AstroMelly
Active Member
This is all I'm saying right now...
Wish me luck!!!
Wish me luck!!!
My Waterbox Peninsula Journey.
- Build Thread
- Thread starter AstroMelly
- Start date
- Tagged users Hair Algae Wizard
Devaji
5000 Club Member
stop stalling and post some pics man...lol J/K mine set in the garage for a few days before I got help you get in in the house.
BTW get lots of help like 4 strong guys 6 even better if you got stairs better be safe than sorry.
BTW get lots of help like 4 strong guys 6 even better if you got stairs better be safe than sorry.
OP
OP
AstroMelly
Active Member
Thankfully no stairs but we need to take it round the back as the front door has a 90 degree turn that it will never make. We need to take some fence panels out to get it through (which are old and are due to be replaced anyway) but I will try and document the move (or not - depending on how much I need to be involved!). I think I will buy some glass suction handles which should make it
First steps are to build the cabinet and see how we will integrate it with our newly renovated kitchen/living room space. I'll be sure to post some pics as we go.
Very excited and next will be a shopping list of aquascape/substrate and equipment but that is still being decided.
Devaji
5000 Club Member
Thankfully no stairs but we need to take it round the back as the front door has a 90 degree turn that it will never make. We need to take some fence panels out to get it through (which are old and are due to be replaced anyway) but I will try and document the move (or not - depending on how much I need to be involved!). I think I will buy some glass suction handles which should make iteasierpossible. I reckon 6 strong guys should be enough.
First steps are to build the cabinet and see how we will integrate it with our newly renovated kitchen/living room space. I'll be sure to post some pics as we go.
Very excited and next will be a shopping list of aquascape/substrate and equipment but that is still being decided.
nice 6 guys will do the trick for sure.
yeah build the stand get the tank in
at this point might as well wait until black Friday/cyber Monday to get your gear prob. scoop up some good deals and save some money.
that way you can work on your aquascape I really enjoyed building mine , I went with NSA style lots of pics in my build thread.
OP
OP
AstroMelly
Active Member
Got the stand built. Couple of minor issues. Seems 2 of the 8 doors that we were sent seem to be from a different WB cabinet build. They have partial cutaways at the top and bottom but have the same form factor and are marked the same as the other 4 right hinged doors (marked B). No biggie for me but one of them is quite bowed which means it sits a little proud even after adjusting it's hinges to the max. Not sure I'll make a big fuss about this. The partial cutaways (which look like handles to pull open from the top when closed) should not be visible once the tank is sitting above. Some pics of what I am talking about below. Oh and we got a mix of feet colours. We got 9 white feet and the rest black so we decided to hide the white ones under the cabinet and go with black 'visible' at the edge which I reckon is probably better than all white since they are sitting in the shadow most of the time and are pretty much invisible. Other than those 'minor' points the cabinet build went quite smoothly and was pretty straightforward.
You can see where the aquarium will go - it's going to be an awesome room divider!!! We are going to build a floor to ceiling equipment cupboard to the right of it in the first pic.
2 of the B (RH hinge) doors look like this... They should be completely plain flat panels.
From the top you can see the cutaways...
See the bowing...
It is only noticeable if you want it to be, or if you know it's there...
The major issue so far is that the sump tank, ato tank, pipework and all the accessories that should have come packaged in the main DT crate were missing!!!
This is what we found when we (first) opened the main DT crate last night...
Basically the packaging is there but all the goodies are gone! Even the weir cover is gone. Just the DT remains. It took a few seconds to sink in actually - I only knew what I should have got from other folks build threads.
What was impressive was that I emailed both Waterbox USA and H2O Aquatics UK who I purchased through last night at about 9PM - straight after the discovery - and both of them had responded within the hour. Waterbox apologised and told me to fill in their warranty claim form, which I did promptly. Being late on Friday night (in the UK) I am not expecting anything to happen until Monday earliest but I will keep you posted...
The main thing that concerns me at the moment is that the tank might be a return. I had hoped to get it moved into the house but I do not want to make those arrangements only to find out it's got an issue. I'll wait it out and see what Waterbox propose to do. They might not want me to unpack it any further if they want to swap it out for instance.
