a post has been made in all the contest forumns regarding contest rules via the timeline, everyone should read this post as there seems to be some confusion.

I'm thinking about flow.

A very common practice when dealing with these cubes is to replace the stock return pump with a Maxi Jet (a 900 or even a 1200).

If the water volume is 19.5 gallons, and optimal flow rate through a "sump" (filtration chambers, in this case) is 6.1x display volume, the optimal flow rate for the return pump in this system is ~120 gallons per hour. The stock pump has a flow rate of 290 gph. Replacing the stock pump with a higher flow pump seems foolish, based on those numbers. Ergo, I'll be using the stock return pump and relying on powerheads to supply the flow that the corals require.

I've presently got a Tunze 6015 as the powerhead for this tank. While it is a little large as far as how much room it requires in the display, it is 476 gph. I need at least 20x the water volume per hour for system flow: 400 gph. Combined with the return, I'll have 766 gph, which should be suitable.

I've been testing an "Innovative Marine Spin Stream Return Nozzle" for this system. I think it is a huge improvement over the stock return nozzle: which blasts the water out and has very limited positional range.

great job so far shelley, looks like your putting alot of thought into this:)


cheers

Yeah I agree with reefwars very well thought out...i cant wait too see if tank with live stock more and more

The more I think about it, this system might just be stocked with coral and inverts. The reason being that fish are pretty messy for the most part (at least all of the gluttons I've got, anyway). If I find a fish or two that aren't messy pigs I'll consider putting them in here.

Well never thought about that..fish are messy...:wink:thanks for the thoughts..Humm now do I want fish lol coral are easy through fish in whole new ball game

Have I mentioned that I hate painting?

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1cdface9.jpg

It would look better, but I got stoned on the fumes.

It looks better than it did, and it will match the tank better. It certainly isn't perfect, however. I think I'm going to have to sand a couple of spots and touch it up.

Edit: I need to pick up some of the black melamine furniture edging strips, as four of them were in terrible shape and I pulled them off.

I spoil my fish (food=love ;)) so my main display system is very high nutrients. LPS and softies do well in it. When I had an overstocked 10 gallon LPS and softies did well in there, too. I need this system to be lower nutrients, especially as I won't be running fluid reactors.

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4263f36e.jpg

The tank's brain.

Admittedly, this is a huge cash sink. And, I could probably get very similar results without it. But, as I'm looking at this being a long-term setup, I decided it was worth it.

This tank was going to get the full Apex, but when I considered all of the logistics involved in swapping the full Apex from my main display system, I decided to suck it up and add a VDM module to the Lite and use the Lite on this tank.

I've screwed everything to the piece of plywood that was originally the shelf in the stand. There are some issues with the placement of the bars and modules, but I think it will suffice. The display will be mounted on the front or side of the stand. When looking at that photo I can see that the VDM cable is shifted at the EB8. I need to fix that.

Due to the low wattage of so many of the devices in this build, I had to add an EB4 to the set up. Even still, I may have not have enough relay outlets. I can probably combine the return pump and skimmer on one outlet.

Oh, the stand looks quite good this morning. I don't think any touch ups are required. It is going in our poorly lit rec room, anyway. ;)

The stand is done. :)

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/...psdbb19343.jpg


http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/...ps806dcfd4.jpg

http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/...psd254a35a.jpg

The handles on the doors look like they're at very different heights in the photo. They don't look like that when I'm standing in front of it. If they are really that out, I'm not worried about it: as the table has been in my life since 1976 and I've never noticed before.