Rectangular Fiji Cube

They're using a Fiji cube overflow.
Ahhhh ok. Herbie drain should still apply. Its nice that it has so much space. I have the modular marine overflow and I can barely fit the elbow on the first drain. It is slim tho and I can have the tank pushed pretty close to the wall.
 
Yes. There should be an elbow in the middle of those 2 inside the overflow box to quiet down the drain and keep the level consistent. An elbow would not fit in the middle as you have the emergency and secondary drain tubes to the left and right. Again not familiar with this overflow box so it might not need it as you tested it and found out. If I recall synegy does come with those special elbows that are like a sharp L like. So if in the future if noise becomes a problem you can easily put an elbow in.
There is not an elbow needed. The ones I bought would fit, but not necessary. The ones I was able to buy are similar to the synergy reef elbows. They are a tight 180 degree fitting. And they would fit, but are not needed.
 
Ahhhh ok. Herbie drain should still apply. Its nice that it has so much space. I have the modular marine overflow and I can barely fit the elbow on the first drain. It is slim tho and I can have the tank pushed pretty close to the wall.
Did you get the special 180 fitting or just try to make it using two 90’s?
 
Did you get the special 180 fitting or just try to make it using two 90’s?
I just have 1 90 and a st L together on the main drain. Emergency and secondary are just a straight pipe. Staggered in height.
 
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I yanked my socks out and installed a Reefmat. Socks were a pain.
I thought of a roller mat during my design process, and eventually decided against it. Everyone hates filter socks. They aren’t that difficult to change and wash. I just did not want something else mechanical that will inevitably fail, plus they don’t give me the clean look I want. Although like I mentioned earlier, having a clear front panel on the sock compartment bothers the hell out of me also!!
 
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I thought of a roller mat during. Decided against it. Everyone hates filter socks. They aren’t that difficult to change and wash. I just did not want something else mechanical that will inevitably fail, plus they don’t give me the clean look I want. Although like I mentioned earlier, having a clear front panel on the sock compartment bothers the hell out of me also!!
White vinyly that you can but on Amazon or at any craft store will fix that. Good luck.
 
I installed a UV sterilizer. I did not want to do a manifold, and I also did not want to mount it under the tank. It is plumbed directly into my return line and mounted on the back of the stand. I can easily remove the lamp when needed. It has a ball valve which I know is not perfect for dialing in flow rates, but I can attach tubing to that loc line return and time the filling of a bucket for precise flow rates if needed. I also did not buy those overpriced UV mounts. It came out nice.
 

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The plumbing leak test was successful. I ran the tank for 3 days with just RODI. I ran a couple bags of carbon to hopefully remove any residual manufacturing oils or anything like that in the pumps or plumbing. Then I pumped the water out into 3 trash barrels to mix salt.

I pushed the tank back against the wall. Not all the way as my ATO reservoir will be behind the tank. I put the rock in and set up the MP40’s. Started to route and organize wires into the controller cabinet portion of the stand. I am using 40 pounds of dry sand that I rinsed in RO, and two bags of Carib Sea live sand.
 

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So the tank is running. It is cycled and has a few fish. Time for the ATO.

I did not want to put a reservoir under the tank. So I left 7 inches between the wall and the tank to tuck the reservoir back there. The tank has to be about 4” off the wall anyways, and being the 7” off doesn’t look bad, and allows some access back there to get to exterior overflow box, ball valve for UV etc.

I had a custom reservoir made by Tenecor. It is 24” long, 20” high, and 6” wide. 12 gallons total but will end up being a little less. I wanted to employ a system using a solenoid valve and float switches to fill the reservoir automatically. I looked online and found the proper relay, and floats. However after talking to the guys at Auto Top off.com they told me they could provide everything I was looking for. The whole set up from them was $75. It has a high float switch, a low float switch, a 12v normally closed solenoid valve, and a power supply. Obviously I had to purchase the reservoir, and whatever method I wanted to use to fill the sump. I went with an Avast Marine pressure switch.
 

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The reservoir came with a 3/4 bulkhead. I put a pipe inside of it down to the bottom of the reservoir. I drilled holes in it to route the float switch wires through and attached the switches with zip ties. I ended up ditching the maxi-jet for a Sicce micra pump. The MJ I use for water changes has stopped working twice in a month. They use to be so reliable. I had one for ten years with no issues. However the new ones are not. Like I mentioned before I am using a Avast Marine pressure switch for top off. It is great. The magnet is strong and it keeps the level in rerun section of sump perfectly. I also installed a mechanical float where the water enters the reservoir in case the 12v floats fail.
 

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The ato reservoir came out nicely. It works properly and fits behind the stand.

Also my skimmer came. I went with a Reef Octo 150 Elite. It is built solidly. I put it together quickly and installed it. I cut some pvc pipe to raise it up 1 1/4” in my sump. I routed all wires in sump through cable management trays, it will be a pain to remove and clean skimmer every six months or so, but looks nice in the meantime. I will be able to remove and clean the body, but cleaning the pump will require some effort! I won’t turn the skimmer on for awhile, but it works!
 

