Kevin's 60G Cade Cube

[ksliech]

Hi folks! Getting back into it after about 20 years, and excited to report that I've got my Cade 60 gallon cube mostly together! The plan is to be SPS dominated.

Hardware

• Tank, stand, ATO, and sump: Cade S2 600, 24"-ish cube
• Skimmer: Red Sea DC 300
• Roller mat: Red Sea ReefMat 250 (might be undersized, but it didn't look like I'd be able to fit the 500 without sump mods)
• Lighting: 2x Kessil A360XE Tuna Blue
• Return: Since Synchra SDC 6.0 (this thing is DEAD SILENT at 50% speed. Could not be happier!)
• Heaters: Innovative Marine Helio 400W (2 x 200W elements)
• Wave pumps: None yet! Haven't figured that out.
• Controller: Haven't figured this out either!

BTW, I got nearly everything from Chris at Aqua Dreams (https://aqua-dreams.com/), where I worked throughout high school and college. If you're ever in MA or CT, you should check out one of his two stores - he's got incredible livestock!

The Cade came really well packed, but was an absolute nightmare to get into my apartment, which is on the second floor of a very old Victorian, up a narrow staircase. I only had one helper and it was actually quite dangerous - luckily neither of us fell backwards and were crushed by crates, which we brought up one at a time, ending at the top each time a big bloody and exhausted. Next time I'll hire an LFS that specializes in moves to bring this in, or get a trio of guys from Lugg. Aside from that, delivery was fantastic. The Cade folks email you all the details you could need about the delivery, including pictures of your exact unit leaving the warehouse, then follow up with a phone call to go through it. Everything arrived in fantastic shape.

Here she is, full of freshwater from the leak test with Marco Rocks soaking for the next couple weeks. I got extra during BRS's sale so I have plenty of options for building the aqua scape. If anyone's in the SF Bay Area, I'd be happy to give away my extras when I'm done!

So far the only challenge I had was to get from Cade's metric drain pipe into the imperial ReefMat intake. 3 PVC fittings, a lot of hacksawing, purple primer, and PVC cement later, you can see the final product here (it's the white piece). I was worried about fitting all this stuff in the Sump but these two fit quite nicely with a ton of extra room. I wasn't able to keep the Cade built-in shelf under the power strip though.

When my travel schedule settles down, my next step is to order some of that gorgeous Australian live rock (TankStop looks like the best place to get it from) to mix in with the Marco Rocks. Going to wait to build out the aqua scape once I get the live rock though. <Leans back in chair and strokes gray beard> Back in my day we exclusively used live rock, so I'm going to do a hybrid approach for this tank, given the difficulty and expense of getting actual live rock these days.

Some open things in the build:

• Haven't figured out heater placement yet. Maybe under the ReefMat or in the overflow. I want to keep the other sump areas open for one or more little 'fuges.
• Not sure how much LR I'm going to mix in with the Marco Rock, but at least 10lbs of the good stuff loaded with corralline & critters
• I come from the era of the deep live sand bed, where I ran a ~5" deep bed. Going with 2" this time, as we don't seem as scared of nitrates now
• I have a couple concerns about the A360XE's
  • Light spill: Although I plan to run them 6-8" off the water, I'm worried about getting blinded while sitting nearby. I've seen some 3D printed shades available, and may try those
  • Too blue: On my last tank I ran 6500k 400W MH with 110W VHO actinics, and the color was very natural daylight. The trend these days seems to be very blue, which I understand why, but even the least blue setting on the Kessil's is a little too blue for me. May need to supplement with additional light
  • Looks: My girlfriend hates how these things look, and I'm considering building a hood to hide them in. That would also be a good place to add supplemental blades to balance out the color. Curious if anyone has done something like that before

Exciting times!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[Rjukan]

Hi folks! Getting back into it after about 20 years, and excited to report that I've got my Cade 60 gallon cube mostly together! The plan is to be SPS dominated.

Hardware

• Tank, stand, ATO, and sump: Cade S2 600, 24"-ish cube
• Skimmer: Red Sea DC 300
• Roller mat: Red Sea ReefMat 250 (might be undersized, but it didn't look like I'd be able to fit the 500 without sump mods)
• Lighting: 2x Kessil A360XE Tuna Blue
• Return: Since Synchra SDC 6.0 (this thing is DEAD SILENT at 50% speed. Could not be happier!)
• Heaters: Innovative Marine Helio 400W (2 x 200W elements)
• Wave pumps: None yet! Haven't figured that out.
• Controller: Haven't figured this out either!

BTW, I got nearly everything from Chris at Aqua Dreams (https://aqua-dreams.com/), where I worked throughout high school and college. If you're ever in MA or CT, you should check out one of his two stores - he's got incredible livestock!

