so I could build the rock work to fit that, then move it to the actual tank once it was done to my liking. As far as quantities, I bought 250lbs of rock but only used 126lbs of it in the final aquascape.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

I used thin super glue and Marco Powder over the ugly gray epoxy joints to blend them in and make them disappear visually.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I added some LED tape light strips to the underside of the stand, to provide light in the sump area for maintenance. The lights are connected to a remote bluetooth light switch in the device panel that I picked up on Amazon for cheap.

Those led lights look good in there!

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

The upper right cabinet holds my frag tank, which is plumbed in with the display tank. The tank is a 28x20x8 acrylic tank with 1/2" panels custom made by Advanced Acrylics. It has two Maxspect Gyre XF330 pumps for flow and is fed from one of the Ecotech Marine Vectra L2 pumps in the sump. I originally went with a Neptune Sky light for the frag tank, but have since changed it out to a Ecotech Marine XR30 Pro Gen6 so that it matches all of my other lights on the display. Yeah, I'm weird like that.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

I added four bags of Caribsea Special Grade live sand to the tank, which was immediately blown everywhere by the flow in this tank, so I also added 100lbs of Tampa Bay Saltwater's ultra live sand to help keep the sand bed from moving around too much. It worked well, but still not perfect (there's a LOT of flow in this tank!). I also added 30lbs of Tampa Bay Saltwater base rock to the sump and frag tank for additional microbiome while the tank gets cycled.

My kids loved pulling the TBS rock out of the buckets and finding all the snails/crabs/corals on the rocks. We also had a brittle starfish hitchhiker in the bottom of one of the rock buckets, which was pretty cool.

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

I added the TBS live sand/live rock last Saturday, and started testing for ammonia the next day. It peaked at 0.14ppm on day #3 and has been steadily decreasing since.

Sat 12/14 - Added live sand/rock
Sun 12/15 - Ammonia 0.08ppm
Mon 12/16 - Ammonia 0.12ppm
Tue 12/17 - Ammonia 0.14ppm
Wed 12/18 - Ammonia 0.12ppm
Thu 12/19 - Ammonia 0.09ppm

 

[danreef55]

God Bless. Kids are the best addition to the holiday season.
hoping you experience great success

 

[RedEDGE2k1]

The tank has now been up and running for 8 weeks and currently has 13 fish, a cleanup crew of over 800 various snails/hermits, and over 40 corals (mix of softies, LPS and SPS frags). Coralline began growing on the rocks at about the 5 week mark and is really starting to takeoff now. Water parameters as of this week’s testing are:

Alk - 9.0dkh
Calc - 440ppm
Mag - 1350ppm
Nitrate - 0ppm
Phosphate - 0.04ppm
Salinity - 35ppt
Temp - 79F

Here’s a quick video of the tank: