dvlpr
Active Member
I'll use this thread to keep notes for my future self and maybe somebody will find something useful in here as well.
A short intro - I only got into this hobby (aquariums in general that is) around September 2018 and bought my first large (240L) tank December that same year. Spent a few frustrating months getting things to click together by research, trial and error and spending every weekend at my LFS and my patience and persistence did pay off in the end - the ecosystem I built stabilized and fish started to grow and everything seemed to tick along quite well with quite minimal maintenance. Then, for some unknown reason, I wandered into the marine section at my LFS and realized that marine is what I actually want. I'm a terrible gardener in real life and keeping a planted aquarium is probably twice as hard as keeping a veggie patch
I do mow my lawn pretty well though, so not all is lost. Anyway, reef gardening seems to be a whole different world and I prefer purple to green any day. Plus all the interesting invertebrates and of course amazing fish.
Now, just today I sold my FW tank pictured below and it should be picked up tomorrow. Thus my marine journey can now start. I simply do not have enough space to run both and that was a condition from my wife, that I only keep one. Hard to argue...
First order of business was to choose a marine tank and I've read a million posts here and reviews and rants and comparisons and have carefully studied all relevant manufacturer's sites. I also contacted a few manufacturers to both gauge response time and friendliness and happy to say that all I spoke to passed this test with flying colors
My FW tank was a 4 footer and it felt just a little bit small as it sits against a 7 foot wall span. So I was choosing between a 4 and a 5 foot, since a 6 footer would be too heavy and of course also would require more equipment, adding both to the initial investment and ongoing maintenance costs.
There was quite a bit of choice and it took me well over 3 weeks to make the final decision. I was choosing between Red Sea, Waterbox, CADE, EvolutionAqua and Aquarium Systems. I've looked at all those tanks and all of them have pros and cons, as you know.
To have an open mind, I decided to leave tank cost out of the equation at first, so that I could concentrate on the actual hardware, rather than worry if it's too expensive or not. The exact models I compared (and built a spreadsheet about) were: RS 350, RS XL 425, RS XL 525, WB 130.4, WB 170.4/5, CADE S2-1200, CADE S2-1500, EA ReefPro 1200, EA ReefPro 1500, AS 570 (L'Aquarium).
I liked the dual return nozzles and the glass weir on the Waterbox; I liked the integrated ATO and glass cabinet as well as the dual intakes on the CADE. The EvolutionAqua didn't jump out at me as good at anything in particular, so I wasn't sure what's better compared to others and crossed it off my list; AquariumSystems has the same cabinet as CADE and overall looked rather well; Red Sea is a well-known (well, not to me) brand with a long history of high quality tanks. So, overall, any of the tanks seemed good at first and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to make a choice.
Then I spent some more time thinking and researching and started to build a list of "cons" for each. These are my personal gripes with every system and they in no way reflect the overall quality of the tanks, but these are somethings that I'll know will bug me and seeing how hard it is to transfer one tank to another, I'd rather not go through that process, at least in the foreseeable future (whatever that may be).
So, for me the issues came to - AquariumSystems does not have a dry cabinet in their 5 footer and I cannot imagine putting electrical equipment such as a UPS next to a sump; CADE was too wide at 70cms and was the most expensive on my list; Waterbox was second most expensive (pricier than a Red Sea) and does not have a gravity-fed ATO, thus requiring an additional pump, and it's also a tad wider, while my preference was for a longer, but narrower tank.
So, after all of that the choice became quite obvious and I've placed an order for a Red Sea XL 525 (black cabinet). Their new cabinets are marine-grade plywood, so same as Waterbox and they also have gravity-fed ATO in their sumps now (similar to CADE) and the Red Sea came out cheaper than a similar sized Waterbox.
Hoping to get my tank within the next 2-3 weeks and in the mean time I'll start building an equipment and stock list and maybe start playing around with life rock (I have a design in my head, but it's a whole different question whether I'll be able to put it down in rock).
Sorry for the very long post, I'm sure subsequent posts will be shorter (and hopefully with lots of photos).
The next post will be about reinforcing my floor, so that it can actually hold the tank, as I'm confident it would fall through if I tried to put it there now. It should happen mid next week.