The DT does look new but I guess you never know what has happened - it could have been repackaged, but then why is the packaging for the sump and other items in there...?
You can see where the aquarium will go - it's going to be an awesome room divider!!! We are going to build a floor to ceiling equipment cupboard to the right of it in the first pic.
2 of the B (RH hinge) doors look like this... They should be completely plain flat panels.
From the top you can see the cutaways...
See the bowing...
It is only noticeable if you want it to be, or if you know it's there...
The major issue so far is that the sump tank, ato tank, pipework and all the accessories that should have come packaged in the main DT crate were missing!!!
This is what we found when we (first) opened the main DT crate last night...
Basically the packaging is there but all the goodies are gone! Even the weir cover is gone. Just the DT remains. It took a few seconds to sink in actually - I only knew what I should have got from other folks build threads.
What was impressive was that I emailed both Waterbox USA and H2O Aquatics UK who I purchased through last night at about 9PM - straight after the discovery - and both of them had responded within the hour. Waterbox apologised and told me to fill in their warranty claim form, which I did promptly. Being late on Friday night (in the UK) I am not expecting anything to happen until Monday earliest but I will keep you posted...
The main thing that concerns me at the moment is that the tank might be a return. I had hoped to get it moved into the house but I do not want to make those arrangements only to find out it's got an issue. I'll wait it out and see what Waterbox propose to do. They might not want me to unpack it any further if they want to swap it out for instance.
The DT does look new but I guess you never know what has happened - it could have been repackaged, but then why is the packaging for the sump and other items in there...?
OP
OP
AstroMelly
Active Member
Quick update. The ATO tank, sump, pipe work and accessories all turned up safe and sound on Monday. We still need to build the cupboard at the ‘head’ end before we bring the DT in from the garage.
I’ve approached a company who only move peoples’ aquariums to do the heavy lift into the house. Even if it’s not what they usually do I would still rather get someone who does this professionally to move the tank. I’m going to get them to set up the pipe work as well even though that looks pretty simple to me. It’s not gonna be cheap but the peace of mind is worth it.
Oh, and a replacement door for the warped one is coming tomorrow…
Next update once the cupboard is built!!!
I’ve approached a company who only move peoples’ aquariums to do the heavy lift into the house. Even if it’s not what they usually do I would still rather get someone who does this professionally to move the tank. I’m going to get them to set up the pipe work as well even though that looks pretty simple to me. It’s not gonna be cheap but the peace of mind is worth it.
Oh, and a replacement door for the warped one is coming tomorrow…
Next update once the cupboard is built!!!
OP
OP
AstroMelly
Active Member
Ok - first an apology. Sorry for no updates on the tank for over a month!
WaterBox sent us a replacement door, which was also warped in exactly the same way as the original one! They sent another one which is fine so I now have 2 spare doors, even if they are slightly bowed. Might come in useful for the control mounting (which I still need to get round to). All the controllers will be in the cupboard on the end of the tank (along with the MP40's - see the slots cut out).
The tank has been moved into the house (2 guys did it with pump trolleys). They were excellent and also fish keepers themselves. The company I employed to do the move does this sort of thing day in day out so they had all the equipment and also the know how. It was all done in a few hours and if anyone in the UK is interested the company were Gem Aquatics - I can put you in touch with Cem who organised the whole thing if you are interested in a quote. It wasn't cheap but it was done quickly and professionally. They basically specialise in aquarium removals (tearing down and setting up at new properties).
The cupboard to the right of the tank (as you look from the living room) has been finished - just need to drill through the holes for the lights when we finalise the height we want them at.
