93 Cube

Lots of progress. Can't wait to see this aquarium in there.

 

K theres a tank there now. Ha...



The tank there is one I recently aquired for free. Its a 15 High. I'm going to use it to bring new water up to temp and well mixed for a day or so before a water change. Its also going to be my first time drilling experiment. Wish me luck.

As you can get an idea from the pics the "Salt Bench" is extremely high. Over 4' to the top. But I'm 6'2" and I wanted to save the head loss as much as possible. On the left is going to be the quarantine tank. Center will be sump. And potentially frag tank on the right? Maybe later.

Please note: Its not done so thats why theres only one measely support leg. But its halfway there.

Got 8' section of cheapo counter top at HD for $48 bux! Score.

 

Did my first drilling last night! Everything went without a hitch. I'd say the hardest part to get right is at the end. Trying to go as slowly as possible to prevent chipping as you bust through the other side. Perhaps I'll try masking tape of the inside to help with this next time? Anyone?


Leak test tonight. Results TBA

 

I've made a good amount of headway recently as work is slowing down a bit for me again. I got the frame for the bench solidified, painted, counter top attached and calked in, plumbing is done for the time being. In the pic you see the 29 on the left which is in its permanent location as a quarantine/frag tank. On the right the the 15 high which is temporarily acting as the return section for the Mag 24. The system is running just as you see it. Nothing is hooked together upstairs yet. Still a long way to go for that.




Here you see my "wire chase" I knew that this bench area could get sloppy with a big shipment of fish or corals arriving or on maintenace day so I wanted to make it as water proof as possible. I super glued and calked a 4" 45* coupling to the counter top centered on a 4" hole. My plan is to run all wiring underneath the bench to remove clutter and potential fire hazards. This allows me to use a drip loop to make 100% certain that no saltwater can make it to a powerstrip.


Next chore is to get a used 75 into shape for sump/refugium duty. I traded the sump I originally purchased used because the return chamber for the pump was too small and wouldn't allow large water changes without shutting the pump down. Once the 75 is ready it will be replacing the 15 high and filling up most of the bench.

Edit: A note about large Mag Drive pumps. They're loud! If you plan on having one in your living quarters I'd recomend rethinking that. As a result I'm considering trading these in locally and getting a Red Dragon

 

Good News! I got my tax return after waiting for the fed to process it even though I filed on Jan 31st. So I finally ordered my skimmer! Decided to go with the SWC 180.

Key aspects that I found appealing in the SWC are:

Rated at 150 Heavy Bioload
Only pulls a claimed 25 watts.(We shall see what the Kilowatt meter reads) Edit: The actual pump in the unit is rated for 40 watts so there was a bit of misinformation on the website.

 

This is coming along nicely.

...how large of a mag drive pump were you talking about? I got a mag 9.5 for the tank that will be in our dinning room...bad idea? haha

 

Mag 24's I believe.

 

Wow, those are some giant pumps.

 

My mag24 is pretty loud mounted externally. It does work pretty good though.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

Yeap, loud and inefficient considering power usage vs. water moved. But they're cheap and do work fine. At some point I'd like to upgrade to a more high dollar, more energy efficient pump but Red Dragons are off the market and they were the only ones that had truly supreme power consumption ratings.