I appreciate very much the help-offer from sales rep of Aquatop. Great!
I have bought the 24 Gallon Cube, aka Aquatop Reef3 Cube.
All these comments in the blog, that nobody actually kept the cube as is but made cost-intensive modifications are not very encouraging!
My main observation here: some components are good but the set is put together with little love to details. There are design and manufacturing flaws.
I like the cube design, the glass, the cupboard, the sump look high quality. I find the dark back and the dark "edge" containing the pipes not very elegant. I would have preferred a real cube transparent from all sides and kept the tubes visible in the tank with a floating water intake to take the top water layer. I chose the cube for being a cube since I personally don't like the "landscape-shaped" aquariums that much. Personal taste. Anyone: The black plastic "edge hiding the tubes is glued to the glass... I think it is black silicone. Any chance I could remove it?? How?? With a sharp knife? That would be a good improvement... The ability to remove the top layer of water would be worse. Is this a huge concern?
The LED light is extremely outdated. These LEDs are very low efficiency ~20%. Nowadays 40% is standard. I know something about LEDs and it is a sign either of Aquatop's helplessness or greedyness on 1-2$ range that such old LEDs are used. Looking at the nature of this set I just guess it is just the best they could get in China. Nowadays prices have dropped and the LEDs don't make the largest part of the bill any more. I will probably try to retrofit the board with new LEDs to get more light out of the 20W. Unfortunately the lamp is glued instead of screwed. Not an update-friendly design unfortunately but this is what the lamp is, cheap and somewhat durable, not technically sound.
I assembled the set yesterday just right after I got home. The print instructions are very sparse and not really worthy of a modern company. Someone put something together, which is great, but there are almost no pictures and you really have to figure it out for yourself. For a system costing 500$ (black friday, I still find it's a bunch of money) I would expect a manual that makes it fun to look at. It seems not to be a very popular cube because there is virtually no info in the web. This is the main reason I am passing here my experiences to potential buyers so that you know what you get.
I eventually got it up and running. There was a drop-every-two-seconds-leak from the return grey PVC tubes to the sump. To be precise it was a pre-glued joint since it seems to be pre-assembled of otherwise "china-home-depot" parts instead of parts engineered for this setup. I am not against a DIY-set but the poor manufacturing quality of the grey PVC-plumbing set is apparent. Unfortunately, it does look like a DIY set rather than a stylish tech-thing made from aquarium lovers. Again, I would make the tubes look nicer in the first place and not need to hide them. Since the dripping is on the sump it doesn't worry me too much for the moment and I hope some biological debris will eventually seal it. But it is very disappointing for someone buying new things to have something nice.
The skimmer is called Xyclone and looks good, like a laser gun if you hold it from the side. This one actually looks like something with a design from the 21st century. I guess it does a good work as well. Unfortunately, its pump comes with lots of accessories that are not needed (another sign that this set has been put together without much dedication) that add to the amount of waste/something to keep for perhaps tomorrow/debris that is so typical of poorly engineered tech-stuff... not good. The pump makes a heck of a rattling noise as if would make a tremendous effort to do its work and it needs 20W. It is suspended in the water held by the rigid tube connected to the skimmer inlet. I will see what I can do to optimize the sound issue. Any suggestions (other than "buy a new one") highly welcome. If all that helps is buying a new skimmer for how many 100$... that doesn't make any sense to me. I guess I'd rather switch the skimmer only during my absence from the house since I didnt want to have a heavy fish load anyway. Another sign that this has been assembled without considering the whole picture is the fact that the skimmer doesn't fit like a glove on the sump. In the beginning I thought I was doing something wrong but there is no better way to do hang it. If you use the bolts to fix the skimmer to the sump, it tilts forward. The bolts are therefore just open. They have no function. Just silly.
The overflow tube, which is huge, seems to be needing a much larger ventilation as some other guys in this blog pointed out. I will try to make a larger hole. Now the "breathing" problem of the overflow makes the flow instable and it sounds pretty much like a loud dishwasher when rinsing.
The flow from the tank to the dark area where the tubes are contained sounds like a flowing river. I like it but it is quite loud.
The main pump is on the second and last section of the sump has the job to return the water up to the fish tank and make some movement there. From what I can see this works properly and I cannot tell it is too loud because the other problems are still huge in comparison. I think the movement of water in the fish tank is enough and for the moment I will not add additional pumps (and noise source).
I hope this helps understand what this set is about. Anyone from aquatop: I am happy to be contacted and work on improvements if desired.
