SeaHorse_Fanatic's new Dual RR Cube (2' & 30") Tanks Journal
 

So, finally got all the equipment and pieces for doing my dual teardown & new RR cube tank builds.

First of all, had to teardown my non-RR 2' cube that I've had going for about 6-7 years at least.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3058b814.jpg

Replaced this with a RR 2' cube that I bought back from my friend Laurie "The Guy". This much traveled tank looks and works great. Fits exactly into the existing stand/setup but is Reef-Ready and now plumbed into the common sump (2' x 2' x 1' high) under the other cube tank.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps71098d4a.jpg

My friend John giving me a hand plumbing the tanks together (usually I would do it but he volunteered and who am I to say No? :wink:)

At the same time, had to tear down my RSM 130 and tripled the volume by changing it over to a 30" x 30" x 24" semi-cube RR tank.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1f1cb04c.jpg


The stand is only 26" tall so I built a "stand" for the stand out of a 2x10 from RONA and painted black. You can see the 2x10 in the bottom right corner before I finished with the touchup painting job. Here's also the final plumbing job and it all works beautifully.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psae02ace8.jpg

Here's the new bigger cube getting topped up with IO water.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psdd199f95.jpg

Nice setup Anthony! Time for more Coral :)

Sent from my SGH-I317M using Tapatalk

So I pulled an all-nighter to get the tank setups finished and to transfer in all my livestock, live rock and newly washed sand bed (was outside in shorts & t-shirt washing sand with my garden hose at 4 in the morning):redface: First pics of newly set up reef -

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps02ba29a6.jpg

93g Starfire RR semi-cube (30" x 30" x 24")
Black stand with 2x10 "lift"
Custom DIY LED with 10w emitters (3 blues - 445nm & 460nm) & 3 whites (6500k; 10000k; 20000k) and a single center 1w blue LED moonlight. Its got built in timers and dimmer switches on each pendant controlling blues & whites separately.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psc2addc4f.jpg

Pic of 93g cube from the livingroom side

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psaa0c010b.jpg

2' RR cube

These are pics taken on Thursday morning shortly after setup was completed. Started the teardown and new builds Wednesday afternoon. Finally got to sleep around 10:30 am Thursday.

So it's now day 4 and I've had the skimmer running for a couple of days. Here's what 2 days of skimmate looks like with my Deltec Recirc skimmer using Aquabee 2000 pump:

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...pse0de9325.jpg

Pic taken by Felicia

Here's a wider view of sump section:

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psa9c57c3b.jpg

Have an 18w Coralife UV sterilizer and a Jebao DC6000 return pump. Will be adding a couple of media reactors containing Hydroton bioballs and ROWA phos, as well as hanging a bag of Purigen in the sump.

Here's pics of the tanks on day 4:

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psa9c57c3b.jpg

From my work desk - 93g RR Starfire cube

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8e994f18.jpg

From dining room

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...pse0de9325.jpg

From living room

Here's the new RR 2' cube - day 4

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5967d0f0.jpg

Seen from the loveseat - btw, exact same pendant as used over the 93g cube hung with SS DIY hanging kit.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psf67d0954.jpg

Seen from the couch

And here is a view of both cubes from the living room area:

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps831ece79.jpg

Both cubes have a single Jebao WP 25 for flow.

And here's my main display reef (165g custom Starfire with external overflow on right side with custom DIY lights (28 x 10w emitters - blues 445nm & 460nm; whites are 6500k, 10000k, 20000k) and 90g wide sump utilizing a Deltec recirc skimmer and new Jebao DC6000 return pump.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psbdadf302.jpg

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps27f4897f.jpg

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0d6b5600.jpg

Thanks for looking.

looks great we need some close ups of the live stock !!

Yeah, we want to see all those tangs up close...

Looks good Anthony.
Makes me want to get more fish

Looks good! I really like the aquascape, the tall rocks, or it just one big one? and all the open area at the bottom :smile:

It's several tall & odd shaped rocks stacked together so its stable but unsecured.

With the big cube, I wanted to have lots of open space and lots of sand bed so that it is very open and allows us to see the front of the house from the back of the house, even through the tank. By doing this type of aquascaping, the fish have lots of room to swim and grow & my wife likes this tank the best. Ironic since she was against me setting up such a big tank right in that spot and thought it would make the space too confining. Now she loves it, even though she didn't want to:wink::twised:

Looking good Anthony! What happened to the big school of Yellow Tangs?

Very nice new setup...have to drop by to see...what happened to the nen tank?

Hey buddy, Great looking set up, the view from the living room side is very cool with reef on all sides. Awesome job and your new photographer did a good job too. :peace:

Looking good Anthony

Hey Anthony, love the new setups! Sweet placement amongst the couches.

what a busy 125G tank :) i guess you have 25 to 30 fish in your 125g tank É

Its a 165g. More like 20-25 fish. I'll try to do a final count when the lights come back on in the morning.

1 Doliatus rabbitfish
1 Vergatus rabbitfish
1 Sohal
1 Lieutenant tang
3 Yellow tangs
1 Marine betta
2 Flame hawkfish
1 Longnose hawkfish
1 Royal dottyback
several small clowns, chromis, damsels & wrasses

Nems are spread out between the three reefs. Green BTA in 165g. Rose and Sunburst anemones in the two cubes (mainly 93g).

My bad , i was more paying attention to the fish and corals lol then read it
so how can you manage this so many fish in that tank ?
how many shrimps do you have there ?

