Jim's 30G cube

[bubbletip]

Intro:

I wish I would have started this thread from the beginning as I was going through the process of setting up. I did not stumble onto TR until after the tank was cycled. Instead of repeating myself on the forums, I may in the beginning revert back to previous threads from other parts of the forum.

I remember when I started out in the saltwater side of the hobby seeing an old model Oceanic 37 Gallon Grey show model in the store. Well, at the time it cost around $500 w/ stand. My vision back then was to have a clown species tank with a blue carpet anenome. That vision has changed as I educated myself on how costly it is to the oceans in harvesting these and other types of anenomes from our oceans.

My vision is still a species clown tank, but w/ often propogated bubbletip anenomes, hence my forum name, "bubbletip." If you have read any of my other posts, you can probably tell there is a conservationist(is that even a word) growing inside me with each passing day.

Everyone I am sure has seen the new Oceanic 30G and 37G aquariums for sale currently. I really wanted the 37G for the extra water obviously, but set myself on a Petsmart deal for a cherry Oceanic 30G cube for $99. What a deal huh! Well this really created some issues in trying to figure out a sump and now I have a small wet/dry not even being used with a HOB skimmer on the tank. I wish I would have found a 37G gallon stand that would have fit a decent sump before plumbing this system. Oh well, live and learn. I will be asking questions on how to get a sump on in later threads.

Other than the clown and anenomes, I also wanted to keep some clams in order to filter out some nitrate for my next goal to keep some more delicate SPS thriving in a small system. Being such a small volume of water with no refugium as much nutrient export from inhabitants is going to be necessary. So I had my plan of what animals I wanted to keep, next will come developing this system.

[RocketSeason]

Awsome to see another small Oceanic Cube fan on TalkingReef!

Cant wait to see some pics!

[bubbletip]

After refreshing myself with the wealth of information on the internet on plumbing tanks(and especially after hearing Rob's podcasts on powerheads), I wanted to try out plumbing for myself and definitely wanted a closed loop.

I called many LFS's and glass shops to see if anyone would drill a tank. Nobody would bite and I swear people were even upset for me asking. I said I would sign for full responsibility. Were talking about a $99 tank here. Well after doing some research I discovered drilling a tank is not all that hard if you have the right equipment.

So I bought some:

1. plumbers putty
2. a diamond tipped drill bit from here(1 and 3/8"): http://www.diamond-drill-bit-and-too...lt.htm?DD1.htm
3. and the use of my 12V drill
4. 3/4" bulkheads
I was really timid at first and realized quickly that you do have to apply some pressure in order to cut the glass. Pretty much to the point where you hear it grinding. The first couple holes took me 30 and then 20 minutes because I did not apply much pressure. They came out clean but man does your arm hurt after drilling for 50 minutes. The next two holes came out in less than 10 minutes and were pretty easy to do. Now I am really confident in drilling holes in any tank if need be. If anyone wants more information or more confidence in drilling holes, I would be more than happy to answer.

(all holes were cut to fit 3/4" bulkheads for the pump that I wanted)

So here is a pic of the configuration of holes I came up with but wish I would have done differently:



Reason I say this is because of the current setup for the jets, which I did not vision from the start. I guess you never really know exactly how things will turn out. What I wish I did was cut the two holes(returns from closed loop) by the bottom both on the bottom and a little more spread to the sides as well as the top middle hole(supposed to have been an overflow to a sump - lots of frustration with this hole) a bit farther down maybe 5 or so inches from the top. You can actually see the sump below that was a valiant attempt but just did not work out. Will explain later. The other hole is for the closed loop intake and is exactly where it should be. This was my first plumbing ordeal so bear with me please. I also did not get much guidance in doing this so I did my best. Again I wish I knew about TR earlier as I probably could have gotten some great ideas from everyone. O.K. so that it for the drilling side of designing this tank.

[bubbletip]

As with any reef aquarium the circulation of water acts as the lifeblood for the tank. Without proper circulation many known problems can occur obviously. My previous knowledge on the importance of the flow in our tanks was not the current info. we have all learned(especially for SPS), so I revisited the use of a closed loop for this tank. I think the toughest part of designing this small tank, was trying to keep direct flow off any corals, but still providing enough flow to keep the animals I wanted.

The heart of this system is a Blueline 40-HD(790gph) purchased here:

http://www.championlighting.com/prod...cat=485&page=1

I love this pump, it is very quiet and as I have read, very reliable. Any product that gives out a five year warranty standing behind its performance has got my vote. I definitely did not want a bad heart from the start. Even though I know they are reliable, I will be purchasing a back up in case anything happens.

Instead of having constant flow from this heart and after doing some research, I decided a heartbeat was needed provided by an OceansMotions Squirt 2-way:

http://www.oceansmotions.com/store/p...472d6b88a7c90f

I guess you can say it acts as the atriums and ventricles.

Anyway, after talking with Paul from OceansMotions on designing this tank(he spent many hours with me on a 30G tank - great customer service), I decided to try one of these little babies out.

The veins and arteries of this system are sch40 PVC and 3/4 inch Locline.

[bubbletip]

Now in designing the flow in this tank I was limited in how I plumbed the tank by the placement of the holes that I drilled. I bought a CPR wet/dry filter that I thought would be o.k. to also use a Coralife Super Skimmer 125 as a hang on to the sump. It just did not work. It would equalize the flow but soon would overflow the sump or the tank itself. Without the use of an overflow box, I was not confident with the setup. I wanted to buy a custom overflow to silicone inside the tank bu tit was going ot take too long to wait as the live rock I purchased was ready to go for the tank. As I would love to have a sump, the frustration and a lot of spilled water caused me to stick with this HOB skimmer. It works very well and I have not encountered the microbubble problems others have reported. It is just a matter of folowing the directions in set up. As they say this can be used as a hang on the sump, the pump has to be hanging to far from the intake on the skimmer that it just does not pull up what I am gettign by bringing the pump closer to the intake as a HOB.

