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Junior's 34g cube build. Advice welcome.


junior

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Well, I have been out of the hobby for almost exactly 10 years. Before that I worked at fish stores, and built systems for people. After a trip to Honolulu, I just had to build a new tank. For the last month I have been slowly piecing together all of the components I wanted to use, and getting everything built. It has taken a bit longer than I planned, but trying to fit everything in that stand was no small feat. 

 

Tank:

 34g Solana with stand (Thank you, Vis)

 

Equipment:

 

Nanobox Duo M 

             - I love this light, the owner Dave is great to work with.

 

Reefkeeper Lite Plus

            - Been a bit difficult to program. Wish I would have gone with APEX. 

 

Eshopps  RS-75 sump

            - Fits but considering their new cube sump design.

 

Eshopps S-120 skimmer

            - This thing is great for such a small skimmer

 

Ecotech Vortec mp10wqd

            - I am amazed at how far technology has come with wave-makers

 

Aquamaxx S-Nano Calcium Reactor

            - Could have gone with dosing, but I'm used to reactors, and dosing seems foreign to me.

 

Sicce 1.5 return pump

            - Currently using a mag drive, but its way to loud. Once the new pump arrives I'll be returning it.

 

Now onto pictures since no one likes these threads without them!

 

Currently the tank just has sand, hopefully picking up rock from matt125 this weekend. 

 

Z3ySSNr.jpg

 

 

It is a very tight fit in the sand, but I am able to get to everything. Still mocking up the Calcium reactor, but the CO2 tank will be behind the stand in the corner. 

 

Yxn697F.jpg

 

cJepqNt.jpg

 

Mounted the controllers on the side, and still have yet to do cord clean up inside or outside the stand. Also still need to frost the glass on the front of the stand. 

 

Uzcpt1N.jpg

 

My lighting graph just for fun. 

 

6206Rjh.png

 

That's all for now. I'll put more up once I add rock. 

 

Also any advice is appreciated. 

 

 

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Could a mod help me with editing the top post? I need to reload the pictures, but couldn't find the edit option...


 


Now onto pictures since no one likes these threads without them!


 


Currently the tank just has sand, hopefully picking up rock from matt125 this weekend. 


 


 


oWA1VtI.jpg


 


It is a very tight fit in the sand, but I am able to get to everything. Still mocking up the Calcium reactor, but the CO2 tank will be behind the stand in the corner. 


 


 


8vT8EkI.jpg


 


gNoVndW.jpg


 


 


Mounted the controllers on the side, and still have yet to do cord clean up inside or outside the stand. Also still need to frost the glass on the front of the stand. 


 


ZCaTYSY.jpg


 


 


My lighting graph just for fun. 


 


ZNCBBRJ.png 


 


 


That's all for now. I'll put more up once I add rock. 


 


Also any advice is appreciated. 


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Looks like you got the pictures to work. Tank looks great and from your post you are very experienced. There are some new technologies but much has stayed the same. One of the admin could fix your post. Send a pm to Jeremy or chief or softy and they should be able to help you. If you pay for a membership you will be able to edit yourself.

 

What are your thoughts for corals? I had a solana once and it's a great looking tank. I have heard good things about nanobox too.

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I plan to be mostly SPS dominate with Zoa in lower light areas and a clam or two in the sand bed. 

 

Currently figuring out how to handle the 5 channel lighting system has been the most difficult. Worried about getting the spectrum right to not burn corals. Only ever had the industrial style SE metal halides. 

 

Plan to get a membership as soon as possible. Hoping to attend the march meeting. 

Edited by junior
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Yeah I had mh t 5 for my solana. Biggest problem was heat and lost some sps because of that. I'm actually still not sold on leds and will probably go back to an ati t5 set up with my next tank. And yeah figuring out the soectrum took me some time with my maxspect. I slowly built it up but don't have a high par in my tank because I have zoas and Lps.

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I went over board with a lot of the equipment, because I know within a few years I will want a 60 cube. I don't want to have to go through selling, and buying all new equipment. The Nanobox is definitely overkill currently, but will have that punch to keep clams alive on the sand bed with a deeper tank. 

 

I was against metal halides this time because of the heat/power issues. I remember the summertime battles with them. Would rather heat the tank in the winter than have fans/chillers in the summer. 

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I went over board with a lot of the equipment, because I know within a few years I will want a 60 cube. I don't want to have to go through selling, and buying all new equipment. The Nanobox is definitely overkill currently, but will have that punch to keep clams alive on the sand bed with a deeper tank.

 

I was against metal halides this time because of the heat/power issues. I remember the summertime battles with them. Would rather heat the tank in the winter than have fans/chillers in the summer.

 

Yeah totally agree with that. It's easier to deal with the cold then trying to cool down a tank. That's good that you are thinking ahead.

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Last couple of days have been a challenge. I discovered that the used tank had a very slight leak from the bottom seal. My short wet test before hand didn't show it. Worst part was I had picked up the live rock from Matt, and was really trying to not stress the corals any more than a fresh tank already will. 

 

I was forced to drain/dry the tank, and reseal the whole thing. Last night I got it all back running. Here are the pictures from this morning, looks like everyone is ok. 

 

dMo0ZtR.jpg

 

5l7Hafs.jpg

 

Only concern is getting very little polyp extension from the top corals. Some what concerned my LED's are to intense. I've lowered them down a little to see if that might be what is doing it. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Need to get an update on this. Currently have a quickly growing collection of SPS colonies. Everything is happy healthy, and settling in. 

 

 

Nice looking build, I am in the process of designing a 55g cube, and am really sick of my dosing pump!  How do you like the Aquamaxx nano reactor? How do you think it would run on a 55g, w/ 20g sump?

 

Personally I like the reactor, I wouldn't put it on a tank that large though. My tank has about 8 decent size SPS colonies(about softball size), clam, and a few frags. It handles that just fine, but I have had to turn it up quite a bit. When I go bigger, I will upgrade my calcium reactor first. My reasoning is because I will have up the drip rate. With such a small reactor, your regulator is constantly popping on/off. This would just get worse as I increased the drip rate.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thought I would add an new update. I was having an issue with my corals browning out to some extent. I decided to just get an apogee par meter. My readings were well below what I expected. I have since increased my output, and I'm noticing some coloring back up. Parameters have been really stable with the ATO, and calcium reactor dialed in right. 

 

Watching the sunset monti in the middle color up has been really cool. It was originally all brown, and bleach out on a large section. All of the bleached area is now filled in. It is slowly shifting to that bright orange. 

 

Only last thing I am dealing with is a small amount of hair algae. It hasn't been spreading. I think it will just take some time before it dies off. 

 

The pictures are from when I was losing color, but the tank has come a long way. 

 

qdI2kMN.jpg

 

CKrZMqP.jpg

 

ghbtD6v.jpg

 

Thanks,

JR

Edited by junior
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Looks good. How do you like the calcium reactor for such a small tank? Any issues with it dropping your ph?

 

I was worried about the same thing. Currently running it at 6.25ph and a drip rate a little faster than 1 per second. Ph holds prefectly at 8.2. Does help that I have it drip right next to the skimmer.

 

Looks good man. How are you liking the NanoBox?

I like it as LED's go. Easy to program and adjust. Only issue I'm having is getting enough par lower in the tank. Growth has been nice on the sps. Same as I used to get with MH. Edited by junior
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