60 gallon cube saltwater reef tank build

Progress...

My buddy stopped over and helped me with the drilling of the tank for the overflow that he sold me. He bought this overflow kit and never used it.
Here's the hole after I cut it. The diamond bit needs to be cooled with water. So we made a redneck mini swimming pool. Red Green would be proud.

 

Looking great Horkn ! My daughter and I talked about setting up a tank in the basement when I someday finish it . Add that to the wish list..........Seems lately all my projects related to firewood have to seem to take priority, or at least that's what my wife has been telling me

 

Well done son!

 

Here's a pic that my buddy took while I was cutting the hole.

I thought it was a neat picture. I was wearing my LED headlamp, and Jerry took this from under/ inside the tank.

It took quite some time to cut the hole in the glass, but it turned out awesome.

It's one of those things that you have to take your time. If not, you can crack the tank and there goes a couple hundred dollars down the drain. Sorry for the pun. Not really

 

I wouldn't be able to do it. It would be like cutting the first piece out of an expensive piece of fabric and hoping you have enough to make the pattern up.

 

Yes, Tom and Jerry. Lol

Here's the tank with the overflow quasi installed







And the hole saw. It's a diamond hole saw. Ice on on my drill!!!

Blinged out!!!!

 

I ordered my sump and protein skimmer on Friday and it will arrive by next Friday.


This will go in the cabinet under the tank. The water goes down the overflow that I drilled through PVC piping into the sump. Then a return pump will send the water from the sump to the display tank. I could've drilled a return line into the back of the tank, and used a bulkhead but I like the simplicity of the ones that have over the top of the tank. You just drill an anti siphon hole in that return so that barely any water gets siphoned from the tank into the sump in the case of a power outage/ pump failure.


Here's the sump in another person's cube tank for perspective.


I'll run a valved tee off of the return pump to a refugium that will have macroalgae in it that will empty back into the sump.

Three macro algae will eat up the nutrients in the tank so that no ugly algae can take footing in the display tank.

 

I bought a bunch of 1.5" PVC pipe and fittings for the drain into the sump. I got the tank full of RODI water that I made over the weekend, and I rinsed out the bag of sand I bought. I added that to the tank, but I'll need to buy 1 bag more. I'm adding salt to the tank now too.

I'll get a picture later, probably tomorrow, but the plan is still to get water flowing from the tank into the sump and back up to the display with a return pump this week yet.

 

Wow, beautiful.

 

Very nice details on what you are doing...
I had 125 gal reef tank for awhile, so I kinda know the steps you're doing. Very beautiful work, sir.

 

Progress tonight.

I got the drain built. I'll paint it with black krylon fusion spray paint and some point.

 

The heater, and pumps are just to get the water cycling.

I need to get a piece of tubing to run from the return pump to the tank tonight after work. Then I'll find out how silent my return piping is.

I may need to reconfigure it, maybe going to 2" PVC after the union. It had to be silent later, but for now, the power head and however the drain is now will have to work, provided it doesn't leak.

 

Drain plumbing and return plumbing work as expected. No leaks. The skimmer is working and I'm getting the tank up to proper salinity. It doesn't need to be spot on. Bacteria don't care that much.






Next I need to transfer the auto top off to the new tank. That will put fresh RODI water in the sump when the float switch tells it to pump water in. It's a just a small airline tube, so it doesn't put in much, it just makes up for the evaporation.

 

Next I need to transfer the auto top off to the new tank. That will put fresh RODI water in the sump when the float switch tells it to pump water in. It's a just a small airline tube, so it doesn't put in much, it just makes up for the evaporation.[/QUOTE]
I had a similar set-up on ours. Glad everything is working out.

 

Maybe I can answer....the salt doesn't evaporate, so the water actually gets saltier. Adding the top off water adjusts it back to original range, pretty much.

 

Exactly.

The ATO is all set. I've got a tub of top off water set to feed the tank water to recover from the evaporation for well over a week.

 

Time for an update.

I put a couple of pieces of live rock into my tank before going on vacation to Florida. I also had the protein skimmer going that whole time. When I came back from vacation, I got some chaetomorpha macro algae in my sump. This good macro algae should out compete any bad algae from forming in the display tank. I have an LED grow light on the macro algae, and I also collected a few red mangrove pods while I was in Florida.

I put in more rocks that I got from a buddy after he took his tanks down. I put those on the tank a about the time I got the macro algae.

It's been a few weeks since I set to the tank. 4 exactly this week.

It's time.


This morning I rearranged the rocks in the display tank. I had to level out the sand, so there was a little sand storm.

The view from the couch.

I went out and ran errands, and when u came home, my interim led lights arrived from Amazon. These are decent, but the lights I really want are not out until May.


I'll get pictures of the lights on in a few. These lights are a bit tricky to figure out, but I knew that going in. RTFM time.

I also got a bigger more powerful, but less wattage return pump, and I need to hook it up.

 

Not the greatest picture. It's hard to capture this. It looks awesome in person.

I'll get some swimming stuff in here soon. Maybe tomorrow.