40 litre Cube - Stealth Build

The following is a set of pictures of my tank build
A friend and I have built the tank from scratch and we made 2 of them at the same time.

These pictures are of mine as I start to work on it to get it running.

Summary.

Cube - 40 ltr approx.
10mm Optiwhite glass cut and bevelled at Pilkington themselves [about 100 squid all in]
Put together by our fair hands.

Stealth why:
All gubbins - flow - heating - filtration are not shown in the tank.
Using a 2126 eheim marine heater canister filter- modded to run with cheato [fuge light] and LR rubble in the canister- no filter media.
Canister hidden in cabinet.
Plinth - Welsh slate.
Flow - 950lph
Lighting - 150w MH.

Hope you enjoy.


Although not tidy yet you can see in this picture its final position. This is the view as you walk into room.

Tank just has water in it moment to test it for for leaks etc.

This view is from where ill see it from sitting on the sofa.

You can see the swing arm that Will cleverly adapted to hold the MH we bought - its a cheapo Ikea jobbie - even with one missing spring it still does the trick!
Its fixed to a worktop thickness size piece of slate [ sorry Will forgot the name of the slate]

As you can see the glass edges are bevelled and done to a professional quality.. the cube looks like crystal glass in most light...

Shot with the room lights out and the MH going only.

Well bright for a 150 W - bulb is going to be changed to 14k
Hate the bloomin 20k bulb in it.

This is a shot of the inlet and outlet pipes going into tank from the canister hidden underneath in the cabinet.

As you can see from the tags - Will clever chap has rigged up a rubber collar that rotates around the openings to allow flow to be exposed depending on what side you want.

The look of the inlet and outlet pipes are all going to be hidden behind rock so youd never see this in the tank.
The output of the canister is 950lph more than enough for this size tank.
The cable tie is just used to wedge the connector into the socket - pull the cable tie out and the pipes just easily come away - it will be trimmed of course.
At the moment the cable tie gets buffeted by the flow so it allows me to monitor things when im messing around with canister below.

This shot shows the 5 leds lights that ive installed under the tank.

The tank sits 10mm up from the slate plinth on foam feet - we are finalising the exact feet we will use in the long run - but with re-inforced 20mm bottom i have no problems with weight being spread on feet at moment.
This means we have a small gap - and what with the slate being cut out underneath i can get in and install leds in the gap...

The glow you see is from leds hidden under the tank and lighting the whole cube cause there is nothing in it.
Obviously it wouldnt look like this with stock.
Next pic shows what i expect to do

Underglow

With MH off - room light off and running at night - this is the effect I expect
A glow to come out from under the tank - enough to cast some light back on the wall and on slate...
Im thinking i may get a set of leds that give more light and also i can change colour or change colour themselves.
Call it hazard lights so people know the tank is there when lights are out :whistling:

The canister is hidden in the cabinet.
When running fully the only external thing you will see is the light above the tank..
No skimmer, no heater and no powerhead


Mo

 

Cool! What do you plan on keeping in it? Softies, LPS, SPS?

 

Looks nice, the lunar lights look awesome. Keep us posted(with pics of course). Luna

 

that's pretty freakin sweet, when you going to start mass construction for those of us that are DIY challenged?

 

lol

Handy man Im not unfornately but I managed to talk a friend around to building one for him and one for me....

Stocking wise not sure yet guys
I dont normally like SPS in my last tank as I only have a 70w MH

But with this new one bit more is possible.

I do find it hard to keep SPS coloured - as this tank also will not be running a skimmer.
Im going to be using the canister and LR filtration to do the business.

I think I will have 1 or 2 pieces of high coloured sps [suggestions of species welcome]

And then a lot of LPS - love em
Acan's, one or 2 blastos, 2 clams
I have this reserved at moment for new tank


And will also look to perhaps move this from my current tank...

No softies on the list..

Maybe 1 fish [suggestions welcome for a small tank again]

 

I really like the set up. It's a lot different than one would normally see. Pilkington glass eh? I seem to remember my Range Rover having pilkinton glass in it... hard to replace in the US.

 

Thanks
Oh yes sorry i thought i had taken all region specific and UK specific sections
your lucky you would have wondered what Homebase was..!

Yup the Optiwhite is so clear that its almost crystal like effect.
And probably is like lead crystal glass.
The edges are so polished you can see all the way through the pane ..

We are defintely going for a custom look - hence the floating affect.
Friend is building his stand from scratch and will put pics up - as it will look very nice and glowing too