d2mini's 130g Rimless Cube

[RVANANO]

I hung my Giesemman from the ceiling by cutting 2x4's to fit in b/t the ceiling joists and screwing them into said joists. Then I drilled holes in the 2x4's and put the correct size bolt with a large washer in each going down through the drywall in the ceiling (which is what the standoffs attach to for the light)

[ReefzLover]

Hi d2mini ! Really nice and neat tank setup u have! Love the clean look ! Do u mind me asking what is the dimension of your sump tank? Thanks in advance ~

[trb]

Looking great Dennis! I see you got all the sawdust cleaned up?

[d2mini]

Originally Posted by ReefzLover

Hi d2mini ! Really nice and neat tank setup u have! Love the clean look ! Do u mind me asking what is the dimension of your sump tank? Thanks in advance ~

Thanks! Don't quote me on this, but i believe the width is about 18", i know the length is 30" and i think the height is about 16".

Originally Posted by trb

Looking great Dennis! I see you got all the sawdust cleaned up?

Haha, you know it! I just took a pic of the vents last night finally but haven't downloaded it yet. Hard to get a shot due to their location but it'll do. So far so good, i just need to get a second fan.
Thanks again!

[davidchmaus]

Hey Dennis,

How is the AWC going since you re calibrated your pump? How far is the run from the water storage to the tank?

Thanks

[JARJOZ]

Hi d2mini! I am following this thread to the dot. I just want to tell you that your tank is amazing. I am new to reef aquariums and your build inspired me to build my own setup.

I believe that your original idea was to have overflow right in the middle of the tank.
That idea got stack in my head and I am planning actually smaller tank with
middle/center overflow.

Thank you for inspiration and great educational thread !!!!!!

[d2mini]

Originally Posted by davidchmaus

Hey Dennis,

How is the AWC going since you re calibrated your pump? How far is the run from the water storage to the tank?

Thanks

Still tweaking it. Even with re-calibrating the pumps, I haven't yet gotten my salinity to raise to where I want it... may have even dropped a fraction still. And this is with my tank of fresh sw having a salinity near 1.030. So something still isn't jiving. I decided to tell the LM3 to dose more fresh sw than old sw that it pulls out. I'll see if I can get it balanced that way. I'm still loving it though. Any changes i need to make literally takes just seconds. Just takes a little time to monitor the levels since the changes occur slowly. Patience patience patience.
I don't know the exact measurement of the length of tubing but it's probably around 30ft.

Originally Posted by JARJOZ

Hi d2mini! I am following this thread to the dot. I just want to tell you that your tank is amazing. I am new to reef aquariums and your build inspired me to build my own setup.

I believe that your original idea was to have overflow right in the middle of the tank.
That idea got stack in my head and I am planning actually smaller tank with
middle/center overflow.

Thank you for inspiration and great educational thread !!!!!!

Thanks! Good luck with your build, looking forward to it.
Just keep in mind that the reason I decided to switch to the corner overflow was because of how much room the center overflow was going to eat up, especially for a reef tank.

[JARJOZ]

d2mini my tank will be 28x28x22 high and I will put all my overflow in to 4" dia. acrylic pipe right in the middle of the tank and build nice rock formation around that 4" post.
If you have a minute I would like to hear your opinion on my idea.

[d2mini]

There's no way you will get all your plumbing into a 4" overflow.
If your plumbing is 1", you're going to need to drill something like a 1.75" hole depending on what bulkhead you are using. And then you need a similar amount of space between holes for structural integrity. So as you can see, your space gets eaten up very quickly.
I would say you would need at least an 8" pipe. Now remove 8" from 28" and you are left with 20". Divide that by 2 and you are left with 10" between the glass and your overflow. 10" is not much space when you are trying to build up rock. Start putting corals on that and they will grow pretty close to the glass.

Plus, if you are going to do the dry pipe like I did, I would recommend you do a 2" pipe instead of a 1". I couldn't fit the plugs down through the pipes so i had to do a bunch of unwiring/rewiring of my lighting fixtures and vortechs. Pain in the butt.

[JARJOZ]

My idea is to have 4" bulkhead and all pipes inside all in one overflow like this :



Do you think this will work ???

Thank you !

[Mirugai]

D2mini, what type of glue did you use for all the joints in your PVC?

[d2mini]

Originally Posted by JARJOZ

My idea is to have 4" bulkhead and all pipes inside all in one overflow like this :

Do you think this will work ???

Thank you !

Wouldn't the big 4" pipe be your main drain then?
I dunno. This is different than what I did so I'm not the best person to ask.

