Leonardo's BB ShallowCube

[Leonardo's Reef]

Hello,

I'm new here, and I'm glad that I found the new home of the BB-tank keepers. I'm Leonardo, 22 years old and I live in The Netherlands.

I'm setting up a cube-shaped tank, bare-Bottom of course...

System:

86 Gallon Shallow Cube
15 Gallon Sump

MTT1 Skimmer
Tunze 6110 (3170 G/h)
250 Watt Aqua Medic Pendant
4 x 24 Watt T5 from ATI + Giesseman Bulbs
1532 G/h Return Pump

Turnover sump - Tank 16x
Turnover tank 51x

Please leave a comment...

-Leonardo

[Casey]

Awesome dude I Love it ! Welcome to TRT

[Viv]

Hi Leonardo, Nice setup! Very sleek looking.

[Wiskey]

Nicely done!

Welcome to TRT

Whiskey

[Leonardo's Reef]

Thanks for the compliments... Any suggesions about the setup?

-Leonardo

[Wiskey]

Any suggesions about the setup?

Remember your export is the most important part of your system. I don't know anything about your skimmer but I can offer a few tips.

You want your overflow feeding into a small chamber that is the pickup for your skimmer, then you want the skimmer to drain into the next chamber down the line. You want your skimmer to get raw overflow water, and not recycle already skimmed water.

You want your overflow to run at a slightly higher pace then your skimmer feed speed. example, if your skimmer pulls water at 1300 GPH, you want your overflow running at 1400 GPH so very little water bypasses the skimmer, but your small drain compartment never runs dry.

You want to get waist out as fast as possible, this is why I feel Beckett skimmers are most up to the task, they process water at a much faster rate then recirculating needle-wheel types, to clean the water up faster.

It is important to run your skimmer wet so it can pull out large particles of detritus before they rot and re-release the phosphate/nitrate they have locked up.

Could you give some more details on your skimmer?

HTH,
Whiskey

[Leonardo's Reef]

Thanx for the reply Wiskey, I'll try to explain a little more about the skimmer.

The skimmer is a Venturi-type skimmer, with a 528 Gallon/h pump. The Return pump is 1268 Gallon/h
Is this turnover rate good in combiantion with the skimmer capacity?

Over here and in Germany some call this skimmer a "little bubble king", maybe a skimmer better known to you



I love this skimmer, because it takes in a lot of air and water. You can let it skim wet very easy too.

We don't know the Beckett skimmers over here in Europe. Most skimmers are Needle-wheels or Venturi skimmers. (or combined) The're mostly placed IN the sump.

-Leonardo

[gman0526]

This setup is great, the cube shape is awesome. What do you have in mind as far as stocking? No way you're gonna end up with a wall aquascape in this are you?

[Leonardo's Reef]

Ofcourse not I won't build a "Berlin Wall" I've been studying Japanese BB-tanks carefully. I think those tanks are the most aestheticly balanced. I'll post some pictures that I keep as a guideline for my tank.








-Leonardo

[Casey]

Yea the Japanese tanks are very colorful indeed.

[Leonardo's Reef]

Plans Stocking List:

• 2 Yellow Tangs
• 1 Hypoplectrus Guttavarius http://www.meerwasserlexikon.de/fische/1070927197-1.jpg
• 10-12 Apogon leptacanthus http://www.zeewaterforum.org/databas...oot/426_4.jpeg
• Many, many snails, misc.
• LPS, SPS, and Zoantus species.

Does someone have a sugestion about other Tangs that are suitable for my tank? Yellow Tangs maybe are a little bit common (I hope I don't offend someone...)

-Leonardo

[Little Luey]

Hello Leonardo. Welcome to TRT!

Nice cube, I wanted a cube myself at one point but they are not readily available here in the US.
The Yellow tangs may be to big/active for your tank, they like to swim back and forth in the tanks and the cube may not be long enough for them. You may want to rethink that choice.

[Wiskey]

I agree with Little Luey, Tang's like allot of open swimming room, and long tanks, they may not be appropriate for this tank. I would also not put 2 yellow tangs in the same tank because chances are good that they will kill each other.

On the skimmer, is this a needle wheel skimmer? Does the air enter before or after the pump? (meaning does the air get chopped up by the pump's impeller?)

For a 90 gallon tank it sounds like it will work fine if you can wet skim that well, passed through the skimmer at a rate of around 6X per hour, but if it is easy to upgrade that pump to get more water through that sucker it might be worth thinking about since allot of your overflow water will bypass the skimmer with your current setup.

The way I would do this, is get the tank setup with coral, then slowly approach the fish thing, one at a time, and a month in between, let your coral, and test results dictate how many fish you can keep.

HTH,
Whiskey

[Leonardo's Reef]

The skimmer is, as I mentioned before, a Venturi-style skimmer. It's NOT a needle wheel. There have been mods on this skimmer with larger pumps, but they all had a negative effect. The manufacturer said because the venturi itself is designed for this exact amount of water, and pump more trough it only make it work less effective. The skimmer is rated up to 400 Gallon tanks, so I'll leave it like this for now.

Yellow tangs are kept in tanks of 25 Gallon over here... I think it's cruel. But I did't expect you guys to say that my tank was to smal also Do you have any sugestions about other algae-eating fish? (that are beautiful too )
The school of Blue-eye cardinals are cute, aren't they?

Thanks for all the comments btw!

-Leonardo

[Wiskey]

Originally Posted by Leonardo's Reef

The skimmer is, as I mentioned before, a Venturi-style skimmer. It's NOT a needle wheel. There have been mods on this skimmer with larger pumps, but they all had a negative effect. The manufacturer said because the venturi itself is designed for this exact amount of water, and pump more trough it only make it work less effective. The skimmer is rated up to 400 Gallon tanks, so I'll leave it like this for now.

-Leonardo

Okay, I just got confused because you compaired it to a bubble king,.... Cool deal, I will be interested to see it work, I have never used a regular venturi skimmer that skimmed anything at all, but I haven't touched one since the Red Sea Berlin, so it's been awhile.

Post pictures of it running when you get the tank up, I would be interested to see it.

Thanks,
Whiskey