Thanks for reading and cheers
A short intro - I only got into this hobby (aquariums in general that is) around September 2018 and bought my first large (240L) tank December that same year. Spent a few frustrating months getting things to click together by research, trial and error and spending every weekend at my LFS and my patience and persistence did pay off in the end - the ecosystem I built stabilized and fish started to grow and everything seemed to tick along quite well with quite minimal maintenance. Then, for some unknown reason, I wandered into the marine section at my LFS and realized that marine is what I actually want. I'm a terrible gardener in real life and keeping a planted aquarium is probably twice as hard as keeping a veggie patch
I do mow my lawn pretty well though, so not all is lost. Anyway, reef gardening seems to be a whole different world and I prefer purple to green any day. Plus all the interesting invertebrates and of course amazing fish.Now, just today I sold my FW tank pictured below and it should be picked up tomorrow. Thus my marine journey can now start. I simply do not have enough space to run both and that was a condition from my wife, that I only keep one. Hard to argue...
First order of business was to choose a marine tank and I've read a million posts here and reviews and rants and comparisons and have carefully studied all relevant manufacturer's sites. I also contacted a few manufacturers to both gauge response time and friendliness and happy to say that all I spoke to passed this test with flying colors
My FW tank was a 4 footer and it felt just a little bit small as it sits against a 7 foot wall span. So I was choosing between a 4 and a 5 foot, since a 6 footer would be too heavy and of course also would require more equipment, adding both to the initial investment and ongoing maintenance costs.
There was quite a bit of choice and it took me well over 3 weeks to make the final decision. I was choosing between Red Sea, Waterbox, CADE, EvolutionAqua and Aquarium Systems. I've looked at all those tanks and all of them have pros and cons, as you know.
To have an open mind, I decided to leave tank cost out of the equation at first, so that I could concentrate on the actual hardware, rather than worry if it's too expensive or not. The exact models I compared (and built a spreadsheet about) were: RS 350, RS XL 425, RS XL 525, WB 130.4, WB 170.4/5, CADE S2-1200, CADE S2-1500, EA ReefPro 1200, EA ReefPro 1500, AS 570 (L'Aquarium).
I liked the dual return nozzles and the glass weir on the Waterbox; I liked the integrated ATO and glass cabinet as well as the dual intakes on the CADE. The EvolutionAqua didn't jump out at me as good at anything in particular, so I wasn't sure what's better compared to others and crossed it off my list; AquariumSystems has the same cabinet as CADE and overall looked rather well; Red Sea is a well-known (well, not to me) brand with a long history of high quality tanks. So, overall, any of the tanks seemed good at first and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to make a choice.
Then I spent some more time thinking and researching and started to build a list of "cons" for each. These are my personal gripes with every system and they in no way reflect the overall quality of the tanks, but these are somethings that I'll know will bug me and seeing how hard it is to transfer one tank to another, I'd rather not go through that process, at least in the foreseeable future (whatever that may be).
So, for me the issues came to - AquariumSystems does not have a dry cabinet in their 5 footer and I cannot imagine putting electrical equipment such as a UPS next to a sump; CADE was too wide at 70cms and was the most expensive on my list; Waterbox was second most expensive (pricier than a Red Sea) and does not have a gravity-fed ATO, thus requiring an additional pump, and it's also a tad wider, while my preference was for a longer, but narrower tank.
So, after all of that the choice became quite obvious and I've placed an order for a Red Sea XL 525 (black cabinet). Their new cabinets are marine-grade plywood, so same as Waterbox and they also have gravity-fed ATO in their sumps now (similar to CADE) and the Red Sea came out cheaper than a similar sized Waterbox.
Hoping to get my tank within the next 2-3 weeks and in the mean time I'll start building an equipment and stock list and maybe start playing around with life rock (I have a design in my head, but it's a whole different question whether I'll be able to put it down in rock).
Sorry for the very long post, I'm sure subsequent posts will be shorter (and hopefully with lots of photos).
The next post will be about reinforcing my floor, so that it can actually hold the tank, as I'm confident it would fall through if I tried to put it there now. It should happen mid next week.
Thanks for reading and cheers
