Chin Lee's 300 gallon cube tank

[Chin_Lee]

Chin Lee's 300 gallon cube journal

Feb 2006
I saw a 300 gallon cube tank for sale by Cody (Stinky) in Calgary on Canreef.
The size was nice at 48"x48"x30".
Price was great.
Location and weight of this bad boy was bad – it probably weighed close to 700-800 lbs.
When I finally decided to buy it, Ruth had already bought it but was very nice to "let" me have it. Thanks Ruth.

April 2006
It was time to drive to Calgary to pick up the tank. A group of very nice people in Calgary agreed to help me move the tank and I will be forever grateful to you all - thank you to the following people that I remembered (if I missed your name, sorry L) Mike (Andestang), Arek (Pokolec), Danny Zubot, Tony (Delphinus), Nate, Paul (JSTR) , Jim (Sergeantpilot).
I am most grateful to my good friend Anthony (Seahorse_Fanatic) who decided it would be fun to drive out to Calgary with me. I haven’t figured out if he’s just crazy or bored J but nevertheless, he was a great help in making this all happen.
I rented a full sized cube van, drove 950 km (about11 hours) to Calgary, loaded the tank into the van, and drove back another 950 km to Surrey all within 24 hours. The tank was unloaded into my garage thanks to TomR, Callum (HockeyNut), and of course Anthony.

The cube van which drank $300 of gas in 24 hours.


Getting the tank all wrapped up ready to be moved up a flight of stairs and into the backyard.


A few good fellas waiting for their workout.


Between April and July, three things were done:
1) I removed the center positioned overflow to the rear of the tank. Because the tank also had euro-bracing at the bottom, the entire overflow was positioned four inches away from the wall. This created a very interesting water movement situation in the tank because there is a space behind the overflow.
2) Sand was glued to the bottom glass to create the look of a sandbed aka Faux Pas sandbed. Envirotex Lite was the two-part epoxy compound that was used to mix the sand into. You mix the epoxy up, pour in into the tank and spread it evenly, then use a coriander to evenly spread the sand on the epoxy. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out as nice for me because I was unable to spread the epoxy evenly enough because I was unable to lift the tank and let gravity spread the epoxy evenly. But with a few more layers of epoxy and sand, I achieved the look that I wanted.

3) The base stand was built in the basement and prepared for the tank move down to the basement.

July 16, 2006
The tank was moved from the garage into the basement thanks to Anthony, Morgan, Mo, Dan (Midnight) and Jason Mckenzie. For both moves up and down stairs, a wooden sleigh was built and used. The tank was strapped to the sleigh and various thick ropes were used to allow multiple people to pull. In both instances, only 2-3 people were able to push but 4-6 people were able to pull the tank with ropes.



Over the next few months of August – October, I pondered for many hours on how I was going to aquascape the tank. I had ideas of putting all the rocks on PVC structure so they were all elevated off the bottom and various PVC structures to put the rocks on. (these ideas did not work out in the end)
I knew I wanted a shelf on the overflow that I could “hang” some rocks from so I glued together some glass and made two level shelf on the overflow. This idea worked out really well in the end.


The first two fishes to go in the tank

The faux pas sandbed made it very rough to work in the tank hence the purple striped bedsheet in the tank.

The tank was placed high up and only about 16 inches from the low basement ceiling. This is primarily due to the height of the sump in the back room and the height of the bottom of the overflow. This created a challenge for me to create a canopy that could allow access inside the tank. I took the idea of a moving canopy from several local reefers and I went to Lee Valley tools and bought:
- a pair of 38” two way slides http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=1&p=51775&cat=3,43614,43616&ap=2
- two over-the-top slides http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=1&p=41861&cat=3,43614,43620&ap=1

The over the top slides allow the cabinet door to be lifted and pushed completely out of the way.

[Continue second post as I exceeded limit with one post]

[Chin_Lee]

October 27, 2006
Anthony (again) came over and helped me install the canopy that I had built. Hey…. it swings both ways ….. the canopy I mean….




