Follow My First (!) Build Journey: Waterbox 20 Cube

[cmalzyner]

Hello R2R community! (Warning: My first post will probably be long :oops:)

I have been a lurker on this site for almost a year, and finally decided to joint today! I am so excited to share my first reef build journey on this site. The past few years, my interest has shifted from freshwater aquascaping toward saltwater reef tanks. I was very into freshwater aquascaping (I was watching and reading anything related to Takashi Amano lol) and never even considered starting a saltwater tank, mostly because I thought it would be too advanced for me. But man did I get sucked into this community! I've been researching tanks, supplies, livestock, and corals for months o_O Finally I bit the bullet and ordered a Waterbox 20 gal Cube!

I plan on updating as soon as it comes in. I have already ordered a white AI Prime to match the stand and an upgraded sicce pump. Please leave me any advice, suggestions, or recommendations on equipment, corals, nano fish, or anything else!

 

[eea60123]

Congrats. Can’t wait to see.

 

[Alanna102499]

Welcome to R2R!

Can’t wait to watch your build!

 

[cmalzyner]

OMG! It has been a few weeks and I am so excited to share my updates!

So my WaterBox 20 came in and every was fairly easy to assemble and set up. I'm very impressed with the quality of the cabinet and the aquarium itself is beautiful. For my initial set up, I picked up water from my LFS and used the following:

Substrate - Caribsea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink
Rock - Caribsea Life Rock
Chamber 1 - InTank insert with filter floss, bioballs, and chemi-pure elite
Chamber 2 - Ehiem heater, IM desktop media reactor w/ bio pellets, and reef glass nano skimmer
Chamber 3 - Return pump upgraded to Sicce 0.5 and ATO
Water movement - Coralia Nano

I am thinking of replacing the bioballs with PhosGuard if anybody has suggestions about that. Also, please give me any suggestions on what to change or upgrade! This is my first time doing this so I don't know if I'm going overboard or how to improve...

I got in my pair of clownfish last week and they are doing great! I also added a fire shrimp and a cleaner shrimp (also doing great!). My water parameters have been stable and I'm just starting to have diatoms (?) dusting my sand bed, which means I think I'm ready for some algae eaters! I already placed an order for my CUC from Reef Cleaners but would like suggestions on what nano CUC members would make good additions.

Let me know what you think! Comments and criticism are helpful so be mean ;)

 

[Chrisfish]

Welcome to R2R and the salty side, lots of us started with freshwater tanks , lol I had 3 planted tanks before I set up my first SW tank and have been hooked ever since. Lots of great members here that are very helpful. Your off to a great start and your tank looks awesome :)

 

[cmalzyner]

Welcome to R2R and the salty side, lots of us started with freshwater tanks , lol I had 3 planted tanks before I set up my first SW tank and have been hooked ever since. Lots of great members here that are very helpful. Your off to a great start and your tank looks awesome :)

Thank you!!

 

[Rickybobby]

Looks great. You might want to invest in a small qt tank setup and be ready with meds incase something happens

 

[Jerad81]

Welcome! I'm still new to the hobby myself so I don't have much experience to offer yet. I love your aquascape and look forward to watching how your tank grows!

 

[maxinf]

I got similar gear (WC 20) but I'm still cycling. Your build has been an inspiration to a newbie like me, thank you for sharing.

 

[ScubaFish802]

Look good :D

 

[Jeffcb]

Welcome to Reef2reef ! SA has some nice LFS! I'm back in the hobby after years and the main thing I remember is low and slow. :cool:

 

[Dark_Knightt]

I'm ready for some algae eaters! I already placed an order for my CUC from Reef Cleaners but would like suggestions on what nano CUC members would make good additions.

For a CUC in a 20g (which is what I have as well), I would first start by adding about 4 margarita snails, 4 blue or red legged hermit crabs, as well as 1 emerald crab. Then maybe a month later, add a cleaner shrimp (preferably camelback or maybe even skunk cleaner, as those are the only "cleaner shrimp" that acctually clean things). Star fish are something that are kinda tricky, but if you want one add it same time as shrimp or even a bit earlier.Get brittle star fish if you do. Im not sure if a emerald crab would eat a starfish but im sure someone here knows #reefsquad Good Luck and have fun!

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Welcome from another newbie. I currently have a 29 gal FOWLR and am upgrading to a 40/20 system.

 

[saltyhog]

Looks like you're off to a great start! I avoid hermits in my nano and only have a couple in my 6' tank because of their tendency to irritate corals and steal food from them.

In my 25 gallon nano I have 3 trochus snails, several cerith snails. I do have a small emerald crab but only because I had a small amount of bubble algae at one time. I will remove it if I don't see any recurrence of the bubble algae in a few months. Since you have a sand bed, a few nassarius snails would help with detritus and "stirring" of the sand bed.

Shrimp are not a part of the clean up crew. The term cleaner shrimp refers to them "cleaning" fish which is removing dead skin and external parasites.