Designing and building the rockscape was both harder and more fun than I expected. The best part was when both my wife and I agreed we had finished! I think we have done pretty good - we wanted to build a habitat for the animals first and foremost but also something easy on the eye. We tried to build in hiding places and swim throughs and also leave some open areas. The rock is at least 3 inches from the tank sides all the way around. Hardest part was constructing the big overhang at the top. Took a while - I tried drilling through and superglueing an acrylic rod but unfortunately it snapped while we were assembling so we just superglued the rock in several places, glued in a couple of small support rocks in strategic locations and then applied copious mortar around the cured joints. It's pretty solid and I don't think it will come apart. Actually I love the way it turned out. We used 3 boxes of CaribSea Life Rock shapes and although I don't have any experience with other products I can say we are very pleased with this rock. We used EcoTech CoralGlue (gel) and Nyos Reef Cement. The cement/mortar took a couple of batches to get used to - it goes off REALLY fast - like less than a minute if you mix it according to their instructions. You can get a couple of minutes if you wet it down a little more than they say and we found the best way was to have 2 of you doing it. One mixing, one applying. Applier to wear nitrile gloves, pinch small amounts off a lolly stick which the mixer/stirrer would hold out for the person applying. In this way we were able to reinforce all the rock joints which had already been cemented with superglue and left to cure for at least a few days. It cures quickly and appears to be strong. We will see.
We have also purchased:
4 x EcoTech XR15 Pro Gen 5 LED units + 70 inch rail to mount lights + ceiling mount kit
Vectra L2 return pump
2 x MP40 QD wavemakers
RO/DI filter for the garage + 1x220 litre and 1x120 litre storage drums
Jecod DCP4000 return pump for water transfer/changes/salt mixing
Tunze Osmolator Universal - 3155 ATO
3 x 300W titanium heaters - 2 for the main tank and 1 for the water outside in the garage
2 x InkBird ITC-306A-WiFi heater controllers - one for main tank and one for garage water production. People say they are not accurate enough but they appear to be doing a fine job. I may try and calibrate them down the line.
We are using Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt - one 25Kg bucket was 'nearly' enough for the first fill.
All this equipment is up and running. I still need a skimmer and I am looking for recommendations - see below.
Tank is currently cycling (we are in day 2) and has a lot of bloom at the moment - I am using the RedSea Reef Mature Starter Kit - 3 of them - no idea if it will work as we do not have any live rock and it does say it is a prerequisite, but we did use 4 bags of CaribSea live sand - 2 bags of Fuji Pink and 2 bags of Special Grade. They say 21 days but I have my doubts on that. Our old freshwater tank took a couple of months to cycle but I have a nice test kit (eXact iDip 570 Marine) which I tried out this evening. Much easier than messing around with test tubes.
I do have some questions for the community...
1. The tank is about 790 litres if you include the sump. Call it 800 - we have about 100 kilos of rock and sand so maybe 700 litres of water. So the L2 has a max capacity of 11,500 lph so for 10x turnover we should run it at about 60% (7,000/11,500 = 0.61). We currently have it running at 20% and it is quite noisy in terms of water movement (the pump is a beast and is utterly silent). In the sump in particular, there is a black glass divider with weir slits at the top. The water drops about 4 inches from there to the next chamber. With the pump at 20%, the water from this drop is splashing so much that the inside of the cabinet doors are pretty wet with small droplets. We have only been running at 20% for 24 hours - before that we were at 5% and we thought that was enough flow!!! I got the tank really quite and we thought that was pretty cool then I looked at what flow we should try and achieve!!! ;Nailbiting So the question here is do I remove that black glass divider? It just slides out (upwards) if you don't want it. Why is it there? I know one of those compartments is for my skimmer (which I haven't bought yet), but what goes in the other one? I put a large brick of ceramic bio media in there for the moment (8"x8"x4"). I suppose you could run it as a refugium - which was something I had also considered.
2. Which skimmer - suggestions please? Something quiet would be appreciated. I am looking at the Reef Octopus Octo Classic 202-S. I also looked at the Royal Exclusiv range but the price!!! They are supposed to be ultra quiet however. I'm doing my homework but I do need to buy one in the next week or so.
3. We will need a QT which I will be setting up soon. We are looking at this. 65 litres - big enough? Say yes, the wife likes it.. Largest fish will probably be no more than 3-4 inches I reckon as we will be buying them young and growing them on in most cases I'm sure. We should have no more than 2 fish in this at any one time. We will also use it to acclimatise corals eventually.
