New 60 Gallon Cube

[iannarelli]

Controller Board
It might not be much compared to the fancy Adaptive Reef controller cabinets, but I'm not going to lie, I'm really freaking proud of how this thing turned out..

...because, it's articulating!

Added a 3D printed mount for the Helio controller since it only ships with double side tape. @Innovative Marine should look into including a bracket in the box.

 

[iannarelli]

Drilling the Tank
I was really apprehensive about drilling the tank. Especially after my buddy's wife talked me into getting a low iron glass tank and spending 3x (thanks Ness) what the Aqeuon 60 cube I planned to snag during a Petco 50% off sale would have been. The tank arrived a day before I left for San Francisco for the wedding, quadruple-boxed. Seriously, this thing was like a cube-shaped cardboard Matryoshka Doll. While I was in SF, I decided to order the Wolfcraft Multi-Angle Drill Guide to use instead of the DRILAX Hole Saw Guide I had ordered previously, as I figured it would be much easier to build a dam of putting putty with the former.

 

[iannarelli]

Overall shot of the crime scene... I can't wait to have a presentable home again!

And one with the tank on the stand and rocks in place:

 

[iannarelli]

Plumbing
By now, you will have probably noticed an overall blue/orange theme to my sump and plumbing... and I will admit, I am a Mets and Knicks fan, so usually pretty miserable year-round (also a Jets fan). Wasn't a fan of the red handles on the gate and ball valves, so those got painted. White pipe in some of the photos are from the initial dry fit. You might also notice the location of the gate valve shifted to the diagonal portion of the main drain, which allowed for better access to it.

Yes, I even painted the galvanized pipe hangers, which required a special primer as base, the screws for the clamps (not pictured) are blue, because why not?

Return assembly. Originally I had the tee centered, but it just didn't work out with my goal of having the UV inline with the return as opposed to running it off a manifold or only one of the returns.

The Ridgid cutter and reamer were clutch, and made easy work of sizing the pipe and getting nice chamfered edges.

View from behind. The ball valves will remain open, unless I need to service the of the lines or simulate a blockage to test out the emergency.

 

[iannarelli]

Making RODI and Saltwater: NYC Apartment Edition
I got a 150 GPD Air Water and Ice 5 Stage RODI unit, which is probably overkill for NYC water, but I figured if I even move somewhere with less pure water it wouldn't need to be upgraded or replaced. The trick was figuring out the least invasive way to temporarily install it. I settled on a combination of this shower arm diverter and a 1/4" tubing push to connect fitting. It likely wouldn't pass any sort of Significant-Other-Approval-Factor, but I don't have to contend with that at the moment. It looks something like this:

Now that the tank is full, it will likely live its life hiding behind the bathroom door and only coming out when I need to perform a water change.

My "mixing station" is a 21-gallon tub in the adjacent hallway with a Jebao powerhead and a leftover Fluval 50 watt heater I had lying around. I'm using NYOS salt, which is a little spendy, but it has mixed up quickly and cleanly to 35ppm. It takes 2218g or 78.24oz of salt per 15 gallons. Which meant 4 batches over two days. This picture is immediately after adding the salt, likely a little too quickly.

 

[iannarelli]

That's all for now... I can try to post some videos of the drilling and salt mixing if folks are interested. I will also get some photos of the now full tank up soon. I do have one plumbing question:

My sump is large enough to handle the volume of water that backflows into it when the power to my return pump is cut. I know check valves are somewhat of a pain to maintain and perhaps a four-letter word on these forums, but if I'm not relying on it as a means of preventing my hardwood floors and downstairs neighbors ceiling from getting flooded and destroyed, and just as a way to keep the water level in the DT a little higher when I need to do maintenance on the pump or for whatever other reasons I might need to turn it off, would it be worth adding one? I have a run of flexible hose where I could easily accommodate it. I understand it will reduce my flow, but my return is only running at 40%, so I can crank it up if needed.

 

[iannarelli]

Just a quick update. Last Sunday I bought a BTA for my clownfish at Reefapalooza NY. For the past 6 days it seems as if they were both oblivious to it but this morning at breakfast I looked over and saw one of the clowns was being hosted! The second clown will sometimes hover nearby, but spends most of his time in the front corner of the tank though. Whenever he gets too close he gets nudged away by the clown in the nem. I assume this is normal? They're both pretty young and I don't think one has become dominant, though perhaps this is the beginning of that. Anyway, I've read lots of posts saying that aquacultured clowns sometimes won't allow themselves to be hosted or take a long time to move into a nem, so I was pretty shocked by this—seemingly—180... Anyway I was excited and wanted to share! Here are some pictures. Excuse the blue hue on, I have a filter for my phone but haven't bought a filter for my mirrorless yet and didn't want to open up Lightroom to color correct.

 

[josh57]

Build is looking great. How do you like the titan UV?

 

[iannarelli]

Build is looking great. How do you like the titan UV?

Thanks so much! I really should posts some updates, and more frequently! I really like the Titan. I don't have anything to compare it against nor can I confirm the marketing claims, however, being in NYC I don't have the dedicated space for a quarantine tank, and I've still managed to add 7 fish (two from my local Petco) a bunch of clean up crew crew, an anemone, and some frags from Reefapalooza NY without any disease or pest outbreaks. It seems to be built well and it's very compact, so it fits nicely in my stand. I purchased it through American Aquarium and they've been great to deal with. My first one came with the cracked quartz sleeve and some defects with the metallic lining and they quickly swapped it out for a new one. Let me know if you have any more questions!

 

[josh57]

Thanks so much! I really should posts some updates, and more frequently! I really like the Titan. I don't have anything to compare it against nor can I confirm the marketing claims, however, being in NYC I don't have the dedicated space for a quarantine tank, and I've still managed to add 7 fish (two from my local Petco) a bunch of clean up crew crew, an anemone, and some frags from Reefapalooza NY without any disease or pest outbreaks. It seems to be built well and it's very compact, so it fits nicely in my stand. I purchased it through American Aquarium and they've been great to deal with. My first one came with the cracked quartz sleeve and some defects with the metallic lining and they quickly swapped it out for a new one. Let me know if you have any more questions!

Thanks! Yeah I’m doing a new 100 gallon display. One of the new Eshopps Mariner tanks. And am considering adding UV and couldn’t find much info on those. The main units everyone uses are just too big to fit in the stand.