DarkReefer's Waterbox 70.2 (My First Marine Tank!)

DarkReefer

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Hey everyone,

A couple of days ago I took delivery of my Waterbox 70.2, this'll be my first ever reef tank and 2nd tank only to a small 36L freshwater aquarium that my gf and I have had for the last 3-4 months.

So I guess I'll start off with a current parts list;
Waterbox 70.2 Tank (Obviously)
AI Hydra 32HD light
Octo VarioS 2 pump
Eheim 150w thermocontrol heater
Approx 13kg of Real Reef Rock
Aqua Natural Coarse Aragonite Sand
(Skimmer and powerhead/s to follow later)


This is the first shot once the tank itself after it arrived and lighting was set up. I went to Waterbox's website and downloaded the AI blueprint for mixed reef for the moment and have set up the lighting with that. I haven't had too much of a play with the app itself just yet, however from what I've seen it comes on around midday and turns off around 10.30pm. May try and adjust this somehow in future but it'll do for now.
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As the tank is in the corner of the room, I have two couches on either viewable side, so I wanted to try and make something that was fairly interesting to look at from both angles. We managed to mock up something that we were happy with, but then we ran into issues trying to get things to stay put and bit a bit more sturdy in the tank.

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Cue a day and a half of messing around with rocks, getting frustrated because nothing was working for us and trying to find something that would hold the rock together so that it would be stable. We had also decided that we needed to change the rock a little and build it up slightly. So off to the store we went for some more rock and purchased some Stone Fix, this stuff is amazing. It looks a little messy because of the way I did it and probably got carried away with trying to get things stuck, but it'll get covered up eventually and I was much happier it was now holding firm.

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We have a plate piece of rock left over as we couldn't find a position we were really happy with for it yet, so we'll probably add that later down the line.
At the moment it's being used to disperse the water as we were putting it into the tank.
I really need to find another, much more efficient way to fill it using these 30L water containers I have, otherwise water changes etc will become a real hassle as 30L containers are pretty heavy to lift up and pour out etc. We were using a siphon with a squishy pump thing that we have for the other tank to try and pump the water up into it but it requires a LOT of pumping and it's just time consuming and inefficient. If anyone has any suggestions here it would be greatly appreciated!

I'd considered maybe using the return pump to pump it up the tube and into the tank but I don't know if that'll work. Would probably need to siphon into the sump, then from the sump, pump it up into the tank. At least there's a little water in it now (you can probably see the stonefix cement as well under that lighting, it's not so prominent under the blues).

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So that's it so far. Hoping to have it filled eventually later today so I can start the cycle. Gotta do another run or 2 to the LFS to get more water. (Only have enough containers for 120L at a time).

Hope it's not too dull of a read so far, will be nice to get things moving along and get it looking brighter and more lively later.
Thanks for taking the time to check it out :)
 

lapin

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Nice
 
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DarkReefer

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Thanks!
Still a long way to go though.

So I finally finished filling it up, did my flood & max on lines on the sump and still need to do my min on line which I'll mess with shortly.
I'm noticing a trickling water noise which appears to be coming from the weir/down pipes, is this normal ? If not, how can I fix it?
I've dropped my pump to setting number 2, as this seems fairly quiet and not pumping water too hard.
I've messed with the gate valve a little to try and get it as quiet as possible, seems a bit finicky though and whilst I can get it quieter I can't eliminate it.

Also, I wonder if this sump has been tinkered with by the shop. Appears to have had some work done on some of the glass joints as the workmanship isn't of the same standard as parts of the rest of the sump or the display tank. Seems to be holding water okay though, so not too worried.

Picture below taken during the fill process. Don't worry I've moved the heater so it's now submerged properly!

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Some interesting white whispy bits in the tank floating around prior to starting up the pump etc.

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DarkReefer

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So I played around with the valve some more, managed to get it quiet from the weir, however still some trickle sounds coming from the filter sock area (even with them out).

Was thinking earlier I haven't put nearly close to what my tank/sump is supposed to be in volume, is this normal?
From what I'm seeing online it's supposed to be about 262L volume. I think I've put in maybe 180L of water and seems to be roughly correct heights etc. Don't know where I'd get another nearly 100L in there. Maybe 20 I could squeeze out of it before it floods. I guess with sand/rock it would take up some volume though.

Chucked in my Dr Tims One and Only and the ammonia chloride solution tonight. Lights off and will see how she fares over the coming days.
 

Kaaaarrrll

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How far underwater is your main siphon drain? You don't want any air sucked in through the drain so the pipe needs to be a good few inches underwater I believe. Equally i would say that the outlet of the main drain needs to be underwater to eliminate splashing noises.

I'm new to reefing myself but have run a sump on my freshwater tank for the last year until i started changing it over to a saltwater tank and the above is how i got my siphon drain to be virtually silent.
 
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How far underwater is your main siphon drain? You don't want any air sucked in through the drain so the pipe needs to be a good few inches underwater I believe. Equally i would say that the outlet of the main drain needs to be underwater to eliminate splashing noises.

I'm new to reefing myself but have run a sump on my freshwater tank for the last year until i started changing it over to a saltwater tank and the above is how i got my siphon drain to be virtually silent.

