Snailpowered
Community Member
It has been about 5 years since I retired from the hobby as I had alot going on and just could not give my tank the time it needed to have good husbandry. In this time alot has changed for me and the biggest and the one that I am most grateful for is my wonderful son, and he loves fish and cars and is what has lead me to start this build. I am lucky enough to live in Orlando and get to visit Sea World quite often and every time we go he always has to go and see the reef tank in the Manta ride. The other wonderful thing about Orlando it the great store we have here in town, WWC, Sea in the City, and Living Reef just to name a few.
On to the tank.
I am currently in the middle of going back to school to get my Mechanical Engineering degree and my wife in a elementary school teacher so this build was done on quite a budget and alot of DIY. The tank was my old 45 gallon MarineLand cube, I found a sump on good ol Craigslist and modified it to fit my needs. As for the skimmer, for someone on the "other" reef forum had a Esoppe 110 skimmer thats body was in two pieces, bought it and welded it back together and its rocking on the new build. Lighting was a fun project, a 12 inch makers heat sink and a StormX. I have a mp10 from 2010 that is on the tank for circulation and everything is controlled by my out of date Aquacontrol Jr. The stand is not quite finished and will post some pics when it is, what I can say is, if anyone is going to be staining a stand in the future look long and hard at dying it instead, its worth the little (very little) extra time and alot less expensive.
I wanted to have as much depth as I could in the tank, and thats what makes cubes the best right! I think that I did a fairly good job in doing so with the rock work but I just cant get a good pic so show it. I also wanted the tank to be easy to care for so it will consist mainly of Shrooms, Rics, Yumas, Palys and Mini Maxi carpets and water changes should be all this tank will need, no dosing, no reactors, just simple. Hope you guys like the pics and I will update this when I can!
On to the tank.
I am currently in the middle of going back to school to get my Mechanical Engineering degree and my wife in a elementary school teacher so this build was done on quite a budget and alot of DIY. The tank was my old 45 gallon MarineLand cube, I found a sump on good ol Craigslist and modified it to fit my needs. As for the skimmer, for someone on the "other" reef forum had a Esoppe 110 skimmer thats body was in two pieces, bought it and welded it back together and its rocking on the new build. Lighting was a fun project, a 12 inch makers heat sink and a StormX. I have a mp10 from 2010 that is on the tank for circulation and everything is controlled by my out of date Aquacontrol Jr. The stand is not quite finished and will post some pics when it is, what I can say is, if anyone is going to be staining a stand in the future look long and hard at dying it instead, its worth the little (very little) extra time and alot less expensive.
I wanted to have as much depth as I could in the tank, and thats what makes cubes the best right! I think that I did a fairly good job in doing so with the rock work but I just cant get a good pic so show it. I also wanted the tank to be easy to care for so it will consist mainly of Shrooms, Rics, Yumas, Palys and Mini Maxi carpets and water changes should be all this tank will need, no dosing, no reactors, just simple. Hope you guys like the pics and I will update this when I can!
