Been pretty quiet on my end on my progress with everything going on in my new house! I have been doing MAJOR renovations and its been going slow and steady.
I decided despite adding the 150g system to my collection that both Becca and I would miss the blue glow in our bedroom. I decided i wanted to try and make this system a bit less maintenance heavy.
I added a sump!! I drilled the back of the biocube29 with an eshopps eclipse nano size small overflow. I found this overflow to be rather slick for a "box premade" overflow. Came with the drill bit all the templates you need. It was my first time drilling glass so i was not sure what to expect, but it seemed to go well for me. This time around we decided to go dryrock and take a good chunk of the rock out of the system, before it looked cluttered. In hindsight i should have downsized the piping coming out of the overflow. The overflow was also originally setup with just 1 standpipe and 1 open drain. I did not like how it was running that way, it was really loud unless i tuned it to trickle down the standpipe. I decided to make some adjustments which are shown below. With the standpipe style i had to have my gate valve almost fully closed which scared me because of how easily it could clog. Standpipe is a fully open backup but who wants to put themself in a position where they might run into issues, definitely not this guy!
Inside the tank has 2 Hydor nano powerheads on a Hydor powerhead controller. Not totally sold on the controller however having a bit of random flow is appealing to me.
Despite having to cut out some of the baffles in the back i left the original return pump in the back just to keep a bit of flow in the back chamber. This tank will have LOTS of flow, 2 return pumps and 2 powerheads.
Got the sump a while back from @reefdiver, if you are in the market for a sump i suggest looking into bashea im fairly happy with mine.
I added about 2 pounds of dry rock rubble, i intend to add more to this in time. Also likely going to pipe the return from the GFO reactor into that chamber so it keeps the rocks stirred up and hopefully detritus trap free. Inside the sump i have 1 Eheim compact return pump, 1 thing to note about this sump is the return chamber is kind of small and i was limited on my return pump, luckily for me the Eheim compact does about 150-250 gpm which seems just about perfect. Thanks to @TORX for the skimmer.
I decided for what its worth and will cost me to do that adding a GFO/GAC reactor on the side of the tank. I also picked up a hydor ATO back during a boxing day sale. I have it hooked up to an tom's aqualifter mounted on the side. As of right now i have not installed the RO container.
Lights are still the same as before, im running stevesled biocube led retrofit kit. They are pretty powerful lights when you run them at full so i have mine dialed way back. Im using a heater controller with the heater in the back slot between the overflow/return and the tank.
Hope you guys like the changes ive made to my biocube, i realize i kind of went nutts on this but i really wanted a very specific setup. I still want to clean up some of the piping/wiring however with the tank cycling now i have some time.
Anybody have an experience with running skimmers off timers? With this being in our bedroom i have been toying with the idea of timing the skimmer off while we are sleeping.
Stocking:
With us having the 150g sitting on the ground waiting for some final renos to finish i want to make this tank something different than the main DT downstairs. I am thinking this tank might be perfect for a shrimp/goby pair. Also likely going to throw in a pair of clowns and probably call it a day. Not sure which corals i want to add to this tank eventually, leaning towards taking 5-6 of my different zoa types and putting them on the lower part of the rock. Lots of time to decide what i want to do here tho.
I decided despite adding the 150g system to my collection that both Becca and I would miss the blue glow in our bedroom. I decided i wanted to try and make this system a bit less maintenance heavy.
I added a sump!! I drilled the back of the biocube29 with an eshopps eclipse nano size small overflow. I found this overflow to be rather slick for a "box premade" overflow. Came with the drill bit all the templates you need. It was my first time drilling glass so i was not sure what to expect, but it seemed to go well for me. This time around we decided to go dryrock and take a good chunk of the rock out of the system, before it looked cluttered. In hindsight i should have downsized the piping coming out of the overflow. The overflow was also originally setup with just 1 standpipe and 1 open drain. I did not like how it was running that way, it was really loud unless i tuned it to trickle down the standpipe. I decided to make some adjustments which are shown below. With the standpipe style i had to have my gate valve almost fully closed which scared me because of how easily it could clog. Standpipe is a fully open backup but who wants to put themself in a position where they might run into issues, definitely not this guy!
Inside the tank has 2 Hydor nano powerheads on a Hydor powerhead controller. Not totally sold on the controller however having a bit of random flow is appealing to me.
Despite having to cut out some of the baffles in the back i left the original return pump in the back just to keep a bit of flow in the back chamber. This tank will have LOTS of flow, 2 return pumps and 2 powerheads.
Got the sump a while back from @reefdiver, if you are in the market for a sump i suggest looking into bashea im fairly happy with mine.
I added about 2 pounds of dry rock rubble, i intend to add more to this in time. Also likely going to pipe the return from the GFO reactor into that chamber so it keeps the rocks stirred up and hopefully detritus trap free. Inside the sump i have 1 Eheim compact return pump, 1 thing to note about this sump is the return chamber is kind of small and i was limited on my return pump, luckily for me the Eheim compact does about 150-250 gpm which seems just about perfect. Thanks to @TORX for the skimmer.
I decided for what its worth and will cost me to do that adding a GFO/GAC reactor on the side of the tank. I also picked up a hydor ATO back during a boxing day sale. I have it hooked up to an tom's aqualifter mounted on the side. As of right now i have not installed the RO container.
Lights are still the same as before, im running stevesled biocube led retrofit kit. They are pretty powerful lights when you run them at full so i have mine dialed way back. Im using a heater controller with the heater in the back slot between the overflow/return and the tank.
Hope you guys like the changes ive made to my biocube, i realize i kind of went nutts on this but i really wanted a very specific setup. I still want to clean up some of the piping/wiring however with the tank cycling now i have some time.
Anybody have an experience with running skimmers off timers? With this being in our bedroom i have been toying with the idea of timing the skimmer off while we are sleeping.
Stocking:
With us having the 150g sitting on the ground waiting for some final renos to finish i want to make this tank something different than the main DT downstairs. I am thinking this tank might be perfect for a shrimp/goby pair. Also likely going to throw in a pair of clowns and probably call it a day. Not sure which corals i want to add to this tank eventually, leaning towards taking 5-6 of my different zoa types and putting them on the lower part of the rock. Lots of time to decide what i want to do here tho.