Originally Posted by Mirugai

D2mini, what type of glue did you use for all the joints in your PVC?

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

What brand/type.size substrate did you use?

[d2mini]

Originally Posted by E-A-G-L-E-S

What brand/type.size substrate did you use?

Whatever is sitting at the bottom of the gulf of mexico.
Everything came from TBS.

[asmodeus]

Job well done man love the over flow too with the cable going to the bottom of the stand through the glass

[dRsLy09]

Dennis,

Your tank is amazing! Definitely an inspiration for me. I recently got an Eheim 1262 return pump for my tank and I'm having some trouble figuring out how to plumb it.. Specifically, I'm not sure of what size parts to get since Eheim is metric..I can't find any parts that are 5/8".. I want to put a union on right out of the pump like you have on yours as well as a ball valve... Would you mind telling me which parts you used (and the size of them?) Do you have to use hard PVC pipe to be able to connect a union? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for all of your amazing pictures!

[d2mini]

Thanks guys!

For the pump I removed whatever fitting was screwed into the pump inlet/outlet and i went to Lowe's (home depot near me sucks for pvc fittings) and got a fitting that has a threaded male end with a female slip end. This fitting has the hexagonal (or whatever) flat sides for a wrench so you can tighten down into the pump. Then this fitting is connected to the union with a piece of hard pvc. I think the threaded male end was 1/2" and the female slip end is 3/4".

This isn't my pic, but the piece i'm talking about looks like one of the ones on the bottom left.



And here is my pump again showing these pieces installed before the unions.


Hope that helps!

[glxtrix]

Get looking setup!

[d2mini]

Just realized the pic i posted above is red-exing.
Lets try this one.

This is the adaptor I used to connect the pvc to the eheim.

[krak256]

Originally Posted by d2mini

T This fitting has the hexagonal (or whatever) flat sides for a wrench so you can tighten down into the pump. Then this fitting is connected to the union with a piece of hard pvc.

hey dennis, how come you used a piece of hard pvc here? can't you use flex pvc?

[TXChewy]

More pictures please

Dennis, will you setup and scape my next tank?

[Bigjoe2531]

Show us some pics, I've been subscribed for a while. Love the tank. The company that made it folded, so sad. What company do you think could build a tank of that quality at a reasonable price? How are your water parameters, any detectable PO4? You must love that photon fixture, is the 250w or 400w and if it is 250 can u easily swap out ballast to drive a 400 w mh?

[d2mini]

Originally Posted by krak256

hey dennis, how come you used a piece of hard pvc here? can't you use flex pvc?

The way I did it just seemed to make a nice solid connection and was easy to connect the gate valve after the pump.

Originally Posted by TXChewy

More pictures please
Dennis, will you setup and scape my next tank?

Dude... i set up the auto water change system BECAUSE i'm so lazy.
I'm lucky I was able to set up MY tank! LOL!
But if you want i can come over and art direct.

Originally Posted by Bigjoe2531

Show us some pics, I've been subscribed for a while. Love the tank. The company that made it folded, so sad. What company do you think could build a tank of that quality at a reasonable price? How are your water parameters, any detectable PO4? You must love that photon fixture, is the 250w or 400w and if it is 250 can u easily swap out ballast to drive a 400 w mh?

Ya, i guess i need to take some more pics, eh?
I don't know who else to go to in town other than ADG.
Parameters are doing great. Still making tiny tweaks to the water change system but my salinity seems to be holding right now at 1.025. I've got the BRS dosers going for 2-part and that's what i'm trying to get tweaked now. Alk is ok but Cal is still low at around 350. No phosphates that i can tell other than the dusty algae on the glass. I need to clean it every other day. The sand and rocks are clean, water is clear, nitrates are low. My bubble coral just can't seem to adapt to the new tank, but i heard those do better in poor water quality which would explain why it looked awesome in my old 46g. All my rics are doing great, sponges are borderline at the moment but i know those are hard to keep long term. Frogspawn is doing incredible, hammerhead is good, one clam kicked it but one clam is still going. Even one of my flame scallops is still going. And my Gorgonians are doing great. So overall the tank is moving right along. Starting to get some purple coraline on the overflow now too. The orange star is still alive and kicking too which I was really worried about and still am but so far so good.
The fixture is doing well. It's the 250w. I have no idea if you can swap it out for a 400 but you can just buy a 400 fixture to begin with.

[liver]

Does having the vortechs in the overflow reduce the noise by any meaningful amount?

[Taqpol]

I had to go back five pages to find a FTS, and even then it was just one that someone had quoted. I think its time for a photo update!