The Cade came really well packed, but was an absolute nightmare to get into my apartment, which is on the second floor of a very old Victorian, up a narrow staircase. I only had one helper and it was actually quite dangerous - luckily neither of us fell backwards and were crushed by crates, which we brought up one at a time, ending at the top each time a big bloody and exhausted. Next time I'll hire an LFS that specializes in moves to bring this in, or get a trio of guys from Lugg. Aside from that, delivery was fantastic. The Cade folks email you all the details you could need about the delivery, including pictures of your exact unit leaving the warehouse, then follow up with a phone call to go through it. Everything arrived in fantastic shape.

Here she is, full of freshwater from the leak test with Marco Rocks soaking for the next couple weeks. I got extra during BRS's sale so I have plenty of options for building the aqua scape. If anyone's in the SF Bay Area, I'd be happy to give away my extras when I'm done!

So far the only challenge I had was to get from Cade's metric drain pipe into the imperial ReefMat intake. 3 PVC fittings, a lot of hacksawing, purple primer, and PVC cement later, you can see the final product here (it's the white piece). I was worried about fitting all this stuff in the Sump but these two fit quite nicely with a ton of extra room. I wasn't able to keep the Cade built-in shelf under the power strip though.

When my travel schedule settles down, my next step is to order some of that gorgeous Australian live rock (TankStop looks like the best place to get it from) to mix in with the Marco Rocks. Going to wait to build out the aqua scape once I get the live rock though. <Leans back in chair and strokes gray beard> Back in my day we exclusively used live rock, so I'm going to do a hybrid approach for this tank, given the difficulty and expense of getting actual live rock these days.

Some open things in the build:

• Haven't figured out heater placement yet. Maybe under the ReefMat or in the overflow. I want to keep the other sump areas open for one or more little 'fuges.
• Not sure how much LR I'm going to mix in with the Marco Rock, but at least 10lbs of the good stuff loaded with corralline & critters
• I come from the era of the deep live sand bed, where I ran a ~5" deep bed. Going with 2" this time, as we don't seem as scared of nitrates now
• I have a couple concerns about the A360XE's
  • Light spill: Although I plan to run them 6-8" off the water, I'm worried about getting blinded while sitting nearby. I've seen some 3D printed shades available, and may try those
  • Too blue: On my last tank I ran 6500k 400W MH with 110W VHO actinics, and the color was very natural daylight. The trend these days seems to be very blue, which I understand why, but even the least blue setting on the Kessil's is a little too blue for me. May need to supplement with additional light
  • Looks: My girlfriend hates how these things look, and I'm considering building a hood to hide them in. That would also be a good place to add supplemental blades to balance out the color. Curious if anyone has done something like that before

Exciting times!

Very nice setup! I'm jealous of the stand for sure. I too have a 60g cube, but it's much older and has a boring one door stand lol.

Biggest thing I see you dealing with soon enough will be the aquascaping. The 24" square footprint is a challenge to deal with, and my first attempt was a "pile o rocks" like what you have in there now. My suggestion is to break it into 1 or two islands, and use a drill with acrylic rods to stack the rocks. You can get some really nice pass throughs, and open spaces this way which will help a lot for fish stress, and also water movement.

Goodluck and enjoy the build!

 

[kevgib67]

Very well thought out build, I’m looking forward to following.

 

[ksliech]

Very nice setup! I'm jealous of the stand for sure. I too have a 60g cube, but it's much older and has a boring one door stand lol.

Biggest thing I see you dealing with soon enough will be the aquascaping. The 24" square footprint is a challenge to deal with, and my first attempt was a "pile o rocks" like what you have in there now. My suggestion is to break it into 1 or two islands, and use a drill with acrylic rods to stack the rocks. You can get some really nice pass throughs, and open spaces this way which will help a lot for fish stress, and also water movement.

Goodluck and enjoy the build!

Good call on the aquascaping - I'm already quite stressed about what to do here. I had nearly started building out one, but because I want to use a non-trivial amount of live rock I'm holding off until I get the actual pieces. Pile-o-rocks was my strategy from 20 years ago, but I love these new open structure styles people are doing! I'm thinking about a two island approach like you mention - one big primary one for the SPS and a smaller, lower one for LPS and other low-light friends. I should mock some stuff up and post it here for feedback!

 

[ksliech]

Progress! She's salty and (mostly) up and running.

