45g custom cube journal (latest pics: Jun 4)

[Boomboy]

wow looks beautiful, is that a maxi??? dont use a maxi use a kor, better water flow. and nicer looking.

[LeeR]

That white background looks really good.

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by Boomboy

wow looks beautiful, is that a maxi??? dont use a maxi use a kor, better water flow. and nicer looking.

i know

it was just to get some glitter lines for the picture. I'm leaning towards a vortech actually. Or a tunze turbelle with a controller. I'm seriously contemplating some sort of a wavemaker that's scalable as the SPS grow in volume.

[mseepman]

What makes you think the overflow will be so hard to clean?

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by mseepman

What makes you think the overflow will be so hard to clean?

getting my hands in there with a razor blade and having to get around any piping that might be in there. coraline's going to develop in there eventually and ruin the "white" background.

[digital-audiophile]

Sean, the white background looks awesome!!!!! I wish I had done that to my tank (I just use a background but I dont think anyone makes white ones... hmm thinking outload I bet I could get a piece of white vinyl from fabricland..


I was alos thinking.. if you want to make a few bucks on the side buy a few extra gate valves and sell them out of your car for cash when guys come in to pick up herbie style tanks (PS... you now have to split the profit with me )

[kwirky]

WIPAL doesn't stock gatevalves I found out today unfortunately. It's using a standard ball valve now.

I'm almost done all the plumbing. Return's all done. I need a few 45 degree pieces for the dual overflow that I'll pick up after work tomorrow. I accidentally glued the 1.5" 45's into sweep instead of zig zags like I needed. doh...

She's all going to be operational within 48 hours (pending there aren't any leaks).

what do people think about a vortech for water flow? overkill? I want something that'll do wave making and that I won't have to upgrade as the tank fills with sps. I'm thinking the vortech is the best choice for size and features.

[mseepman]

As long as you have the dough...I haven't heard of too many people unhappy with Vortechs.

[kwirky]

IT'S UP AND RUNNING NOW! WOOT!

so the tank's set up now and I've been playing with my new toy. I broke down and picked up a vortech wireless wavemaker. Quite pleased with it.

I decided on it because of the cost of similar wavemakers. A tunze multicontroller is $300 just for the controller PLUS the stream or nano pumps. A couple korallia 4's would run me a $150ish and they don't support any randomization of flow. Seio's wavemaker is $150 on it's own plus $70-80 for each pump. This unit has the wavemaker included for $400 and it does 3000gph. The added bonus is it takes up VERY little space in the already small tank. Right now I'm running it on reef crest random at about 3/4 because my fiance complains about the sound of the manual pulse mode.

I prefer the manual pulse mode so far because I can fine tune it and really get things stirred up. Unfortunately the tank only has 6mm sides which is just fine for standing water but I don't think it can withstand 1" waves on a longterm basis. I have a video of me playing around with the unit getting waves circling around the cube tank but unfortunately my wireless ISP's being a pain. They're not letting me upload the video to youtube. I'll try again later.

I'm still deciding on the final layout of the rockwork. I want it viewable from 3 sides. So far the left and right side look good but the front doesn't.

Oh and the filtersocks are already removing TONS of garbage. I'm using 200 micron socks atm because my rock's pretty dirty.

But yah the system's running and here are the specs ATM:

45g 24x24x18H custom tank. external herbie overflow eurobraced. dual 1" returns
custom sump. ~18g equipment section ~18g top off resevoir. dual 200 micron filter socks.
vortech wireless wave driver
1.5L zeovit reactor
maxijet 7 return pump
aqua c remora skimmer
JBJ auto top off
500VA UPS
aprox 40 lbs liverock

[kwirky]

spent the day today cleaning through all the gear I've collected over the time. As the organization process went on I ended up scattering all my stuff across a 15'x15' area because I had so much. I didn't know THAT much stuff fit in 3 boxes and 2 rubbermaid bins. I ended up reducing it down to about half because most of it was garbage anyways from various DIY projects that didn't work or stuff I just pack-ratted.

I'm now using a second rather large rubbermaid drawer thingie to sort my stuff. I had one big open box that I would rummage through every week looking for various things and now the stuff's sorted in drawers so there'll be no more rummaging

as for an update on the tank I'm using my little JBJ wavemaker on a couple maxijets in the sump. I'm really liking these 200 micron filter socks and it's amazing all the stuff they're pulling out. I'm keeping all the sediment stirred up in the sump and display tank and the theory is in a day or two the tank will be crystal clear with no more crap on the rocks.

I've spent the day today blowing off the rock with a turkey baster every hour. It's getting noticeably better and the water's still getting clearer. After experimenting with the vortech more throughout the day I have come to actually prefer the reefcrest random mode. It's not as "cool" looking as the pulsing I was getting but it's doing the best job of making sure stuff doesn't settle on the bottom.