Opinions - 4 sides showing

[kimoyo]

I've been thinking about doing a 4 sides showing almost-cube. It will be 36"*36"*20" 1" thick acrylic. The water will probably go up to 19-19.5". Here's some design pictures.

Front

Right Corner

Top

Left Side

Right Side

My plan is to cover the overflow with rock by drilling holes or some type of reef ceramics. The overflow will be a 4.25" cylinder and the standpipe 1.5". It will be roughly 95G and I'll only have 1200-1300gph flow. This way all the flow will be going thru the sump and 1" pipe will be returned up to the canopy where a OM super squirt will be. What I want to achieve is no plumbing showing with all four side clear. Any suggestions/opinions welcome. Thanks.

 

[Timbo]

I think it could be awesome. The only issue I see is getting the flow while keeping things clean looking.

 

[House of Laughter]

Paul, I'd put it on center of I were you.

Love these types of tanks!

House

 

[kimoyo]

Timbo - keep what clean looking, the teeth? BTW, the plan is to extend the canopy down 2" from the top, hopefully that will help hide the inputs from the super squirt and the teeth on the overflow.

Jim - I kinda don't like it being in the center I put it 1/3 from the left and a 1/3 from the back. I figure that still gives good room behind it and will give me a lot of room in front for cliffs and overhangs. Have you ever seen anyone use a circular overflow?

 

[Timbo]

canopy, got it. duh. i was thinking open top. can't wait to see it up and running.

 

[House of Laughter]

Only in cylinder tanks - not in squares - great idea though.

House

 

[masterswimmer]

Paul, a 4.25" diameter overflow will not allow you to construct and insert a Durso with 1" pipe let alone 1.5" pipe. You should work that out by constructing the Durso before fabricating the tank and drilling.

I think the tank looks absolutely awesome. Love the idea of 1" acrylic and no bracing. I know your work and I'm stoked to see this baby done.

R

 

[kimoyo]

Timbo - You might see it running pretty soon. The excellent woodworker whose building my stand and canopy is hoping to do it pretty soon. And I'll be working on a frag tank for a friend within the next week so I thought I would make this at the same time. I have my pump already and I'm getting hooked up with the skimmer hopefully this week from another friend. The lighting will be t5's but I won't have it for a while and the only other things I need right now are the plumbing parts and super squirt.

I should finish the stand designs tonight and then everything should start.

Russ - I'm going to be using a stockman standpipe
http://home.nc.rr.com/stockmanreef/
I would have done herbies silent oveflow which is a drain at full siphon (no air) but that requires a back up drain and I didn't want to drill the bottom twice. The stockman should fit, I'm just thinking about losing the teeth on the overflow now.

 

[autoponicz]

tank sounds hot.....looking forward to seeing this setup up and running...
i seen these type of tanks with a tubular overflow(basically a pvc pipe) over
at nano-reef.com.....but they are all small tanks(12g-20g)...some are ADA and some are just a DIY tank....

 

[tosiek]

Kimoyo, dry place the overflow and see if it really gives you the room you want. Might wanna go few more inches up to 15" or so off the sides. its gonna come out to roughly 10 from the sides on the short ends and the extra few inches help =0)

Although i do smell rock wall on the overflow on the short end.... :tub: Or a cap wall growing on that side. omg.

Other than that can't wait to see how this one comes out. Sweet build!!

 

[KathyC]

Love the idea Paul..looking forward to watching this thread!!

 

[chazertis]

i bought a very similar tank from ray (bikinisalt). its sitting in the middle of a room so it'll be a walk around tank with 4 sides showing as well. the dimensions are 36"x36"x13" i'm getting it set up in the next week or two. the overflow is in the middle. also made of thick thick glass. i'll post some pictures when i set it up. it'd be interesting to hear back from you. best of luck!

 

[kimoyo]

I decided not to use a canopy so I have to change the setup a little but I didn't think it would look as nice. I also realized that I needed a stand next to the tank for the skimmer to go into. I have some height restrictions on the stand and I wasn't getting the skimmer in the stand and get the stand in my apartment. Here's some drawings of the stand I made.

I'm still up in the air about the color but the stain of these stains caught my attention. Maybe I little less cherry than these, more dark brown. Any suggestions/examples are welcome. Maybe combine a white with the brown.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Paul! This looks awesome!!

 

[kimoyo]

autoponicz - thanks, I started looking over there.

tosiek - dry fitting it is a good idea and I will do that.

kathyc - thanks!

chazertis - looking forward to pics

chief - thanks!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if my friend has time to do the woodworking which will suck but he'll let me know Sunday. But my other friend hooked me up with the skimmer, goodlooking!

 

[rookie07]

you are going to need more than 1" difference between the top of the acrylic, and the water...I have a 20" cube(its glass, but principles are the same)...and when I had the water 1" from the top of the glass, the water often poured over the edge... I now have about 2.5"...which is perfect....
Im a rookie, just my 2 cents

 

[kimoyo]

With the lost of the canopy the ocean motion has to go also. So I decided a wavysea would be nice. You'll be able to see it but I would prefer seeing that one thing than making the bottom of the tank swiss cheese. This tank will have sand so I don't think extreme flow is needed, plus I've seen a few sps tanks with just 10x flow that looked incredible.

For lighting I'm probably just going with a lumenarc and no supplemental lighting. I still have my 175W stuff that is what I will use in the beginning. I want to use something like zeroedge's lamp tree.

But I can't see paying $180 for it and I don't really want it attached to the stand. I was planning on heading to ikea and seeing if there are any suitable $20 lamps and just using its lamp stand and attaching the reflector. Suggestions welcome on this.

 

[kimoyo]

you are going to need more than 1" difference between the top of the acrylic, and the water...I have a 20" cube(its glass, but principles are the same)...and when I had the water 1" from the top of the glass, the water often poured over the edge... I now have about 2.5"...which is perfect....
Im a rookie, just my 2 cents

Thanks. The water will be 1" from the top for going into the 4" cylinder at 1200gph. So the overflow will be shorter than 1" from the top of the tank and I might not use teeth also.

 

[Domboski]

Very nice Paul. You have the right talent for this hobby.

 

[Sean]

Have you looked into real cherry wood? The stuff you have pictured is a Cherry wood stain not real cherry wood. It costs more but the wood is beautiful with a nice "natural" stain and it gets better looking with age.