4. Setting up a weir is new to me - if I understand it correctly the Waterbox 7225 Peninsula has a Herbie style system. The main drain should be underwater and the water level in the weir should be as high as possible without flowing down the emergency overflow pipe (the highest open pipe in the weir). Even when I adjust the gate valve which controls the flow down the drain (and it is an excellent piece of kit that valve), the weir is noisy where the water drops in. I doubt it will get quieter as we turn up the flow over the next few days - we will see how high we can get it I suppose. Am I missing anything here? Also the Waterbox glass weir cover (which is beautiful btw) does not fit properly - there is no way it can be adjusted to do so - am I missing something? Am I supposed to cut those plastic fins underneath to allow it to sit flush? It rocks back and forth on the lateral return pipes which direct the return flow to each side of the weir - this lateral return pipe cannot be lower than it is since the return nozzles screw into it at each side and that makes the weir cover sit too high. It just can't be manufactured correctly and I seem to remember someone else complaining about this on here somewhere. I'll speak to WaterBox about this.
5. Don't even get me started on stocking. First is the CUC - we are going with probably a dozen mixed snails, some hermit crabs maybe halloween - they have the orange and black stockings - and red legged or emerald, and a few shrimp - cheaper varieties to start with we think... We will wait probably at least 2-3 weeks to add these and then a pair of clowns at some point after that. We would like fish by Christmas but I am not going to rush things. I'll post our wish list in the coming weeks while we wait for the cycle to complete.
Sorry again for the long post. I hope you made it this far! I'll try and keep on top of the build thread in the coming months.
I'll let the pictures do the (rest of the) talking for now...
WaterBox sent us a replacement door, which was also warped in exactly the same way as the original one! They sent another one which is fine so I now have 2 spare doors, even if they are slightly bowed. Might come in useful for the control mounting (which I still need to get round to). All the controllers will be in the cupboard on the end of the tank (along with the MP40's - see the slots cut out).
The tank has been moved into the house (2 guys did it with pump trolleys). They were excellent and also fish keepers themselves. The company I employed to do the move does this sort of thing day in day out so they had all the equipment and also the know how. It was all done in a few hours and if anyone in the UK is interested the company were Gem Aquatics - I can put you in touch with Cem who organised the whole thing if you are interested in a quote. It wasn't cheap but it was done quickly and professionally. They basically specialise in aquarium removals (tearing down and setting up at new properties).
The cupboard to the right of the tank (as you look from the living room) has been finished - just need to drill through the holes for the lights when we finalise the height we want them at.
Designing and building the rockscape was both harder and more fun than I expected. The best part was when both my wife and I agreed we had finished!
I think we have done pretty good - we wanted to build a habitat for the animals first and foremost but also something easy on the eye. We tried to build in hiding places and swim throughs and also leave some open areas. The rock is at least 3 inches from the tank sides all the way around. Hardest part was constructing the big overhang at the top. Took a while - I tried drilling through and superglueing an acrylic rod but unfortunately it snapped while we were assembling so we just superglued the rock in several places, glued in a couple of small support rocks in strategic locations and then applied copious mortar around the cured joints. It's pretty solid and I don't think it will come apart. Actually I love the way it turned out. We used 3 boxes of CaribSea Life Rock shapes and although I don't have any experience with other products I can say we are very pleased with this rock. We used EcoTech CoralGlue (gel) and Nyos Reef Cement. The cement/mortar took a couple of batches to get used to - it goes off REALLY fast - like less than a minute if you mix it according to their instructions. You can get a couple of minutes if you wet it down a little more than they say and we found the best way was to have 2 of you doing it. One mixing, one applying. Applier to wear nitrile gloves, pinch small amounts off a lolly stick which the mixer/stirrer would hold out for the person applying. In this way we were able to reinforce all the rock joints which had already been cemented with superglue and left to cure for at least a few days. It cures quickly and appears to be strong. We will see.We have also purchased:
4 x EcoTech XR15 Pro Gen 5 LED units + 70 inch rail to mount lights + ceiling mount kit
Vectra L2 return pump
2 x MP40 QD wavemakers
RO/DI filter for the garage + 1x220 litre and 1x120 litre storage drums
Jecod DCP4000 return pump for water transfer/changes/salt mixing
Tunze Osmolator Universal - 3155 ATO
3 x 300W titanium heaters - 2 for the main tank and 1 for the water outside in the garage
2 x InkBird ITC-306A-WiFi heater controllers - one for main tank and one for garage water production. People say they are not accurate enough but they appear to be doing a fine job. I may try and calibrate them down the line.