For flow, I ended up with a single Maxspect Gyre XF330. Once I get the aqua scape going, I'll figure out what I need on top of that. It'll either be another XF330 (which is nice because the controller can handle a second) or a Nero on the back wall. I picked the Gyre because I can keep near the water line and out of the main viewing area. I understand that the maintenance of these guys is much more than a Nero or MPXX, but I like how it's mostly out of the way. There's only two things I don't like about it: The horrible writing on the magnet on the outside of the tank (I'm going to cover it with something jet black to help it blend in), and that outside part gets extremely stuck to the outside. I had to break its suction with a credit card, and it kind of screwed up the black gummy stuff that sticks against the glass. I understand why it's tacky, so it holds it in place better, but man you really need to line that thing up and have the Gyre in exactly the right place before you put it on the glass, because it's extremely hard to move once it's on there.

For a controller, I went with an Apex Pro, but it got damaged in transit. Womp womp. Replacement coming soon.

I got all the controllers mounted on the equipment panel of the Cade with big velcro strips like @shadyraro did in theirs. Absolutely love it - looks great and is so easy to rearrange the controllers. The stuff I used is strong as hell (Amazon link). For this tank, you need about a roll and a half. Waiting for the Apex to arrive before finalizing the layout and figuring out where all the power supplies and 10,000 feet of cables go.

The one issue I have right now is evident in this picture: My @Innovative Marine Helio 2x200W heater setup is giving me E1 errors (means the remote temp probe isn't connected). I have both heaters in the sump in the main chamber, and had the temp probe upstream of it. Then I tried downstream. And then I tried the overflow chamber. I tried everything that all the R2R posts referencing this same issue tried to no avail. If I disconnect the probe then re-connect it, it briefly turns the heaters on then turns them back off and E1's again. This is a big bummer because now I'm blocked on getting livestock. Also, from the other posts, it sounds like this sometimes happens intermittently, which makes me think I should get a backup dumb heater that runs off the Apex as a fail safe. Pretty bummed about this situation, and we'll see what IM's support says. You can see where I put the heaters in the picture below (side of the sump next to the skimmer), and the original temp probe location was low and kind of behind the ReefMat where the water flowed out of it.

Lastly, filling this tank was a breeze with my BRS 6 stage, water saving RO/DI. The water saving version is remarkably fast (double the output!) AND rejects far less water. Really a win-win situation. I set it up in a bath tub during the filling process in case I didn't get back to the bucket before it overflowed. Next step will be to more permanently mount it under the sink, plumb the wastewater in, and figure out if I'm going to use an auto-shut-off situation to keep the top-off water containers filled.

 

[ksliech]

During the initial leak test, I had a couple loose fittings and sprayed water everywhere, including the plug that lives directly behind my tank. Before doing the real fill, I pulled the tank out a bit and put in this outdoor weatherproof outlet cover to save my butt in the future. I would highly recommend it. You just take off the wall plate and slide this over the existing outlet without touching any of the wiring - it's very easy. It forms a seal around the outside, and has a clear plastic cover you can had open horizontally or vertically. I mounted mine so I can open it horizontally so I can access the plugs in the narrow gap where this all lives.

 

[Ospreys48]

Getting ready to order this tank. Following

 

[ksliech]

20 lbs of Australian premium live rock arrived today from TankStop. @Eric Cohen picked out some great pieces and I’m really happy with it. Currently in the tank, but the water is a little murky and filled with micro bubbles from my skimmer. Will post pics of it when that settles down and I get the Kessils on top to light it up!

Here it is in the box. Many of the pieces were loaded with corraline and there was even a little leather that somehow survived.

 

[Eric Cohen]

20 lbs of Australian premium live rock arrived today from TankStop. @Eric Cohen picked out some great pieces and I’m really happy with it. Currently in the tank, but the water is a little murky and filled with micro bubbles from my skimmer. Will post pics of it when that settles down and I get the Kessils on top to light it up!

Here it is in the box. Many of the pieces were loaded with corraline and there was even a little leather that somehow survived.

Way to go Kevin! Glad the box arrived on time and in good shape! Have fun aquascaping your reef! So glad you’re as happy with the rock as I am. Thanks for the post too!

 

[ksliech]

Making progress, but still plenty of issues!

Good things:

• Aussie live rock is in the tank and cooking. Doing some water tests today to see what the die-off story is
• Finished getting all the equipment installed, including the Apex and A360XE's
• Got the controllers, wires, and power supplies installed in the equipment panel (well, mostly, but more on that later) so the tank area isn't a disaster

Challenges:

• The skimmer is introducing lots of microbubbles in the tank, but they appear to be going down every day as it breaks in. Will give it a few more days before I take t apart and see if I goofed up the installation
• The Apex Pro control unit does not fit in the Cade equipment panel bay - the door can't close. She's a little too thick. Will have to cut a hole in the panel to recess it or something.
• I can't get velcro strips to stick to either the Apex control unit or energy bar, which is how I'm mounting them on the equipment panel. The material doesn't like the adhesive. Will need to get creative.
• Innovative Marine sent me a new temperature probe for my Helio but it's still throwing E1 errors. Just pinged support again and hope they'll send a new controller soon. Currently using Eheim heaters, which will become my SW mixing heaters

Here's my equipment panel, with the Apex stuff on the ground because I can't get them mounted properly.

