- Joined
- Feb 8, 2020
- Messages
- 802
- Reaction score
- 607
Hi All!
After introducing myself in the Meet and Greet area a few people suggested I start a build thread. I've never done one of these before so hopefully it goes well.
Here are the details/timeline so far, I'll break this up into maybe a couple of posts so it's not crazy long haha:
In October 2019 I started cycling about 100lbs Marco Dry Rock in Brute trashcan with a heater, powerhead, and airstone. I used Dr. Tim's One & Only and Ammonium Chloride for a fishless cycle. I also threw in some GFO as I heard that phosphates could be a problem when using this rock. It took about 6 weeks to completely cycle in that trashcan, but at that time it was really hard to find the Waterbox that I wanted, so I hadn't even ordered the tank yet. I kept the bacteria alive by adding the ammonium chloride every few days or so after testing.
While waiting I also had my contractor come out to my house and reinforce the floor to support the tank. He also ran some conduit under my crawlspace from the tank to the garage where I have my saltwater mixing station set up so I could run some lines. He installed a dedicated circuit for the tank stuff on a GFI outlet and put the reset switch in the garage so it was easy to hit if needed.
Finally in mid-December LiveAquaria got some Waterbox stock in and I placed the order! I thought it was going to take several weeks before it would show up, but I got a call from UPS Freight that they would be delivering it on December 31st!
One thing to note, I was really worried about getting this into my garage. I don't have a lot of friends that I could call to just help me with almost a ton of aquarium stuff lol. But I tipped the driver and he helped me push it into the garage, which technically they're not supposed to do, so it worked out
Then the fun began setting up the cabinet.
I did run into two small issues when setting it up, for the life of me I couldn't get the ends flush, it looked like the board might have been slightly warped or something. Everything else went smoothly and it took me a few hours to get to this point. This is just about the last step before putting the doors on, I had to keep working with the end pieces over and over before I got one side to look acceptable. The other just wouldn't work with me, so I put in a ticket with Waterbox customer support, they were great and told me that what I was able to do was good enough as the weight is mostly sitting on the inner board (you can kind of see it in the last picture, it's resting on the bottom just above the wood peg). The other issue was a piece was missing, but Waterbox sent me a new one and it was really easy to put in after the fact.
After putting together the cabinet, I could now get to the tank easier. I have to say everything was packaged super well, I was really impressed with it. One thing to note here is that the sump is crazy heavy. I thought I could lift it out myself, but with the way that it's sitting in this tank, it was too scary to try. I had decided to get movers to help me move the tank itself so I just let them take it out for me
That thing has to weigh about 200lbs, okay I'm totally guessing here, but yea that's my guess haha.
I scheduled the movers to come out on January 2nd to help me move the tank. I know it was crazy to schedule it so close to the delivery day, but I've been planning this tank for so long I wanted it done haha. When I called them, I tried to explain how heavy the tank was, I said several times are you sending like 4-5 guys? I think they thought I was over-exaggerating because only two showed up lol. They were able to move the sump no problem and got the tank out of the crate without any issue, but then it was quiet for a long time. I went out to check on them and the two guys were just standing there staring at it lol. It was just too heavy for them, so they called in two more guys and asked them to bring a ramp as I have 5 steps going up to my house and they didn't want to risk it.
Once the guys showed up they got the tank onto a cart/dolly thing and wheeled it in. Then the 4 of them were able to lift it onto the cabinet, you could tell it was still heavy for even them as they were visibly shaking as they did it. And this is nothing bad against them, they were great! It's just a really heavy tank haha.
So the tank was finally together and now it was time for the hard work, though at the time, I didn't realize it would be hard lol (well that's kind of a laugh cry). I'll continue this in the next post, this post is getting pretty long.
After introducing myself in the Meet and Greet area a few people suggested I start a build thread. I've never done one of these before so hopefully it goes well.
Here are the details/timeline so far, I'll break this up into maybe a couple of posts so it's not crazy long haha:
In October 2019 I started cycling about 100lbs Marco Dry Rock in Brute trashcan with a heater, powerhead, and airstone. I used Dr. Tim's One & Only and Ammonium Chloride for a fishless cycle. I also threw in some GFO as I heard that phosphates could be a problem when using this rock. It took about 6 weeks to completely cycle in that trashcan, but at that time it was really hard to find the Waterbox that I wanted, so I hadn't even ordered the tank yet. I kept the bacteria alive by adding the ammonium chloride every few days or so after testing.
While waiting I also had my contractor come out to my house and reinforce the floor to support the tank. He also ran some conduit under my crawlspace from the tank to the garage where I have my saltwater mixing station set up so I could run some lines. He installed a dedicated circuit for the tank stuff on a GFI outlet and put the reset switch in the garage so it was easy to hit if needed.
Finally in mid-December LiveAquaria got some Waterbox stock in and I placed the order! I thought it was going to take several weeks before it would show up, but I got a call from UPS Freight that they would be delivering it on December 31st!
One thing to note, I was really worried about getting this into my garage. I don't have a lot of friends that I could call to just help me with almost a ton of aquarium stuff lol. But I tipped the driver and he helped me push it into the garage, which technically they're not supposed to do, so it worked out
Then the fun began setting up the cabinet.
I did run into two small issues when setting it up, for the life of me I couldn't get the ends flush, it looked like the board might have been slightly warped or something. Everything else went smoothly and it took me a few hours to get to this point. This is just about the last step before putting the doors on, I had to keep working with the end pieces over and over before I got one side to look acceptable. The other just wouldn't work with me, so I put in a ticket with Waterbox customer support, they were great and told me that what I was able to do was good enough as the weight is mostly sitting on the inner board (you can kind of see it in the last picture, it's resting on the bottom just above the wood peg). The other issue was a piece was missing, but Waterbox sent me a new one and it was really easy to put in after the fact.
After putting together the cabinet, I could now get to the tank easier. I have to say everything was packaged super well, I was really impressed with it. One thing to note here is that the sump is crazy heavy. I thought I could lift it out myself, but with the way that it's sitting in this tank, it was too scary to try. I had decided to get movers to help me move the tank itself so I just let them take it out for me
That thing has to weigh about 200lbs, okay I'm totally guessing here, but yea that's my guess haha.
I scheduled the movers to come out on January 2nd to help me move the tank. I know it was crazy to schedule it so close to the delivery day, but I've been planning this tank for so long I wanted it done haha. When I called them, I tried to explain how heavy the tank was, I said several times are you sending like 4-5 guys? I think they thought I was over-exaggerating because only two showed up lol. They were able to move the sump no problem and got the tank out of the crate without any issue, but then it was quiet for a long time. I went out to check on them and the two guys were just standing there staring at it lol. It was just too heavy for them, so they called in two more guys and asked them to bring a ramp as I have 5 steps going up to my house and they didn't want to risk it.
Once the guys showed up they got the tank onto a cart/dolly thing and wheeled it in. Then the 4 of them were able to lift it onto the cabinet, you could tell it was still heavy for even them as they were visibly shaking as they did it. And this is nothing bad against them, they were great! It's just a really heavy tank haha.
So the tank was finally together and now it was time for the hard work, though at the time, I didn't realize it would be hard lol (well that's kind of a laugh cry). I'll continue this in the next post, this post is getting pretty long.