The 40/20 Cube

[Black Dog Reefing]

Hi all!

So this isn’t necessarily a new build but it’s mine nonetheless and wanted to share/track its progress! I’ve had the equipment for quite some time and was going to wait until I move (roughly a year or two at most) to set it up, but what better time than the present!

The plan:

I ultimately decided to set it up because it is partially a frag system as well as a display. This will allow me to frag up some of the (hopefully soon to be) colonies into smaller and more manageable pieces for the move. In the meantime I’ll be able to start my collection back up and enjoy the lovely hobby that is reefing.

The tank(s):

There is a 40g cube and 20g frag tank (custom built to have a matching footprint) all tied together with a Bashea Bio-fuge sump. I chose this sump to utilize the fuge area to house euphyllia frags so they can keep their sweepers to themselves.

Equipment:

40g (AIO tank originally that was drilled, I went this route to utilize the back chambers for extra biological filtration since the frag tank won’t have any rock)

Lighting: Radion XR30 G4
Flow: MP10 & Icecap gyre 1K
Rock: PM Reef ceramics custom rockscape

20g

Lighting: 2 AI Primes & 2 AI Blade Glows
Flow: Icecap gyre 1K

Return Pump: Sicce Syncra SCS 9.0
Skimmer: Skimz Kone S-181
Dosing Pump: Koamer F1 (to dose All-For-Reef)
ATO: Tunze ATO

The system has been up and running for over 6 months now. The front two pieces of rock came from a previous build and were well cycled as well as had many of the corals that are on them now already on there (this is why they’re not shown in the early stage photos of the build). Thanks to anyone who’s made it this far and may want to follow along, I hope it will be worth while!

P.S. I apologized for the low quality photos of the early stages, I never really intended to share them, but now doing a build thread how could I leave them out!

 

[Black Dog Reefing]

And here’s some photos from a few days ago! Better quality pics to come, just wanted to get this out there!

 

[Fernthereefer]

The system looks awesome!

How did you finish the plumbing seen on top? Wondering how you handle the two returns from each tank to balance the difference in height.

Tx

 

[Black Dog Reefing]

The system looks awesome!

How did you finish the plumbing seen on top? Wondering how you handle the two returns from each tank to balance the difference in height.

Tx

So the two inner pipes are the returns (the ones with the check valves), the next line out is the overflow, and the farthest out on each tank is the emergency overflow (in the first picture this is not finished, i forgot to take a picture of them but pretty simple 90 down and 90 into the sump). The return goes in the Tee from the pump and then individual check valves, from there they go into ball valves that control each thanks flow independently. The overflows also have ball valves to match the flow going into the tank. This probably isn’t a great explanation but i’ll grab some pics to try and explain better!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

And here’s some photos from a few days ago! Better quality pics to come, just wanted to get this out there!

Great looking tank!