We are using Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt - one 25Kg bucket was 'nearly' enough for the first fill.
All this equipment is up and running. I still need a skimmer and I am looking for recommendations - see below.
Tank is currently cycling (we are in day 2) and has a lot of bloom at the moment - I am using the RedSea Reef Mature Starter Kit - 3 of them - no idea if it will work as we do not have any live rock and it does say it is a prerequisite, but we did use 4 bags of CaribSea live sand - 2 bags of Fuji Pink and 2 bags of Special Grade. They say 21 days but I have my doubts on that. Our old freshwater tank took a couple of months to cycle but I have a nice test kit (eXact iDip 570 Marine) which I tried out this evening. Much easier than messing around with test tubes.
I do have some questions for the community...
1. The tank is about 790 litres if you include the sump. Call it 800 - we have about 100 kilos of rock and sand so maybe 700 litres of water. So the L2 has a max capacity of 11,500 lph so for 10x turnover we should run it at about 60% (7,000/11,500 = 0.61). We currently have it running at 20% and it is quite noisy in terms of water movement (the pump is a beast and is utterly silent). In the sump in particular, there is a black glass divider with weir slits at the top. The water drops about 4 inches from there to the next chamber. With the pump at 20%, the water from this drop is splashing so much that the inside of the cabinet doors are pretty wet with small droplets. We have only been running at 20% for 24 hours - before that we were at 5% and we thought that was enough flow!!! I got the tank really quite and we thought that was pretty cool then I looked at what flow we should try and achieve!!! ;Nailbiting So the question here is do I remove that black glass divider? It just slides out (upwards) if you don't want it. Why is it there? I know one of those compartments is for my skimmer (which I haven't bought yet), but what goes in the other one? I put a large brick of ceramic bio media in there for the moment (8"x8"x4"). I suppose you could run it as a refugium - which was something I had also considered.
2. Which skimmer - suggestions please? Something quiet would be appreciated. I am looking at the Reef Octopus Octo Classic 202-S. I also looked at the Royal Exclusiv range but the price!!! They are supposed to be ultra quiet however. I'm doing my homework but I do need to buy one in the next week or so.
3. We will need a QT which I will be setting up soon. We are looking at this. 65 litres - big enough? Say yes, the wife likes it.
. Largest fish will probably be no more than 3-4 inches I reckon as we will be buying them young and growing them on in most cases I'm sure. We should have no more than 2 fish in this at any one time. We will also use it to acclimatise corals eventually.4. Setting up a weir is new to me - if I understand it correctly the Waterbox 7225 Peninsula has a Herbie style system. The main drain should be underwater and the water level in the weir should be as high as possible without flowing down the emergency overflow pipe (the highest open pipe in the weir). Even when I adjust the gate valve which controls the flow down the drain (and it is an excellent piece of kit that valve), the weir is noisy where the water drops in. I doubt it will get quieter as we turn up the flow over the next few days - we will see how high we can get it I suppose. Am I missing anything here? Also the Waterbox glass weir cover (which is beautiful btw) does not fit properly - there is no way it can be adjusted to do so - am I missing something? Am I supposed to cut those plastic fins underneath to allow it to sit flush? It rocks back and forth on the lateral return pipes which direct the return flow to each side of the weir - this lateral return pipe cannot be lower than it is since the return nozzles screw into it at each side and that makes the weir cover sit too high. It just can't be manufactured correctly and I seem to remember someone else complaining about this on here somewhere. I'll speak to WaterBox about this.
5. Don't even get me started on stocking. First is the CUC - we are going with probably a dozen mixed snails, some hermit crabs maybe halloween - they have the orange and black stockings - and red legged or emerald, and a few shrimp - cheaper varieties to start with we think... We will wait probably at least 2-3 weeks to add these and then a pair of clowns at some point after that. We would like fish by Christmas but I am not going to rush things. I'll post our wish list in the coming weeks while we wait for the cycle to complete.
Sorry again for the long post. I hope you made it this far! I'll try and keep on top of the build thread in the coming months.
