# Spitty's 16g cube reef tank



## spit.fire (Jan 3, 2011)

So some of you may remember the little "refugium" i built for my 8' tank to hold mangroves and a few smaller fish that didnt fit into my big tank.
after shutting down my 8' tank i tried to sell the tank with no luck so i decided to convert it into a stand alone reef tank for all my nicer corals (dendros sps and some lps).

the tank when i first built it









I started off by redrilling the tank so i could install a coast to coast overflow on it and building a sump that fit in the stand (17x17)









As for equipment i went with 3hk powerheads, a speedwave dc return pump, diy biopellet reactor, swc 120cone skimmer, and a diy led fixture

After being inspired by some of the rockwork that oceanic corals does i decided to give it a shot with some of the rock i had laying around in my garage and came up with this










which turned into this after a few weeks (ignore the blob of epoxy, i had a frag glued there and decided to move it but didnt get around to putting somethign else there









after running the diy fixture for awhile i spilt some water on the drivers and boom, no more diy fixture

i borrowed some vertex illumilux fixtures from oceanic corals to get me by until i could get a new fixture built but after seeing the maxpect razor fixtures at oceanic, i decided to go that route as its pretty much the best priced full spectrum led fixture i could find. Haven't had a chance to remove the light mounts off my tank yet and install the ceiling mounts so its just sitting there









After playing around with the razor a bit im very happy with my decision to go that route, took me about 2 minutes to program it to ramp up and down and set the brightness levels. Its also alot quieter than any of the other led fixtures ive owned, fans are dead quiet when they turn on (never) and the fixture stays nice and cool even without fans. 
The design of the fixture is also really cool, theres a small lcd display on the side for programming and i was quite surprised by how thin it is.

As for how the corals look under the new light compared to the 2 illumilux fixtures theres no comparison
also you dont have to buy all the mounting hardware separate like most lights, it came with adjustable legs as well as a ceiling mount kit





































i was going to buy the 8" fixture but for the price i figured i might as well grab the 20" fixture just incase i decide to move to a 24x24 tank

After spending too much time every day trying to dial in the swc 120cone (to big for the tank) i swapped it out for a vertex in80 which seems to have solved to problem with not being able to get consistent skimming in the small tank

once my big tank is fully operational ill be pulling all the lps and palys/zoas (with the exception of the dendros) out of this tank and swapping them into my bigger tank

and ya.... i still havent built a door for the stand


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## jona31 (Jun 28, 2013)

Looks great


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## scott tang (Jan 29, 2012)

wow looking good


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## m_class2g (Apr 21, 2010)

Very nice! Like the assortment of corals. Whats that orange one? Hard to keep?


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## spit.fire (Jan 3, 2011)

m_class2g said:


> Very nice! Like the assortment of corals. Whats that orange one? Hard to keep?


dendrophilia, non photosynthetic so you have to feed them about once a week


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