November 2006
The finishing plywood was added to the frame, the pre-painted cabinets were sanded down and all wood pieces were stained.
The closed loop was plumbed with the intake from the 2” bulkhead in the center of the tank (previously the center overflow). Pump used is a Barracuda and the output is split three ways – one to the one inch hole in the center of the tank (also from the previous overflow) and two main returns to each back corners of the tank via two Wavysea Plus wave making devices.

December 2006
Lighting was added to the canopy. Two 400W HQI will used to light this tank and light distribution will be provided by a light moving device called a Sun Circle.

This device is more commonly used by hydroponic gardeners (aka Marihuana farmers) to maximize their lighting equipment to plant ratio. The device will move two lights in a circle continuously with one revolution every 90 seconds. The wiring for the lights are hard-wired within the device which is hard to explain in words but the end result is that the wires do not get wind up and stop the light movement.
Two Luminarc mini reflectors are attached to each arm and I’ve chosen to initially use 400 W 10K Reeflux bulbs for their incredible high PAR readings with HQI ballasts and their nice 430 nm spike of blue.
The lighting is intense but because its always moving, it is evenly distributed. The only downside are the corners do not get as bright as I would have liked but it’s disadvantage is considered very minimal. I introduced the acros to the new lights by using only one light one for a week and then started the second one for a few hours and still increasing,

The block of metal attached are counterweights of the mogul socket and metal holder on the opposite side of the reflector.

In this picture you can see the MH ballast wires running to the top of the Sun Circle, the four black dots are part of the hard wiring through the device, and the wires come out the bottom electrical box to the lamps. The motor on the top attached to the black cable is the motor that moves the lights.

December 15, 2006
So the cabinet is finished, the lights are in, its time to add RO/DI water.



The big wind storm and the turbulence in the water didn’t help to move the project along but in the end, 280 gallons of RO/DI was made, salt added, and added into the tank. Along came Anthony again (did I mention how helpful this guy has been… ) and he did all the initial aquascaping for me; the thing was beautiful even without any corals or fish.

Lighting in this picture are with Radium 20K bulbs. The plan for the aquascaping was established and created.

The move of all my hard corals began and many of the pieces did not like the move at all. I lost a few nice pieces and many are still recuperating. But the majority of them are doing well with nice polyp extensions.

[Continue third post as I exceeded number of images]

[Chin_Lee]

Circulation from the display tank upstairs to the sump was been shut down and the entire transfer took three nights of cleaning, scrubbing, and fragging of each and every piece. The following pictures are of final product as of today.

Right corner view



Left corner view



Canopy fully opened


Left side of tank


Front view of tank


Right view of tank


Small school lyretail anthias


My next mini project will be turning my upstairs 165 gallon tank into a LPS/SPS tank.

Thats all folks.,,,,,,,, until I complete the upstairs tank.

SPECIAL THANKS to Anthony for all his friendship, time, dedication, committment to help me out every step of the way - I really couldn't have done it without your help.

[andsoitgoes]

.............

adopt me.

that is the coolest thing *EVER* - holy crow on a stick that's freakin INSANE - awesome aquascaping and simply a wicked tank. just... WOW

[niloc16]

chin you did an amazing job. turned out awesome. definitely keep the pics coming buddy

[Pan]

forgive the language but


Sweet Christ!!

that looks..well sweet christ...

[Mike Olson]

Seeing your tank today was awe inspiring! The pics look phenominal but they still dont come close to seeing it in person! I was truly amazed how the rockwork went together and how open of a design it is. The thought and prep work sure paid off....cant wait to see the tank upstairs now!
p.s. Thanks for the blue mili frag-I was a little worried since it took 3 hrs. to complete my running around and finally getting it out of the bag....its whitish but all the polyps are out tonight-whew!

[EmilyB]

That cube looked sweet even in the back of the van, WOW, what an incredible job !

[Acro]

Congrats Chin,

Job well done!!

[robzilla]

wOw!!