Caravan's Waterbox 135.4 in Austin

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Caravanshaka

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Looks great! Do you have a pic of the back of the stand with the Apex stuff? Wondering where you mounted your EB8s. Looking at getting a Waterbox tomorrow from my LFS to replace my leaking 120., but wondering how to mount all my apex stuff cleanly...

I mounted everything to the wall behind the tank, not to the actual stand. The stand has 2 large solid panels on either side, with an opening about a foot wide in the middle.
 

revhtree

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Very nice and following!
 

rbadger

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Thanks for the Apex mounting info! How are you using the ATO section as a refugium? Did you drill it for flow into return section? That’s what i’m thinking of doing.
 
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Thanks for the Apex mounting info! How are you using the ATO section as a refugium? Did you drill it for flow into return section? That’s what i’m thinking of doing.

I actually didn't do anything to it other than plug that small hole that is intended for the pump line. I have a manifold off the return pump with a gate valve pushing water into that section creating a gyre, and it just overflows slowly into both the return and skimmer sections. If you wanted to contain your lighting and where the overflow goes, I would just get an acrylic sheet cut and silicone it to the inside walls to block off where you don't want light/water going. It works quite well.
 

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Very nice setup! Those water box tanks have peaked my interest. How do you like the quality of the tank. Also interested in ur opinion of that calcium reactor!
 
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Very nice setup! Those water box tanks have peaked my interest. How do you like the quality of the tank. Also interested in ur opinion of that calcium reactor!

Had a long Day and a couple drinks, so figured this was a good time for honest reviews!

Waterbox tank:
Pros:
- nice clear glass and a glass overflow
- better sump design compared to Red Sea
- schedule 80 plumbing all included
- Stand is good quality, though the instructions are terrible
- don’t include an awful return pump, they let you make that choice
- overflow is quiet once dialed in
- included ATO has been rock solid

Cons:
- Stand arrived with a panel drilled completely wrong. Had to manually modify it and sent them a note about it to hear they were in the middle of a change and I must have gotten mismatched parts
- no protector seam on the silicone, just the main bonding seam. Makes me nervous with a scraper and has a few slight imperfections that tend to magnify when lit up
- metric plumbing is a pain to modify. Took me 2 orders to obtain all the parts to add a manifold to the return
- ATO is too small to be useful...would rather see them dedicate that to a fuge
- plumbing blocks the pre-drilled holes for a light rack which is pretty annoying when you want to make a change.
- no venting or airflow in the “Dry” side of the stand
- on my second set of magnetic door pushes, though they replaced them free of charge with a quick note
- acrylic overflow top section doesn’t fully seal, so it increases the amount of water that will flow back to the sump on a power outage. It still holds it all, but gets dangerously high in the sump

Overall it is a good tank and I would purchase something from them again. I would, however, like to see some changes made in the future to make it better.

Calcium Reactor:
Pros:
- Solid design and construction
- Second chamber for degassing
- bubble counter that matches
- attractive design
- Sicce pump, so should be reliable

Cons:
- I had a slight leak in my main chamber at the bottom seal. Vertex had nothing at the warehouse to replace it with for weeks, but walked me through a DIY fix that had me up and running the next day leak free.
- needs a T with a valve on the recirculating line to help vent air on startup. Easy fix but would be easy and cheap to add from factory
- flow meter should just be tossed...it’s worthless and I have bypassed it

Very happy with the Calcium Reactor so far. I do suggest to get a good regulator and a peristaltic pump for effluent for the best combo though...working on the peristaltic side of mine now.
 
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Halides are up and running. Lumen brite pendants had some terrible QA though. Got one pendant with a white socket bracket, one pendant with a black one. One of the sockets had pinched the neutral wire and was shorting against the ceramic of the socket. Spent days trying to figure out why it wouldn’t fire consistently. Ended up having to take apart the socket, cut that wire where it was pinched, and solder it back to the connector. Since then, it fired first time every time.

Unfortunately the heat pack failed on my SPS shipment I mentioned earlier. The only survivor of the 63 degree water was the Walt Disney! It has now started to encrust on the rock. Everything seems to be responding well to the Radiums, and my temps are only hitting 79 max with no fans, so a few fans in summer should easily manage the heat.
 
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38484470985_3647dbb98a_c.jpg
 
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Figured I would add some decent actinic shots now that I have an orange gel filter lens for my phone...they are still just phone pics though so not great quality:

39611512372_bb561292d0_c.jpg


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Zoa Island
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Vivid Rainbow Zoas and Cultivated Reef Electric Green Acro:
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Pink Lemonade...cut the colony off a rock and sold it a while back....thought the little bit that was encrusted was dead, but it came back and has finally started growing up again!
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Lastly, the Walt Disney after being in the tank for about 3 weeks now
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Gorgeous!
 
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What are the cabinets below the water mixing station?

Those were in my garage in the last house for tools and came with me in the move. I want to say they are Husky brand? They are mostly plastic with some metal faceplates. In this pic, I hadn’t cleaned out the top 2 drawers on the right of my old garage stuff so they were still in my other garage with my tools. I also built a 2x4 shell over the top of it with legs in either side to make sure it could support the weight.
 

HenHouse

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Can u explain ur water storage system a little in depth please. Not so much the ro/di but the tanks, how u plumbed, and what each one is for.
 
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Can u explain ur water storage system a little in depth please. Not so much the ro/di but the tanks, how u plumbed, and what each one is for.

I can try, hopefully it will all make sense.

I got the 2 containers from ruralking, great place to get them cheap, if you can wait a month.

Left side is RODI only. Water comes out into a T, with ball valves on either side of the T. The left side simply has a barbed fitting with a length of vinyl tubing, and is used to fill any container I need with RODI. The right side goes to another T right between the two tanks.

The back side of the T goes to a Jebao pump that pumps the water up a pipe and into the top of the right container, which is used for Saltwater.

The outlet of that container mirrors the left side. The right side of the T has a ball valve, barbed fitting, and hose for filling any container with Saltwater. The left side has a ball valve before meeting up with the T between the tanks.

This setup allows me to do several things.
- open far left valve to get RODI
- open far right valve to get Saltwater
- open middle left valve while middle right is closed and turn pump on to pump RODI to salt tank for mixing
- open middle right valve while middle left is closed to circulate water in salt tank

I always leave the middle right valve open and have my pump kick on for 15 mins every couple hours to keep the salt tank circulating.
 
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Got a few better pics under actinics I can share

ORA Tri Color
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Utter Chaos, WWC Mirage Milli, WWC Watermelon Milli
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WWC Cookie Monster, Devil's Armour
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ORA Laura's Purple Polyp
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WWC Wildfire
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Mr Walt Disney
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CR Electric Green
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themcfreak

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How are you getting these awesome photos? With your phone? I am getting ready to attempt professional looking with my DLSR, but love the color pop you are getting.
 

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