Zombies 60 cube

[zombie]

I decided that I wanted a second tank that would allow me to house fish that wouldn't be compatible with my 65 gallon mixed reef.

I purchased the 60 cube that was previously owned by Etiomos and Walter White, but am going to do some major sump modifications as well as automation upgrades.

Because I want this tank to utilize the same RODI and saltwater barrels in the basement that my main tank uses, this will be ties into my existing apex system

Tank equipment
- 60 cube
- custom stand / canopy
- Modular marine 1200gph bean animal ghost overflow
- Trigger Triton 29 sump

Lighting/flow/filtration
- Radion XR30 Gen 4
- (2) Ecotech MP10
- (2) Sea Swirls
- Eheim 1262 return pump
- Reef Octopus 110SS protien skimmer
- 200W Cobalt Neotherm heater
- 150W Finnex titanium heaters
- No name chinese refugium light

Automation
- EB8 energy bar
- PM1 for pH and I/O
- PM2 for conductivity, temperature, and I/O
- DOS for auto water change
- Avast diaphragm pump for ATO
- WXM for ecotech control
- Custom optical sensor to DOS harness fpr ATO level
- float switches for sump low level, sump high level, possibly skimmer cup sensor, possibly overflow box alert.
- toggle switches for emergency shutoff and skimmer maintenance
- door switches to automatically turn on cabinet lighting.



Livestock

Certain
- 60ish lbs of rock similar to the NSA videos from BRS
- 40ish lbs of special grade aragonite sand
- Engineer goby
- Flame Angel
- Either a valentini or blue spot puffer
- Starry Blenny

Maybe
- Ornate Leopard wrasse
- radial filefish
- sunburst anemone and clown pair
- hawkfish flame or longnose
- banghai cardinal
- royal gramma
- clown goby
- coral beauty
- longspine urchin
- tuxedo urchin
- larger snails and hermits that might survive the puffer





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[zombie]

Initial plumbing View attachment 20703 View attachment 20704 View attachment 20705 View attachment 20706 View attachment 20707

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[zombie]

First part of electronics mounting. View attachment 20708 View attachment 20709 View attachment 20710

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[apex_seeking]

You’re giving me ptsd!

Looking good. Can’t wait to see the rest.


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[zombie]

Did some aquascaping today. This was my procedure.

1. Smash small unusable pieces of rock into a fine powder using a sledgehammer, mortar and pestle, and a mesh seive.

2. Connect base rock pieces together with 2 part epoxy putty for extra strength.

3. On "welds" that don't need to be lifted and to cover epoxy putty: sprinkle dust where the two rocks meet (using pebbles too if needed), then apply a liberal amount of instaset superglue over the dust. It gets ridiculously hot smokes a little and then sets to a mortar like cure in less than 10 seconds. Continue to "tac weld" at least 3 points on each rock and build up. View attachment 20798 View attachment 20799 View attachment 20800 View attachment 20801 View attachment 20802

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[zombie]

Electrical and initial wire management complete. I still need to wire in float switches, make the optical sensor harness, and attach and calibrate probes.

I forgot to set my RODI to fill yesterday, so I only had 20 gallons to start filling the tank with. Hopefully I'll have 50 gallons tomorrow to finish filling. View attachment 20808 View attachment 20809 View attachment 20810 View attachment 20811 View attachment 20812

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[zombie]

I got the tank filled and running for a couple days. I had to lengthen the weir of the overflow because the water level was too high and it was leaking a little bit through the frame. Now that the salt is all mixed and the bacteria bloom has finished you can actually see the aquascape in water. View attachment 20825 View attachment 20826 View attachment 20827

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[zombie]

I completed the wiring by installing 3 magnetic door sensors wired in series, installed the float switches and installed some 3d printed toggle switches I got off of etsy.

I also created the same optical sensor harness that I used in my 65 gallon build that allows the DOS to use optical sensors as if a DDR was connected to it. View attachment 20828 View attachment 20829 View attachment 20830

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[apex_seeking]

Looks good. Can’t wait to see what goes in it.


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[zombie]

I made a screen top with some 1/8" mesh from BRS, a window screen kit and a couple extra corners. View attachment 20842 View attachment 20843

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[zombie]

Got the canopy hung, radion mounted, AFS mounted, and basic programming done.

Still need to calibrate probes, set up email alerts, set up autofeeder, fine tune my programming, then I'm ready for fish when the cycle finishes. View attachment 20845 View attachment 20846 View attachment 20847 View attachment 20848

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[zombie]

Par values so I know where to place corals or how to adjust intensity to match corals needs. Normalized to 50% intensity with the radion at 24% WW, 24% CW, 24% GR, 24% RD, 100% all violets and blues. View attachment 20880

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[zombie]

Cycle is progressing well. I started with all dry rock and sand, added a cup or so of sand from my 65, a ball of cheato, and some marinepure balls from the refugium. I fed the tank with my auto feeder as an ammonia source.

This got a diatom bloom after 2 weeks, followed by a hair algae bloom the next.

I added a half size cleanup crew a couple weeks ago.

Now hair algae is under control and pods are covering every surface with a population of 5-10 per square inch of surface area. View attachment 20985

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[zombie]

After a 21 days of therapeutic copper, this tank now has it's first two fish. An engineer goby and a longnose hawkfish. The hawkfish is perching and happy and the engineer goby is busy digging holes, so unable to photograph him until he comes out to feed later. View attachment 20999

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[Angelo]

Very cool. Be ready to pull that hawkfish before adding any small fish. They're aggressive.

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[zombie]

Added blue spot puffer and Starry blenny.

Mods, any idea why none of my old pictures show up anymore and are instead "view attachment"?

View attachment 111

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[SynDen]

Ya, no idea on the pics. They got moved over with the server move but site didnt link them up correctly for some reason. I have tried multiple times but cannot correct the issue.