There's a ton of excess wire in the equipment panel, and I'll need to get more creative to get it under control. Currently using velcro wire ties which can also stick to the velcroI placed in the cabinet, but these wire bundles are ~heavy~ and can fall off.

Next steps:

• Watch a ton of videos on how to use the Apex Pro, which has some pretty horrific for-sure-designed-exclusively-by-engineers UI. My favorite insanity so far was it letting me partially calibrate a LLS that wasn't even plugged in! Hooray!
• Figure out how to get the Apex mounted in this cabinet
• Design a lighting canopy to hide the Kessils, their light spill, and the shimmer reflections on the ceiling
• Add dry rock and sand in the next few days

 

[ksliech]

Ran some water tests today after letting the rock cook for a few days (Red Sea kit):

• pH: 8.2 (calibrated Apex says 8.04…)
• Ammonia: undetectable
• Nitrite: 0.1 ppm

So there’s some minor die off on the rock, but not much. I put in the base of the aquascape (dry Marco rocks), added two bags of Fiji pink caribsea, and piled back in the Aussie live rock. Tank is super cloudy and I have no idea what the aquascape looks like - assembled it blind! Now we wait for it to settle and clear up.

 

[Eric Cohen]

Ran some water tests today after letting the rock cook for a few days (Red Sea kit):

• pH: 8.2 (calibrated Apex says 8.04…)
• Ammonia: undetectable
• Nitrite: 0.1 ppm

So there’s some minor die off on the rock, but not much. I put in the base of the aquascape (dry Marco rocks), added two bags of Fiji pink caribsea, and piled back in the Aussie live rock. Tank is super cloudy and I have no idea what the aquascape looks like - assembled it blind! Now we wait for it to settle and clear up.

That’s awesome that you have zero ammonia after adding the rock. Nice to see!

 

[ksliech]

The water cleared up nicely, and I took a second pass at the aquascape (thread about that here). I’ve got a nice cave in the center with swim throughs, and plenty of room for coral.

Current issues

• Skimmer is bubbling over out of control, and I figured out that the water level is too high for it. Raiser on the way
• Hello heater controller isn’t replaced yet
• No idea how I’ll get everything into my equipment panel with the door closed! Haha

Progress

• I’ve mostly figured out the Apex and am monitoring and controlling all sorts of stuff!
• Lights are on and working
• First livestock will go in this weekend!

 

[ksliech]

Red Sea 300 skimmer over-bubbling solved with a riser I built out of some black plastic egg crate and zip ties. The recommended water level for this guy is 6-8" and I was at 9.5". Before and after:

 

[Eric Cohen]

Red Sea 300 skimmer over-bubbling solved with a riser I built out of some black plastic egg crate and zip ties. The recommended water level for this guy is 6-8" and I was at 9.5". Before and after:

Nice work on the egg crate. Run the skimmer as “dry” as possible. Full open drain and let it stack up inside.

 

[Rjukan]

Man that LR you got from @Eric Cohen looks amazing in the box!! Mental note taken for my next build.

Great idea on the base for the skimmer, I did the same in my sump and it's been rock solid ever since.

I hope that sand works out for you, I've been having a real issue with mine being blown around and getting all over the upper parts of my scape. I guess it's because of the pistol shrimp constantly taking the finer bits from under his rock and shooting it out into the current.

Very cool setup, and I like the dual lights you're running. Will definitely help with limiting shadowing.

 

[ksliech]

Nice work on the egg crate. Run the skimmer as “dry” as possible. Full open drain and let it stack up inside.

Good call - Cup was full overnight, running way too wet.

 

[ksliech]

Man that LR you got from @Eric Cohen looks amazing in the box!! Mental note taken for my next build.

Great idea on the base for the skimmer, I did the same in my sump and it's been rock solid ever since.

I hope that sand works out for you, I've been having a real issue with mine being blown around and getting all over the upper parts of my scape. I guess it's because of the pistol shrimp constantly taking the finer bits from under his rock and shooting it out into the current.

Very cool setup, and I like the dual lights you're running. Will definitely help with limiting shadowing.

Thanks! The sand has been drifting a bit on the side opposite from the Gyre. I'm a big fan of fine sand beds, so intend on making this work somehow! I'm planning on getting some sand from TBS which is pretty coarse, so I'll put that in the high flow ares. Hopefully when I get some clams and things plopped down in the sand that should also help.

 

[Ospreys48]

I thank you for sharing this information as I am awaiting my Cade 600 and plan on getting same skimmer. Was your sump running higher than recommended?