Another eshopps Mariner 130 Build thread!!

rps3287 · May 23, 2025

RIP Waterbox 130.4 - my first real reef tank! Purchased it second hand and ran it for 4 years until a couple weeks ago I noticed a huge seam in the top front corner glass. Due to the emergency, I was forced to make a pretty quick decision on a new tank and honestly let the availability dictate what tank I chose. Boy am I glad I ended up with this tank! This thing is SOLID! I’ve busted my butt to get this all set up and transferred this week by myself and I am EXHAUSTED but pretty happy with how it’s looking today. Still waiting on 1 more light bracket and need to install my reefmat and do some more tweaks..

josh57 · May 23, 2025

Looking great already

temple2101 · May 23, 2025

Looks great! Can you explain how you have your lights mounted? I’ve been trying to figure out how to do something similar for 3 radion XR15s on an RMS track.

rps3287 · May 24, 2025

temple2101 said:
Looks great! Can you explain how you have your lights mounted? I’ve been trying to figure out how to do something similar for 3 radion XR15s on an RMS track.

Thanks! The light mounting is kind of a Frankenstein situation lol. I’m using an HMS rail (I used to have hydras and prefer the look of the bar over the RMS one) it’s mounted to the wall with shelf brackets I got from Amazon. They are hollow metal and I drilled holes to run wires through them and into the wall. The rail runs through the x-brackets for the lights and they basically just hang there.. I don’t have them screwed into the rail directly. I can snap some more close up shots of that today and reply back.

rps3287 · May 25, 2025

temple2101 said:
Looks great! Can you explain how you have your lights mounted? I’ve been trying to figure out how to do something similar for 3 radion XR15s on an RMS track.

Pics of mounting

temple2101 · May 25, 2025

rps3287 said:
Pics of mounting

Very clean, gives me a good idea of how to do it. Thanks!

rps3287 · Jun 1, 2025

Back from vacation, got a little work done today. Installed my reefmat 250, removed the lower section of the durso drain line that I’m not using (capped in overflow) and installed the middle light bracket. I was getting around 45 days per roll with the RM 250 on my waterbox 130.4, so I’m hoping I can still squeeze a month out of a roll on the Mariner. There’s no way you could fit one of the larger reef mats in the sock section IMO so I’m still wondering why the hell they advertise it as “reef mat ready” when only the 250 fits and I’m left with an unusable section of the sump unless I cut or drill out the wall that used to separate the drain lines from the socks.

I just ordered 1 more radion diffuser for the middle light. I first tried the A8 brand shades and they were too bulky for my taste. Will sell them for cheap if anyone is interested!

Gumbies R Us · Jun 2, 2025

Your tank looks great! Following along!

rps3287 · Jun 2, 2025

Added a shelf for my trident today and mounted a few more controllers/power strips in the side cabinet. This thing has sooo much more room than the WB cabinet. I’ll eventually clean up the wire spaghetti and add a battery backup for some items but for now I think it’s in a decent place..

Next, I can shift my focus to the actual display - I’ll do some par mapping and adjust the lights and give the scape some love. The transfer needed to happen too quickly to allow for this earlier so I just kind of stuck everything in a similar spot to the old tank (where possible) and put anything else wherever there was space. I have 40+ pounds of cured rock that I’ll be replacing some of the overgrown zoa rocks with and building back some island structures on each side of the tank.

rps3287 · Jun 4, 2025

My LED OCD was finally cured today! 3 matching lights with matching mounts and diffusers, FINALLY! Did some PAR testing yesterday and got the new lights all dialed-in. I’m really impressed with the punch these lights (A8 SE II Blue) have. I expected the PAR to be great at the top of the tank but I was not expecting how deep the light penetrates! With all of the blue/purple/UV channels at 70%, “olive” at 35%, warm white at 10% and cool white at 5%, I was reading 380-450 around the top of the tank where most of my sticks are and all the way at the sand bed (except the very far corners) PAR was reading 220-280. Barely got down to 150-175 in the corners of the sand bed..

I spent some time this morning working on the left side of my rock scape. Really happy with how it turned out, considering that the rocks just kind of fit into each other and didn’t require any adhesive. I was able to wedge one of the caribsea arches into the rocks, upside down and kind of slanted and that added a cool NSA element that I didn’t have in the old tank. Also - more room for sticks!