93 Gallon Cube Build

tdyrkacz · Aug 29, 2015

Picked up a little frogspawn from Blake's Aqua den a few days ago for a whopping $9.99 . It is taking its time opening up. Also I can see some other growth on this coral perhaps someone can help me understand what those little plants are. ... Are they baby frogspawn? or some sort of pest? I'm talking about the 7 or so little orange tentacle plants =)

rajkovich207 · Aug 29, 2015

They look like green star polyps or clove polyps of some sort, no harm but can grow quickly. Just as an aside, corals ate actually animals they host photosynthetic algae but also contain a basic mouth and digestive track, many of them can even move themselves if they aren't happy where they are.
Also for anyone thinking they are majanos, they have rounded flat tentacle ends and no central "disc" like a zoanthid would have. So I'm guessing they aren't majanos

HowUDoin · Aug 30, 2015

Awesome job!
How are you plumbed for water changes? Would you mind showing a few pics of that? Always looking for ideas on making maintenence easier.

TheEngineer · Aug 30, 2015

I'm with @rajkovich207, those look like some sort of star or clove polyp. I'm a little concerned that there is a dead head next to that one though. Was this frag open and happy when you bought it and did you dip it? It could be nothing, but it is always good to be safe. I lost a giant hammer coral one head at a time to a disease I could never figure out.

tdyrkacz · Aug 30, 2015

I dipped it in Coral Rx. The one head was open at the store, to be honest I did not notice if the other was open or not, but I don't think it was open. Once I got it home I dripped acclimated it and then dipped it in the new water. So far it has not opened up like it was in the store.

tdyrkacz · Aug 30, 2015

HowUDoin said:
Awesome job!
How are you plumbed for water changes? Would you mind showing a few pics of that? Always looking for ideas on making maintenence easier.

Thanks. I will post some pictures of my setup a little later.

tdyrkacz · Aug 30, 2015

Okay so here is how everything is plumbed. It all starts in my basement bathroom.

THe RODI line and another black 1/2" OD drain line go from here to the area directly under my tank about 50 feet away.

As you can see I added some support to help with the weight of the tank.

The BRUTE container on the right is a 55 Gallon. This is where RODI water drains. The one on the left is a 32 Gallon where I mix salt water.

I turn on the heater and maxijet pump with a few buttons in the control center. Once Mixed I turn on the MAG 24 outlet. I then go upstairs and remotely turn on and off the MAG24 so that I can see how it fills up the sump.

Three tubes go through the floow directly behind the tank. 1/2" drain to help drain the sump. 3/4" to help fill up the sump and 1/4" for the ATO which goes down to the 55 gallon brute.

The dosing pump on the right is the ATO pump. It draws fresh RODI from the basement when the AVAST pressure sensor tells it to... well when it tells APEX and APEX tells it to.
You can also see a Fan I added to draw air from behind the the stand into the stand.

Here is the pressure switch with a backup float valve from AVAST.

Here on the right is another fan which pushed air out of the stand. These 2 fans really help to eliminate humidity inside the stand.

I skipped the part about draining the sump. I have a small Eheim 1000 in the skimmer section. I turn this on and it drains about 13 gallons from the sump in about 2-3 minutes using the 1/2 tubing 3/8 ID. I then remotely turn on the MAG 24 in order to fill up the sump. The entire process of changing water takes 5-10 minutes at most. ... This obviously does not include preparation such as mixing the salt ahead of time.

HowUDoin · Aug 30, 2015

Wow, thanks tdyrkacz for the detailed reply. Very helpful!

915MANG · Aug 30, 2015

very cool build

tdyrkacz · Sep 1, 2015

Got my macro lens today. It is just an old manual adapted lens which I'm using on my fuji.

The frogspawn is still not opening up.

tdyrkacz · Sep 7, 2015

The clowns love to explore and do hide in the back of the tank a lot especially at night. Here is a shot of them

These eagle eye weren't doing too well. I just put them back in the DT from my QT. Many polyps died, but these might make it.

Here is a new addition. I took this picture during the dip.

steelheader.262 · Sep 7, 2015

Nice build!!!

tdyrkacz · Sep 7, 2015

So as I mentioned before i am using the Avast pressure sensor for my ATO. I use a BRS pump to draw the water from about 12 feet below to the aquarium. This setup works well, but when the pump kicks on it takes a long time (And it isn't all that quiet.) to fill the aquarium as there is a very slow trickle... or drip coming out of the pump. This is their 50ml per minute pump but I am getting much less most likely due to the pressure. I am thinking of switching this pump to the avast diaphragm pump rated at 400mL a minute. I think it would fill up my tank much faster... Does anyone have this pump? What is your experience with it?