I'll let the pictures do the (rest of the) talking for now...
Last edited:
Devaji
5000 Club Member
nice! good to see it coming together.
such a perfect spot for a peninsula
let us know how the mp40s work. I am playing around with swapping out my Gyres for those.
for skimmer look into life reef I hear there great and last decades yes decades + not sure if its cost effective to get them over there.
such a perfect spot for a peninsula
let us know how the mp40s work. I am playing around with swapping out my Gyres for those.
for skimmer look into life reef I hear there great and last decades yes decades + not sure if its cost effective to get them over there.
OP
OP
AstroMelly
Active Member
Ok so I have ordered my skimmer. I went for the Reef Octopus Elite 150-S in the end. Should be arriving in a few days.
I have ramped my pump up to 50% flow now. That equates to 5,500 lph which will have to do for the moment. I tried it at 60% which would be about 10x turnover but the sock chambers were a little overwhelmed so backed it off a bit. The pictures below were taken when it was running at 60%. Will see how things are running after a day or two. Most important I suppose is that the return chamber does not overflow when the pump is shut off which it does not. I don’t think I want my high level alarm indicator any higher than it already is however.
I did notice we were getting a lot of moisture on the inside of the cabinet doors next to the black baffle with weir slots in the sump (chamber next to return chamber - to the right in the pictures). I figured this was due to the drop of several inches from the weir slots to the water surface which was about 4 inches or so. I previously had the water level there the same as the top of the overflow into the return chamber (where that white floss is). I raised the level in the return chamber (and hence the chamber next to it - this would normally be the skimmer chamber I suppose?) by a couple of inches to reduce the height the water has to drop (and hence reduce the splash). Seems to have calmed things down a bit. Here are some pictures of how I have it set up. I’m new to running a sump so go easy if I have missed something but please give me your feedback on my sump levels?
I have ramped my pump up to 50% flow now. That equates to 5,500 lph which will have to do for the moment. I tried it at 60% which would be about 10x turnover but the sock chambers were a little overwhelmed so backed it off a bit. The pictures below were taken when it was running at 60%. Will see how things are running after a day or two. Most important I suppose is that the return chamber does not overflow when the pump is shut off which it does not. I don’t think I want my high level alarm indicator any higher than it already is however.
I did notice we were getting a lot of moisture on the inside of the cabinet doors next to the black baffle with weir slots in the sump (chamber next to return chamber - to the right in the pictures). I figured this was due to the drop of several inches from the weir slots to the water surface which was about 4 inches or so. I previously had the water level there the same as the top of the overflow into the return chamber (where that white floss is). I raised the level in the return chamber (and hence the chamber next to it - this would normally be the skimmer chamber I suppose?) by a couple of inches to reduce the height the water has to drop (and hence reduce the splash). Seems to have calmed things down a bit. Here are some pictures of how I have it set up. I’m new to running a sump so go easy if I have missed something but please give me your feedback on my sump levels?
Attachments
Did they say what the cutaway doors were for? I assumed they were “handle” type cutouts. I have one on each side of the sump. Obviously, the cuts outs don’t work for handles LOL. I thought that was a curious thing. But now that I see how you used mounted them, that makes more sense.Got the stand built. Couple of minor issues. Seems 2 of the 8 doors that we were sent seem to be from a different WB cabinet build. They have partial cutaways at the top and bottom but have the same form factor and are marked the same as the other 4 right hinged doors (marked B). No biggie for me but one of them is quite bowed which means it sits a little proud even after adjusting it's hinges to the max. Not sure I'll make a big fuss about this. The partial cutaways (which look like handles to pull open from the top when closed) should not be visible once the tank is sitting above. Some pics of what I am talking about below. Oh and we got a mix of feet colours. We got 9 white feet and the rest black so we decided to hide the white ones under the cabinet and go with black 'visible' at the edge which I reckon is probably better than all white since they are sitting in the shadow most of the time and are pretty much invisible. Other than those 'minor' points the cabinet build went quite smoothly and was pretty straightforward.
You can see where the aquarium will go - it's going to be an awesome room divider!!! We are going to build a floor to ceiling equipment cupboard to the right of it in the first pic.
