Ive been lurking around here for a bit reading about how much has changed in the last 14 years. The last reef tank I owned was a bowfront 92 with a mudfilter, caulepera, and regular r/o water plumbed from an outside house right into the sump. 3 years ago I bought my son a biocube which he kept freshwater fish in he caught out of our canal. Last year he left to school and emptied it before he left. I made the mistake of filling it back up with water and making it a reef tank lol. Ever since then I have been reading and ended up buying a Waterbox which took about 7 weeks to get and I have started to set up. I have read thru alot of good build threads that were extremely informative in understanding how to set up a tank today so I am going to document my build in the hopes of doing the same for others…
I received the tank a day before I went on vacation which kind of sucked (hard to complain about a vacation) but I was waiting for 7 weeks to receive this tank after having probably spen 6 months watching videos and reading threads on building a new tank so the anticipation level was pretty high. Anyhow as soon as I got back I tore off all the wood and started building the cabinet. The instructions were very good and it was a one person job about three hours to get the cabinet built and the doors installed and leveled. Leveling the cabinet itself alone was tough luckily since I knew It was gonna be a one man show I leveled the Base first and only had to make minor adjustments to get it level with all that extra weight in it. Next step was to get the sump into the cabinet and get the tank up on top.
Next step was getting the plumbing installed which is a one man job if u can reach from the back but since I set the tank up against the wall I needed my wife's help to get it done. The plumbing for a waterbox is extremely simple to install. Everything is tightened by hand EXCEPT the little square plug where an extra supply line for additional accessories goes this eventually needed to be done with a small wrench.
So that was pretty much all my progress on day 1. That was 4-5 hours solo except to get the tank on top my son helped me with that and for my wife to hold the bottom half of the plumbing while I twisted in the top halfs (about 5 minutes to install all the plumbing minus the pump).
I received the tank a day before I went on vacation which kind of sucked (hard to complain about a vacation) but I was waiting for 7 weeks to receive this tank after having probably spen 6 months watching videos and reading threads on building a new tank so the anticipation level was pretty high. Anyhow as soon as I got back I tore off all the wood and started building the cabinet. The instructions were very good and it was a one person job about three hours to get the cabinet built and the doors installed and leveled. Leveling the cabinet itself alone was tough luckily since I knew It was gonna be a one man show I leveled the Base first and only had to make minor adjustments to get it level with all that extra weight in it. Next step was to get the sump into the cabinet and get the tank up on top.
Next step was getting the plumbing installed which is a one man job if u can reach from the back but since I set the tank up against the wall I needed my wife's help to get it done. The plumbing for a waterbox is extremely simple to install. Everything is tightened by hand EXCEPT the little square plug where an extra supply line for additional accessories goes this eventually needed to be done with a small wrench.
So that was pretty much all my progress on day 1. That was 4-5 hours solo except to get the tank on top my son helped me with that and for my wife to hold the bottom half of the plumbing while I twisted in the top halfs (about 5 minutes to install all the plumbing minus the pump).
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