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I bought a screen top. I went with the D&D jump guard. I was going to do a custom screen lid, however they are expensive!! I figured this would keep my wrasses in the tank for now. It was easy to assemble and I am happy with the quality.
 

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First of all I just want to say I'm enjoying this entire build thread immensely, thank you for keeping us updated and including all the detail.
The Auto Top Off.com website is so old it reminded me of spacejam.com (now https://www.spacejam.com/1996 thanks Lebron...) I was looking for a very similar solenoid solution as my RODI system is relatively close and I have to remove my skimmer every time I want to fill it up my reservoir. How does the product look now that you have it? What other solenoid solutions did you come across in your search?

Thanks!
 
First of all I just want to say I'm enjoying this entire build thread immensely, thank you for keeping us updated and including all the detail.
The Auto Top Off.com website is so old it reminded me of spacejam.com (now https://www.spacejam.com/1996 thanks Lebron...) I was looking for a very similar solenoid solution as my RODI system is relatively close and I have to remove my skimmer every time I want to fill it up my reservoir. How does the product look now that you have it? What other solenoid solutions did you come across in your search?

Thanks!
Thank you. I appreciate it.

Haha yes the website is old. Also it is a bit difficult to navigate. They actually do not have exactly what I wanted on the website. You have to email them. They do reply quickly and are very helpful. The product is great and works perfectly. It is essentially two float switches. An upper and a lower. Nothing happens until they both change state. The unit opens the solenoid when both trip down, and closes the solenoid when both trip up. As far as redundancy, the solenoid is normally closed, so even in a power outage it stays closed not allowing water to flow. And on the RODI input I placed an old school float valve just in the case that the electric float switches fail.

As far as other options. I was going to build my own, I purchased all the parts. It is cheap and simple if you are fairly handy. It is a relay, power supply, water proof junction box, and two 12v float switches. However the one from the website is plug and play.
 
So my tank is moving along nicely. Coming up on 3 months. I left the lights off for the first month and turned on two of my T5’s, then slowly ramped things up. I have since switched to LEDs and I love them. More on them later. About a week after turning the lights on the ugly stage started. It doesn’t bother me at all, and is part of the process. I started stocking fish. I did not quarantine any fish nor do I plan to. As of now I have two Clownfish, a Tomini Tang, two Chromis, a Yellow Coris Wrasse, and a Solarensis Wrasse. Planning to a** a few more fish.

About a month into the lights being on, I got Dinos. I am not sure if they came in on a snail or something. I did not buy a microscope to positively identify, however they were not the ones that float freely in the water column and disappear at night. I also bought a few frags at Reefapalooza. I wanted to wait much longer, but I could not help myself. So the Dino’s may have came in from adding the frags. Other than being ugly and terrible to look at the tank was fine. I did a few things to fight the Dino’s. I completely removed all white light and turned my blue channels down to 40%. I could not go blackout as I did not want to stress the few frags I got. (Mostly Zoas, and a couple LPS). I also don’t believe that blackouts is the key. They certainly help, but I wasn’t going to do one. I also was not going to try hydrogen peroxide or flucanozole. My nutrients were also extremely low. I haven’t yet turned on the skimmer so shutting that down wasn’t an issue. I gradually raised my nitrate from undetectable to about 12. I do believe there was nitrate present in the tank, however I think the algea/Dino’s were consuming it immediately. I wanted to wait before trying to mess with raising phosphate. As soon as o got the nitrate to around 10, the corals looked much happier. I did not increase feeding as I already feed heavy. The other thing that I did was blow off the Dino’s every other day and also change filter socks at the same time. And I started dosing microbacter7. Over the first two weeks nothing changed. However the last two weeks, so a month into this routine I started noticing them slowly declining. Like I said I was not worried about then as the tank needs to mature. I also added some pods. I added some when I initially stated the tank and added plenty more. Now I believe I have turned a corner regarding the Dino’s and I am waiting for another nuisance thing to poo up. Most likely cyano. Many people have it happen after Dino’s. I do notice some small patches on the sand bed that weren’t there during the Dino’s. I will take that battle slowly as well and do not want to add any “quick fixes”. Just wait it out.
 
So I am now 5 months into the tank. Most of my new tank algae issues are gone. I beat the Dino’s into submission. Then got some hair algae on the rocks and that is now under control and mostly gone. After beating the Dino’s I slowly turned the lights up to where I want them. Cyano came, and remains on the sand bed. I siphoned it out a couple of times and it came back the next day, so now I am just leaving it. It is definitely not a flow issue so I will just let it go, hopefully it will starve itself out. Not worried about it. I have slowly started loading up on corals. I have a few more fish to get, then I will just watch things grow.

My skimmer had a long break in period with micro bubbles. I installed a piece of filter foam in the baffle before the return so they would not make it to the display. I am happy that they now seem to be calming down. I can probably remove the foam any day now.
 
I am terrible at taking pics. These are cell phone shots with a brown clip on filter.
 

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