2 of the B (RH hinge) doors look like this... They should be completely plain flat panels.
From the top you can see the cutaways...
See the bowing...
It is only noticeable if you want it to be, or if you know it's there...
The major issue so far is that the sump tank, ato tank, pipework and all the accessories that should have come packaged in the main DT crate were missing!!!
This is what we found when we (first) opened the main DT crate last night...
Basically the packaging is there but all the goodies are gone! Even the weir cover is gone. Just the DT remains. It took a few seconds to sink in actually - I only knew what I should have got from other folks build threads.
What was impressive was that I emailed both Waterbox USA and H2O Aquatics UK who I purchased through last night at about 9PM - straight after the discovery - and both of them had responded within the hour. Waterbox apologised and told me to fill in their warranty claim form, which I did promptly. Being late on Friday night (in the UK) I am not expecting anything to happen until Monday earliest but I will keep you posted...
The main thing that concerns me at the moment is that the tank might be a return. I had hoped to get it moved into the house but I do not want to make those arrangements only to find out it's got an issue. I'll wait it out and see what Waterbox propose to do. They might not want me to unpack it any further if they want to swap it out for instance.
The DT does look new but I guess you never know what has happened - it could have been repackaged, but then why is the packaging for the sump and other items in there...?
Regarding chambers in the sump, the one you describe is for the refugium. If you don’t plan on using one, definitely can remove the divider. I didn’t have the splash issues you describe. However, I did have a bad batch of chaeto that disintegrated and clogged up the weir. This did make it noisy until it was removed. It is otherwise dead silent.
As for the weir for the overflow. Mine is dead silent. But it isn’t always. Few things: there is definitely a tuning process. Most of it is tuning the gurgle for the drains. Raise the water level until the screen is almost or barely covered. That water level seems optimal for eliminating noise (due to fall distance). Also, if the weir is clogged or flow disrupted on the inside of the overflow) it will make noise.
As for the weir for the overflow. Mine is dead silent. But it isn’t always. Few things: there is definitely a tuning process. Most of it is tuning the gurgle for the drains. Raise the water level until the screen is almost or barely covered. That water level seems optimal for eliminating noise (due to fall distance). Also, if the weir is clogged or flow disrupted on the inside of the overflow) it will make noise.
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AstroMelly
Active Member
Hi
Yes they told me those doors were added to help with ventilation for condensation buildup. Since one of those 2 doors was the warped one and they could not send one with a cutout (not sure why), we now have only one door with a cutout. We put that door on the ATO chamber. At first we thought they had sent 2 doors from another cabinet build but they told me they were correct, even though their instructions do not mention them.
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AstroMelly
Active Member
When you say ‘raise the water level until the screen is almost or barely covered’. Do you mean the water level inside the weir chamber? If I close off the gate valve enough to do that then the water will just drop down the emergency overflow pipe and make a load of noise. The quietest I can get my weir is to have the water level right at the top of the emergency overflow, some of the weir run off will still get down there, but not enough to make any noise. I’m gonna go read up some of the sump threads. Thanks for your info on whether to use the refugium chamber or not. I will experiment with that!
OP
OP
AstroMelly
Active Member
Hi,
I meant the strainer for the primary overflow pipe. Close the gate valve just enough so that the water level cones up to the top of the strainer of the primary drain. That leaves a bit of separation in water level between primary and secondary. It is dead silent for me.
I’ll take pictures tomorrow and a short video if you haven’t tuned it by then, perhaps that’s will help.
OP
OP
AstroMelly
Active Member
Ok so I have had the water level in the weir chamber that low before and because of the volume of water flowing back into the weir (alot), it is noisier. What turnover have you got your return pump set to? If I run my return pump at like 5% then yes, having it at that height is silent for me. It's the water gushing back into the weir that is making the noise - and the further it drops, the noisier it is.
My return is a Vectra L2 - the 100% rating is 11,500 litres per hour. I am trying to reach 10 x tank turnover per hour and it seems I won't be able to make that without accepting the noise that comes with it. Don't get me wrong, it's not unpleasant, it's just a bit more dominant in the room than I would like at the moment.
Send a pic/vid anyway - always useful to see how/what others are doing!
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