Joe's 60G Reef Cube!

[Jflip2002]

Well, I didnt initially even know about this thread until today. I thought there was only a nano build off (Which got me tempted to start up my 10g again). I was already on planning on starting a 60g cube, so why not enter the contest and build the reef tank?

Here are my specs so far:
Tank:
24x24x24 60g Cube
Built In Overflow
No Sump

Equipment: (Planned for now at least)
-24"Current USA Outer Orbit W/ T5
250w 14k MH + 4x24w T5s
-HOB Coralife Superskimmer rated up to 125g
-(2) Modded MaxiJet 1200s

Stocking!:
- ? Lbs Deep Sand Bed, about enough for 3-4" depth.
- 50-70 LBS Of cooked LR
- About 70 small little blue/red legged hermits
- 5-10 Snails

Fish:
- Pair of False Percs
- LM Blennie
- Blue/Yellow Damsel (To make sure I dont kill the other fish)
- Scribbled Rabbitfish
- Barnacle Blennie
- Some Sort of goby or other non swimming fish
- Some sort of anemone

Coral:
- Bunch of Xenia
- Leather
- Various Shrooms
- Either a Torch/Hammer/Frogspawn/FrammerŪ

Here are a couple pics of what I have so far:







And heres what Im taking my live stock from...




I hope this will do for my entry, for the time being!
Thanks, Joe

[snick1734]

Looks good


steve

[Loverotties]

Looking good!

[Jflip2002]

Ok, so I put through the order.
1) Current USA 24" 250w 10k MH + (2) 24w 460 nm T5s & (2) 24w 420 nm T5s. For 346w of light total.

2) Coralife superskimmer 125g (lets see how well this works)

3) (2) Maxijet 1200s

For a total of about $680 with the free shipping from Marineandreef.com

[Jflip2002]

Ok, so I got in all of the equipment. Now Im kind of stuck with a predicament....or situation I Guess.

I plan on doing this move pretty soon (maybe 2 months). And alot of my Xenia rock have grassy algae growing on them, along with my torch, leather, mushrooms etc. I know its easy to pull the xenia off of the rocks, an dput them on new rocks, same with the leathers. But Im not quite sure if I canm take my mushrooms off the rock. Its a nice little rock, half has 3 fuzzy mushrooms (was 1, but kept splitting), and the back side is GSP. But it has red bubble algae on it. Im not sure if this will go over to my new tank? If so, I'll just get rid of it.

But anyhoo, the skimmer is working great, I have it on my current tank (had it on my cooking LR for a couple weeks). I think the LR is dang near cooked. Theres no detritus on the bottom of tote, just some rock rubble from moving them around. I have what looks to be about a 40g tote full of LR, so Id imagine its about 70 lbs.

I dont have any pics, just wanted to keep this semi updated, and see if I can transfer my other corals over....

[Jflip2002]

AFter going to the LFS, and realizing how cheap it would be to have a sump on my tank, I regret not getting it drilled =(. I coulda used my 20g as a sump, and spent the $150 or so on the pump, and I woulda been set. Im wondering if its possible to drill the bottom of my tank still, even though it says "do not drill"? lol.

[Chris86]

look good

[tims]

well atleast it has a build in over flow!
how is it going?

[Jflip2002]

Kind of delayed. Im kind of just in limbo here if we're moving or not. I dont want to set it up until I know.

I initially had the built in overflow so I can put the superskimmer in there, and have the water outlet box the only real piece of equipment you'll see. I was gonna have the maxi jets hidden on the sides of my overflow Pointing away from each other, maybe one 8" deep, another 14" deep or so. Hopefully creating a random current.

But now Im worried, because the superskimmer I bought for this 60g, Im using on the 29g with the puffer, and its causing LOTS of microbubbles, and I cant get the bubbles diffused even with the box Which is almost prompting me to make another sort of overflow where the clean water goes into. Maybe with some slots cut out along it, and a small cheap rio in there I have laying around to keep anything from staying stagnant. I may also just try to use some sort of different Piping/PVC to move the fresh water at a slight angle, in hiopes of losing the air bubbles.

I dont know, Im kind of going nuts here. I dont want to risk having this thing drilled, especially since its probably tempered, since it says dont drill on the bottom.

[Jflip2002]

OK, small ammendment to my plans. I was going to run a skimmer off the built in overflow, then just go straight into the tank. Well, thats going to change I think. After running the superskimmer in my 2 tanks, I cant stand the microbubbles, and I cant prevent them. So I MIGHT relocate the overflow box to the left corner. Then have the skimmed water flow into a a HOB Fuge, with no greens, just Sand, LR rubble, and maybe a small clean up crew. Then have that trickle into the tank, hoping that the bubbles are diffused. I will be doing this HOB fuge, but im not sure about relocating the overflowbox.

Since I dont have a sump, I can see thsi cuasing one problem after thinking this through (wish I woulda done this earlier). The clean water falls into the tank too close to the overflow box, then it wont be necessarily circulated into the tank, Im afraid it will just fall back into the overflow, and keep getting skimmed, letting the other bad nutrients build up throughout the tank. So maybe rerouting this in opposite corner is best?

Some opinions on that would be terrific.

[Jflip2002]

Anyone....

[tims]

i agree going back in to the other corner woudl be good.
one thing i did on the nano, which you coudl do on the HOB , i took some egg crate and cut it so it sat just at the top of the water. the air bubbles hit it and were gone

[Jflip2002]

Do I HAVE TO post pics once a month? I mean Ive been at a stalemate since christmas day, trying to cook this live rock. Besides buying new lights, powerheads and skimmer. so I guess I could take pics of that, my deadlines tonight lol.

[Jflip2002]

OK, so these are crappy pics, and I apologize. But I dont really have anything to post pics of. So heres the rock and some equipment.






Trying out the skimmer on the puffers tank, works greats!

[Wiskey]

Hello! This is going to be a really cool project, I love your tank dementions. You were regretting not having the tank drilled, and say the bottom says "do not drill" I assume that's becasue it's tempered. Is the back tempered? You could drill toward the bottom of the back of the tank, and run the piping behind and into the back of the stand like I did on my 50. This way you could have a sump,.. a return pump could be as cheap as $50 (mag 7) and you could keep the microbubbles in the sump.

HTH, and great pics!
Whiskey