My Waterbox Cube 20 and 60 gallon cube

joefeets1 · Oct 3, 2021

What’s up party people?!?! I’m Joe and this is more or less going to be a story of my 2 tanks. I would post pictures right now but I broke my phone and I’m not home right now. Anyway I hope everyone enjoys this!
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

So this past June I decided that for my birthday I wanted to setup my first reef tank. My entire life I have always wanted one but Never was allowed to have even a small freshwater tank. So like any (in)sane person would, I completely immersed Myself in knowledge pertaining to everything saltwater, the world of reefing, and everything in between.

joefeets1 · Oct 3, 2021

I’m back fellow reefers!

anyway, during this initial intensive research phase, I began checking out products and more importantly prices. Being a stay at home dad who essentially lives off my military disability, figuring out a general budget was a huge factor in a lot of what I was looking for. Ideally I would have gone for something bigger, but the funds just weren’t there (and still are not). This is what ultimately made me start with a nano reef. Now with a plan in mind, I began making some purchases.

For a tank I went with the Waterbox Cube 20. For a light, I chose the AI Prime 16hd and chose to go with the AI Nero 3 for convenience. In the back I have the Intank chamber one media basket (which runs filter floss, Chemipure Blue, and a Marinepure cube). In the middle chamber I have a bunch of Marinepure cubes, some rubble, a chunk of chaeto, and a couple mangroves (and an Ehiem heater). to round out the last chamber I just have to stock return pump.

RedReefer · Oct 3, 2021

Welcome Joe!!!

joefeets1 · Oct 6, 2021

As far as getting this tank set up and running, it was very easy. A few minor hiccups after it was initially set up but I’ll get to that shortly. Once I got it out of the box and on my desk, I used CaribSea rock for my scape, CaribSea black Hawaiian aragalive sand for my uhhh sand, and proceeded to mix up some water. since starting I’ve only used IO Reef Crystals for salt, but I’m planning on switching after this bucket. As for what I’m going to switch to, I am stuck between Brightwell’s Neomarine and Fritz RPM (the blue box).

now for the oopsies. After setting up this 20 gallon tank, I was so excited and so proud of it. So I took to Reddit where everything was nit picked but it was made very clear that my desk was not going to cut it location wise. Actually my desk was starting to bow after a couple days. This led to me running to petsmart to buy a stand and draining my tank to move it to its new home. I also realized after setting up my stand, that it was too narrow. So I had to go take care of that as well. Another thing that happened, which didn’t have any noticeable effects was when I went to start cycling my tank, I added Fritz Turbostart but no ammonia source. Oops.

so far it’s been a pretty easy 4 months. The Waterbox 20 is home to 2 snowflake clownfish, a cleaner shrimp, a peppermint shrimp, some snails and hermits, and a good chunk of corals (primarily LPS and softies). Oh yeah and current home to some hair algae and cyano. Life happens, yuh no. today I decided to add some PNS Pro Bio, PNS Yello Sno, some phytoplankto, and some pods (from Algae Barn) so we’ll see how that goes. Anyway, that really all I have to say for now on the Waterbox so stay tuned for some pictures and then on to the 60 gallon cube!