It's under enough I think now. No sounds seem to come from the wier anymore, I think now it's mostly coming from the sock filters trickling. I've got a silencer I can use on one (which I've tried) but doesn't seem to make it silence, might ease it slightly but barely anything from what I've noticed.

Probably just need to spend more time messing with the valve on it to try and dial it in right. Though so far this is probably the best I've had it.

Checked my salinity and ammonia today for the first time.
Salinity: 1.027
Ammonia: 1.5
 

Daniel@R2R

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Thanks for sharing your tank with us! I'm excited to follow along!
 
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Thanks for sharing your tank with us! I'm excited to follow along!

Thanks taking the time to check it out!

Had to rush out and get some RODI this morning as I woke up to the pump starting to suck some air here or there (not consistently), this made me a bit anxious about the evap side of things and also how much water I had in the sump and whether it was acceptable.
Didn't realise there was so much evaporation from these.

So whilst I was at the LFS, I picked up 25L of RODI, 50L of SW as I figured I'll need it for a water change anyhow once the tank has cycled and then picked up some extra goodies.

A Kamoer ATO One, don't want to find myself in a similar situation as this morning so grabbed this little unit to prevent it and hopefully allow me a few days before I have to go topping up the RODI chamber in the sump again.

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A Flipper Float glass cleaner, magnet is crazy strong in this, almost annoyingly so (has made me splash water trying to flip it a few times, but that's down to user error and getting used to it no doubt).
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All set up now and seems to work from the quick little tests I did.
Might make a trip to Bunnings to grab some things to do some cable management and grab a light as it looks like a mess LOL

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I also ordered a Octo Classic 110-S Skimmer which should arrive this coming week. So I'll get that under way.
Then the other main thing I need will be a powerhead, but I'm sure it can wait a little bit.

Definitely enjoying playing around with this, although it's been fairly expensive so far. Should calm down a bit now I think though now that most of the equipment has been purchased.

I should probably water change the freshwater tank though, can't forget that with all the playing around with the newer/bigger tank!
 

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Looking good, great to see what others also do with their 70.2 tank.

I have the nero 3.. amazing!! Will get 2 eventually but for now 1 is good to move enough water around.
 

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Welcome to R2R, really nice thread and I like you final rock scape :)
 
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DarkReefer

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Looking good, great to see what others also do with their 70.2 tank.

I have the nero 3.. amazing!! Will get 2 eventually but for now 1 is good to move enough water around.

Cheers, still lots to do and more to learn though.

Yeah the nero 3 was recommended to me also, doesn't look like much stock around the place though.
Wont get it straight away, might wait a couple weeks or so. My wallet is bleeding enough lol

Welcome to R2R, really nice thread and I like you final rock scape :)

Thanks for the welcome, glad you like it.
I'm fairly happy with it after all the issues I had putting it together :)

Got to look at fixing my lighting.
Bought a couple small motion detection lights for the cabinet, however I woke up today to find one had unstuck itself from it's surface, thankfully it fell on the bottom of the cabinet and not into the water.
Also looks as though my tank cycle has stalled for the moment.
The past 3 days my Ammonia levels haven't changed.
 
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Another day, another Ammonia test that remains the same (1.5).
Wish it would hurry up and do it's thing.

I've been running with UV lights off/no filter socks in, should I be looking to get these going again?

Salinity is at 1.026 and has been for a few days also.

No other test kits available currently as was only given the Ammonia one.
 

ReefRusty

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Do you have a nitrate kit? You using dr tims one and only? Leave lights off socks out. Just let it run 10 days test then wait to the number of days as per bottle. Don't worry I wanted mine to hurry as it appeared it wasn't doing anything. Patience and waint for #of days
 
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Do you have a nitrate kit? You using dr tims one and only? Leave lights off socks out. Just let it run 10 days test then wait to the number of days as per bottle. Don't worry I wanted mine to hurry as it appeared it wasn't doing anything. Patience and waint for #of days
Nah no Nitrate kit and using dr tims one and only.
I had the first dose of ammonia chloride disappear in a couple days, this 2nd dose has sat for about 4 days now I think (will need to check my little record log at home). Think I'm on about day 6 or 7 maybe so far in total.
 

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Yeah wait a few days, if you ammonia did drop it would mean you do have love bacteria, but be good indication if you have a Nitrate test kit. Don't bother with the Nitrite though.

Gallery have a Nitrate kit in store last time I checked.
 
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Yeah wait a few days, if you ammonia did drop it would mean you do have love bacteria, but be good indication if you have a Nitrate test kit. Don't bother with the Nitrite though.

Gallery have a Nitrate kit in store last time I checked.

Nice, thanks for the heads up. Probably have to pop in there this w/e anyway to grab my skimmer that should hopefully be coming in this week so will hit them up before hand to see if it's there still and get them to put it aside for me.

Failing that was thinking about maybe going for the Red Sea Marine Care kit as I'll no doubt need those extra tests at some point in future. Expensive though so may wait for that bad boy if possible.
 
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DarkReefer

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Today's tests, Day 7 of the cycle. Ammonia still stands at 1.5, Salinity at 1.026.
So since Day 2 when I dosed it back to 1.5 it's basically stayed there and nothing in the tank has changed.
 
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