I have bought the 24 Gallon Cube, aka Aquatop Reef3 Cube.
All these comments in the blog, that nobody actually kept the cube as is but made cost-intensive modifications are not very encouraging!
My main observation here: some components are good but the set is put together with little love to details. There are design and manufacturing flaws.
I like the cube design, the glass, the cupboard, the sump look high quality. I find the dark back and the dark "edge" containing the pipes not very elegant. I would have preferred a real cube transparent from all sides and kept the tubes visible in the tank with a floating water intake to take the top water layer. I chose the cube for being a cube since I personally don't like the "landscape-shaped" aquariums that much. Personal taste. Anyone: The black plastic "edge hiding the tubes is glued to the glass... I think it is black silicone. Any chance I could remove it?? How?? With a sharp knife? That would be a good improvement... The ability to remove the top layer of water would be worse. Is this a huge concern?
The LED light is extremely outdated. These LEDs are very low efficiency ~20%. Nowadays 40% is standard. I know something about LEDs and it is a sign either of Aquatop's helplessness or greedyness on 1-2$ range that such old LEDs are used. Looking at the nature of this set I just guess it is just the best they could get in China. Nowadays prices have dropped and the LEDs don't make the largest part of the bill any more. I will probably try to retrofit the board with new LEDs to get more light out of the 20W. Unfortunately the lamp is glued instead of screwed. Not an update-friendly design unfortunately but this is what the lamp is, cheap and somewhat durable, not technically sound.
I assembled the set yesterday just right after I got home. The print instructions are very sparse and not really worthy of a modern company. Someone put something together, which is great, but there are almost no pictures and you really have to figure it out for yourself. For a system costing 500$ (black friday, I still find it's a bunch of money) I would expect a manual that makes it fun to look at. It seems not to be a very popular cube because there is virtually no info in the web. This is the main reason I am passing here my experiences to potential buyers so that you know what you get.
I eventually got it up and running. There was a drop-every-two-seconds-leak from the return grey PVC tubes to the sump. To be precise it was a pre-glued joint since it seems to be pre-assembled of otherwise "china-home-depot" parts instead of parts engineered for this setup. I am not against a DIY-set but the poor manufacturing quality of the grey PVC-plumbing set is apparent. Unfortunately, it does look like a DIY set rather than a stylish tech-thing made from aquarium lovers. Again, I would make the tubes look nicer in the first place and not need to hide them. Since the dripping is on the sump it doesn't worry me too much for the moment and I hope some biological debris will eventually seal it. But it is very disappointing for someone buying new things to have something nice.
The skimmer is called Xyclone and looks good, like a laser gun if you hold it from the side. This one actually looks like something with a design from the 21st century. I guess it does a good work as well. Unfortunately, its pump comes with lots of accessories that are not needed (another sign that this set has been put together without much dedication) that add to the amount of waste/something to keep for perhaps tomorrow/debris that is so typical of poorly engineered tech-stuff... not good. The pump makes a heck of a rattling noise as if would make a tremendous effort to do its work and it needs 20W. It is suspended in the water held by the rigid tube connected to the skimmer inlet. I will see what I can do to optimize the sound issue. Any suggestions (other than "buy a new one") highly welcome. If all that helps is buying a new skimmer for how many 100$... that doesn't make any sense to me. I guess I'd rather switch the skimmer only during my absence from the house since I didnt want to have a heavy fish load anyway. Another sign that this has been assembled without considering the whole picture is the fact that the skimmer doesn't fit like a glove on the sump. In the beginning I thought I was doing something wrong but there is no better way to do hang it. If you use the bolts to fix the skimmer to the sump, it tilts forward. The bolts are therefore just open. They have no function. Just silly.
The overflow tube, which is huge, seems to be needing a much larger ventilation as some other guys in this blog pointed out. I will try to make a larger hole. Now the "breathing" problem of the overflow makes the flow instable and it sounds pretty much like a loud dishwasher when rinsing.
The flow from the tank to the dark area where the tubes are contained sounds like a flowing river. I like it but it is quite loud.
The main pump is on the second and last section of the sump has the job to return the water up to the fish tank and make some movement there. From what I can see this works properly and I cannot tell it is too loud because the other problems are still huge in comparison. I think the movement of water in the fish tank is enough and for the moment I will not add additional pumps (and noise source).
I hope this helps understand what this set is about. Anyone from aquatop: I am happy to be contacted and work on improvements if desired.
