Help finding and building an AIO?

cmross13 · Jun 16, 2021

long story short, I’m losing patience with failure after failure on my Red Sea Reefer 350 and feel like I would have better success with a smaller tank. I have a Recife Eco 40g that I use as a QT and I really like it I just hate the 4 baskets media setup and single return pump. I think I really prefer all in one over a separate sump. I like the Waterbox AIO 65.4 with its 4 filter socks and dual return pumps.

My question is, A: is this my best bet for an AIO in this size range(60-100g)
And B: if you were building an AIO, what would you buy and spec?

keeping in mind here, money really isn’t an object.

cmross13 · Jun 16, 2021

Forgot to mention, would be a light to medium fish load mixed reef with mainly softies.

newfly · Jul 9, 2021

I have the waterbox 65.4 AIO. I hate the 4 tiny filter socks . 3d print my own media basket to use disposable filter floss. The tiny 2.75inch filter socks is impossible to clean.

one downside of aio is when the filter get clog, it will drop the water level in the rear compartment which will trigger ato to fill. I had a near incident where the water level in the tank almost 1mm away to spill over.

I have a optical sensor to prevent the tank to spill over, but i still cannot prevent ato for adding too much RODI to decrease the salinity.

other than the 2 issues above, I’m happy with the tank. I have the opportunity to redo, I’ll ge the peninsular version. The normal aio is only 15-16 inch wide. Very limiting for aquascape. The peninsular version is full 20inch .