No shrimp. Love them but they tend to steal food out of my anemones and LPS, like the Dendros.

I work at home so I feed pellets once a day, mysis once a day and a sheet of nori twice a week (sometimes more feed more often). I do massive water changes (min. 55g & up to 110g at a time) and have a really good Deltec AP 701 recirc skimmer rated for up to 333g. While I had all my water barrels out for the upgrades, I did 2 massive 55g water changes so I should be good for a while.

I am "building" a new dual pump skimmer [Marine Sources Red Devil Cone(RDC) Series 1600] using the same Aquabee 2000L skimmer pumps to upgrade my system even more, even though I really am extremely pleased with the Deltec. I may then switch the AP701 into the new dual cube system to replace the existing Deltec AP600 skimmer I'm using right now.

Anthony

Nice cube

Nice changes! Digging the aquascape in that cube.

Here you go:

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps149c95e1.jpg

Clown tang from Bblinks

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8610cf6a.jpg

Small school of YTs

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps638ca982.jpg

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...pse921d7bd.jpg

Sohal

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psfaa1108e.jpg

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psc2f56429.jpg

More Yellow tang pics

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps01e7afd2.jpg

Doliatus rabbitfish from Bblinks

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3c8b6b98.jpg

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps83e05ce9.jpg

My Marine Betta (eats flakes, pellets, FD shrimp & mysis)


http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...pse98c69ea.jpg

My Dendro farm

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psf8af8cdc.jpg

Long nose hawkfish

Some coral closeups:

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4405b9d5.jpg


http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps33d2a5d2.jpg

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8c3438d7.jpg

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psbd9e964c.jpg


http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5b48f1e0.jpg

My blue Maxima clam:

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6aca6c52.jpg

Fox coral

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4da4bf57.jpg

Frogspawn with photo-bombing yellow canary wrasse

And this is what I see when I'm working from my home office/desk :wink:

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps830db7ee.jpg

Tanks are looking good, Anthony!

BTW, I think I win the latest late-night post game tonight :razz:

Wow. Nice fishies.

wow those look great Anthony! I love the aquascape in the cube !

those couches are prime locations for some serious man-naps. i love the corner tank nestled in there... i had planned something similar once.

The couch and loveseat have 4 (YES FOUR) built in recliners so yes, great for serious man-naps, wife-naps & kid-naps:wink::biggrin:

I love the 2' cube for the corner and that's why I replaced the existing 2' non-reef-ready with a proper RR 2' cube. Gets rid of the scum build up that was driving me crazy and allows me to plumb it into the other cube's sump, which halves the number of skimmers, media reactors, return pumps, etc. Now I have one Deltec recirc skimmer, one Jebao DC6000 return pump and will set up a second and third media reactor (daisy-chained) to deal with both cubes. Saves me not just equipment but also electricity.

I have a phosban reactor going right now, but will add one for Hydroton (bio-media) and maybe carbon (or Chemipure). I need to add some carbon/Chemipure/purigen into the system because I have special ordered a medium sized long-horn cowfish from Oceanic for the 2' cube. If it decides to nibble on anything, I can simply move the clam/featherdusters/corals into the 30" cube instead.

Anthony

Day eleven and everything seems to be doing fine.

The only casualties were a couple of sps frags (fell down into the cracks and RTNed before I could rescue them) and one small sps colony. None of these corals though were from the original two tanks but were transferred from the main 165g. Probably had a harder time adjusting from a long term stable environment to the new tank all of a sudden.

Probably the Dendros and the zoas have "enjoyed" the switch over the best out of my corals. The zoas because they were in my other sump/frag system for a couple of months waiting for the switchover. The other corals and clam, though, are doing fine as well, thank goodness.

Most of the fish seem quite happy with larger, more spacious accommodations.

Got a new flame hawk and a couple of blue-eyed cardinals from JCharles's tear down.

Have a new 3-4" cowfish for the 2' cube on special order.

Now looking for a nice Marine Betta or two and long nose hawkfish to add to each cube. If anybody has one available, please pm me.

Thanks for looking.

Anthony

So stayed up all night again, but this time to redo my aquascaping on my main tank, a 165g full reef with 90g wide sump. I also added a couple of large media reactors into the sump with Hydroton so I can sell off some of my spare Live Rock to create more space for a bigger skimmer and the media reactors.

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psd2da4cfd.jpg


Here's the open sand bed section I just created by removing the smaller rock structure that occupied this area before:

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psc59a0689.jpg


http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psf1396b1f.jpg

Here's the 93g (30" cube):

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps86830eb4.jpg

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5fafa605.jpg


And finally the 2' RR cube:

http://s1250.photobucket.com/user/SH...2f514.jpg.html

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2d808901.jpg


http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...psd13143a6.jpg


http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9f92f514.jpg

Both reef tanks are only about 2 weeks old and the final result of my latest upgrades.

Thanks for looking.

Anthony

These cube tanks are even nicer to see in person, Big tank looks great with the open sand area, Great job bud. :clap2:

I totally agree. Just can't seem to capture their true look with the camera.

LEDs are hard to take pics of since they're intensity can't be caught well with most camera lenses, always looks dim.

Great job on the new cube, I may have to stop by one of these days when I am in the area!

Very nice tanks.

Very nice Anthony, I like what you did with the cubes... feels like its time to stop by and visit them in person one day.

Cheers,

How are you finding the marine betta?
Really looking to put one in my 30" cube.
Love your setup!