Bob's 93 CUBE Reef Build Thread

 

 

 

OK, so many of you out there know by now that I sold both of my existing setups -

 

The 37 Hex Reef and the 225 Reef

 

A few of you even thought I was "getting out"

 

Well.... you were WRONG

 

 

I just "downsized" a bit, that's all...

 

SO here goes another Build Thread

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, with the demands on my time (work-related and otherwise) I was having difficulty maintaining 2 full reef setups (especially the big tank). Made the decision to start over and consolidate to 1 medium-sized system. My goal being something that would be a little easier to maintain, due to the smaller size and water volume; a little more automated so that I wouldn't have to spend as much time working on it; something that was still new to me as far as tank size or 'style'.

 

 

I ended up deciding on a very nice 93g Cube setup that was being offered for sale by Jared (peiji) a little while back... I liked the look of the 93 Cube (never had one before) ever since I saw the one raffled off at the MWRF.

 

This one was in decent shape and I felt it had potential, so I picked it up:

 

 

 

 

A 93 gallon Acrylic Cube (30" X 30" X 24" ) complete with a very nice black stand and canopy (built by Richins Carpentry) plus a 20g acrylic sump. The setup also came with some lights and a few other misc pieces of equipment.

 

The tank itself was pretty scratched up as you can see in the photo.

 

So, I figured it would need some 'expert' attention.

 

And who better than our own resident acrylic expert tcfab?

 

So, I drove the tank up to him in N. Ogden, and a week later....

 

 

 

 

 

Rick

 

 

Oh, yeah - got the tank back from tcfab and it looks like a brand new tank

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, I also installed the plumbing and a sandbed.

 

Plumbing consists of a single 1 1/2" Durso exiting through a 1 1/2" bulkhead, down 1 1/2" pipe into the sump. Return is a 900 gph pump that runs into a tee with 2 eductors.

 

 

 

Sandbed consists of 70 lbs of Utah oolitic and 30 lbs of sugar-sized Aragamax...

 

 

 

Under the stand resides the 20g sump. Skimmer will be a sweet Bubble Magus NAC7 Cone Skimmer featuring a tcfab-built extended collection cup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up...

 

"Let there be light"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I spoke with Shawn, he told me that if I already had the VHO setup and was thinking of switching to T5 solely as an "improvment"... that I wasn't going to see all that much of an improvement - especially when I would be using this lighting for actinic supplementation vs. full-spectrum lighting. He told me he actually prefers the look of VHO actinics over the T5s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new Spectrapure Pro-tested RO Membrane

 

 

 

Did a little 'maintenance' on my RO system... changed out the 3 prefilters (1 micron sediment, chlorine remover and carbon block) and replaced my worn-out original membrane with the hand-built and individually tested Spectrapure membrane. Went from a reading of 30 ppm after RO (the result of the bad membrane) to reading 1 ppm out now

 

I figured 1 ppm RO water is pretty darn good... so at 9 PM tonight I started filling the tank...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 60% full now... we are on our way!