This is a picture of the final lay out before gluing the PVC and the OM 2 way after being glued:





As you can see the use of unions and ball valves make it easy for me to either clean/replace both the OM unit and the Blueline pump. Also take notice of the extra space from the closed loop intake right before the pump. The extra inches are in order to prevent cavitation on the pump as it is recommended to have 5x the diameter of the intake(in this case 3/4") in order to prevent cavitation.

See this thread for more info and prior posts:

Closed loop system.

My initial thinking and with help from Paul from OM, I started out with one of the returns from the OM PVC inside of the tank split into 2 returns up to the front of the tank under the sand and 45'd back towards the filtration. The concept here is to move water from the front bottom of the tank back towards the top back of the tank to be filtered/skimmed. As I do like this idea, I have found it was not necessary on a tank of this size. I was not thrilled about the flow and felt it was restricted so I immediately changed this design to use one locline tube to the front of the tank and Y-d off to 45's degree angles shooting towards the filtration and aroudn to the closed loop intake. This was much more effective and increased the flow with a single tube. The other return from the OM is right off the back of the tank and aimed towards the corner of the tank creating a wave sweeping over the entire shelf. I have had the tank set up like this up until a few weeks ago when I made the final change.(pics below) If you would like more information on how the flow was made with this system see this thread(several posts down):

OceansMotions 4 Way





The amount of movement in the tank without directing flow at any corals is just incredible. I have promised a video and will try to get that done asap. You will see a 250W EVC 14 K bulb and EVC ballast(not in picture) inside a Sunlight supply Lumenarc 2 pendant purchased here:

http://oceanencounter.com/Merchant2/...egory_Code=PEN

http://oceanencounter.com/Merchant2/...ory_Code=EVCEB

http://oceanencounter.com/Merchant2/...egory_Code=MHB

I love this ballast and bulb and researched heavily before purchasing my first MH bulb, reflector, and ballast. I read that Dr. Sanjay Joshi uses EVC 10K bulbs and ballasts on his own tanks so I wanted to try the 14k on this tank. The PAR ratings were higher than other 14K single mogul based bulbs I had seen. It gives off an incredible blue color which looks great, but is obviously hard to get accurate color in photographs. Sorry about the pics. The tank looks much better in person.


You can also see my two captive bred percula clownfish that I have had for the last ten years long before Nemo mind you(Ralph and Alice - after the Honeymooners of course) and the first bubbltip anenome I put in the tank. This whole tank was really created to house these beautiful perculas as I felt they deserved it for sticking around so long. Here is a pic of my last 3 bubbletips(the one mother in the middle has already split 5 times since I purchased her).



In the next post I will show the final changes in setting up the returns and future picture will show different configurations for aquascaping as corals were purchased.

[gwen_o_lyn]

Very nice tank!

[bubbletip]

I noticed that the y-d off locline from the front of the tank was not flowing as much as the other return and decided against this configuration. Instead I decided to do the same thing as the wave creating return on the other side. Now both returns are equally powerful creating a wave coming back and forth every 15 seconds or so. Pretty cool stuff. It woudl be best to see this with video and again asap. You will also notice some new rockwork swapped in and a different aquascape as well as a bunch of new corals that I will put into later posts.








Tank inhabitants:

2 captive bred/ tank raised percula clown fish
1 Royal Gramma(Nefertiti) - recently added
1 peppermint shrimp - has eaten all aptasia already
50 Nassarius snails
3 cerith snails
6 astrea snails
6 nerite snails
12 bluel legged(tri color) hermit crabs
6 mexican red legged hermits crabs
1 electric blue hermit crab(less than 1" in size)
1 Emerald crab

2 pocillipora damicornus frags
1 superman montipora frag
1 montipora verucosa frag
1 3" pocillipora sp. aquacultured
1 3" blue-green acropora sp. aquacultured
1 3" yellow-green polyped with purple tips acropora sp. aquacultured
1 Green Euphyllia Divisa frag w/ 2 heads(left over as my very first coral ten years ago originally from my 65G)
1 acropora rosaria frag
3 Green bubble tip anenomes
1 blue green 4.5" Crocea clam
1 turqouise(from top) purpl from below 3" crocea clam
1 1.5" squamosa clam

I will post some picture of the inhabitants in later threads.

[bubbletip]

Thanks Gwen,

I am working on it. You got any tips on taking picture under a 14K bulb?

[gwen_o_lyn]

Skip the flash, and use a tripod. Adjust the white balance? Maybe listen to the photography podcast?

I'm not very good at photos....

[bubbletip]

My latest pictures are without flash. I am using a tripod, but it is still hard to stop the fish in midswim at such a low shutter speed. I have tried setting the white balance so many different ways. The bluest spectrum on and DSLR's in Kelvin rating is 10K so I don't think they are capapble unless I shoot all RAW files. That would create some enormous files and use up all my premium member gallery space. I love the blue look, but may swap out the reflector for a PC combo(actinics) with an EVC 10K bulb. Photography is my other hobby but taking pictures of tanks is much more difficult than what I usually shoot.

[gwen_o_lyn]

You know much more about this than I do!!

My cameras aren't that high tech. One of them will shoot TIFF, but I'm mostly lost when I use that camera.