Nick's Waterbox 100.3

[PaulPerger]

No need to spend another $100 to upgrade. BRS has manual flush valved for $10 and an automatic electric unit for about $50.

 

[Mal11224]

No need to spend another $100 to upgrade. BRS has manual flush valved for $10 and an automatic electric unit for about $50.

+1 Definitely!

 

[nickkohrn]

I picked up a few more goods; a pod hotel because I won’t have a refugium, and two much-needed test kits. I have to order my screen top yet, but I’m done with orders for a while. I don’t want my wife to kill me in my sleep.

 

[nickkohrn]

Just ordered a 200 gallons-per-day unit to replace my current unit. Living in an apartment means that my RO/DI unit sits in the bathroom, connected to the faucet, for days when making water. It’s not great. My wife hates it. This unit, coupled with the booster pump that I ordered should produce more than enough production water for my needs in a matter of a couple of hours. The only frustration will be carrying this unit, the collection bucket, and the booster pump up and down the stairs. However, it’s a small price to pay.

 

[nickkohrn]

I like a dash of salt.

 

[The Last Strider]

I just finished reading your entire thread. I had the sensation of going down a roller coaster when the damages were being discussed. I spent quite a bit of money on a waterbox and it was shipped today. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Sheesh!!

 

[nickkohrn]

I just finished reading your entire thread. I had the sensation of going down a roller coaster when the damages were being discussed. I spent quite a bit of money on a waterbox and it was shipped today. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Sheesh!!

Thanks for reading!

I hope that you have a much better experience than many others have had. Make certain to inspect the crate before the driver leaves, and use your phone or a camera set up somewhere to document every step of you opening the crate and removing pieces. It may save you some money and/or heartache if there are damages and you need to get a replacement.

 

[nickkohrn]

Well, I guess it's time for an update.

My system has been up and running for a couple of weeks now. I transferred the MarinePure brick, which has been cycling for nearly six months, into the sump. All of my plumbing has held without leaks, and I have mounted the remaining equipment. I have been programming the Apex to control everything the way that I want, and everything seems to be working nicely.

Since this system is intended to be an SPS-only system, I tested my water and picked up a couple of browned frags from a local shop as testers; one Acropora and one Seriatopora. They have both had their polyps extended for over a week, which is a good sign. Below are some photos of the corals. You may notice the Flipper magnetic magnifier, which makes viewing corals incredibly nice.

Since the corals have been looking nice and well, except for having browned (I purchased them browned), I reserved some corals on ReefTrader that I will pick up at tomorrow's Buckeye Reef Marine Expo. I may have went a little overboard, but I couldn't turn them down for the prices. In preparation, I picked up some gloves, goggles, Bayer, Melafix, and some heat packs to keep everything warm in the cooler (2.25 hr drive each way). Below is the list of corals, with the provided photos from ReefTrader.

Green Millepora⁣

German Blue-Polyp Montipora Digitata⁣

GARF Bonsai Acropora⁣

Bubblegum Montipora Digitata⁣

Battlecorals Frankenberry Acropora⁣

Frogskin Acropora⁣

Pro Corals Rainbow Acropora

Tyree Rainbow Pocillopora

Bird of Paradise Seriatopora

I had planned to keep one coral per shelf on my bonsai structure, but this haul leaves be with one coral too many. I have not decided how I am going to place them yet, but one of the shelves will have two corals. I guess I will wait to see how they settle in before placing them.

 

[Hella_Reef]

I would slow down on the coral. The tank is still young. Even if u did run a marine pure block for 6 months, ur rock still needs to cycle and go thru the ugly stages. Moniter ur alkalinity like a hawk when u put a big surplus of sps frags in at once. You'll be surprised how quick ur parameters can swing out of balance. Unstable parameters will or can stn ur acros overnight. Just be cautious. I would reccomend starting out with a few tester coral before going all in on a young system.


That being said, I must say ur coral selection was very nice. Lot of nice sticks you got there.

Best of luck!

 

[nickkohrn]

I would slow down on the coral. The tank is still young. Even if u did run a marine pure block for 6 months, ur rock still needs to cycle and go thru the ugly stages. Moniter ur alkalinity like a hawk when u put a big surplus of sps frags in at once. You'll be surprised how quick ur parameters can swing out of balance. Unstable parameters will or can stn ur acros overnight. Just be cautious. I would reccomend starting out with a few tester coral before going all in on a young system.


That being said, I must say ur coral selection was very nice. Lot of nice sticks you got there.

Best of luck!

I bought a Hanna Checker for that purpose; the easier it is to test, the more likely I am to do it. I’ve been testing every day since I put the first two frags in last week, and it’s been 9.1-9.0 dKH. I’m testing again this evening to get a gauge on how the recent additions have affected the water’s chemistry.

I appreciate your advice and will absolutely be keeping a close eye on everything.

Also, thank you for the compliment on the selection. I think I found a beautiful balance of colors. Orange and yellow are the only two that I wish I had.

 

[Hella_Reef]

I love the alk hanna checker. It is so easy and convenient. It has an accuracy rating of +/-3.

When u test daily make sure it's at the same time too. That is the most accurate way to determine daily tank consumption.

A lot of green and red corals out there. so the more u can get outside that color spectrum the better! IMO [emoji16]

Keep up the great work documenting. Have a good night!

 

[nickkohrn]

I love the alk hanna checker. It is so easy and convenient. It has an accuracy rating of +/-3.

When u test daily make sure it's at the same time too. That is the most accurate way to determine daily tank consumption.

A lot of green and red corals out there. so the more u can get outside that color spectrum the better! IMO [emoji16]

Keep up the great work documenting. Have a good night!

I just tested again and got 9.2 dKH. I’ll see what tomorrow brings!

Cheers!

 

[Gaspipe]

Love taken this journey with you on this thread. Thank you so much for taken the time out to document it. I have a newb question regarding the plumbing.

Your conversion from metric to standard was done on the pipes that came into your stand, not the pipes in the overflow. Am I correct? Also the manifold, is this so you can connect other equipment to the return pipe? I'll be falling down the "manifold" rabbit hole right after this as I know nothing about this. There is just so much equipment and information. It's borderline insanity!

Again, great info and please keep the posts coming!

 

[nickkohrn]

Love taken this journey with you on this thread. Thank you so much for taken the time out to document it.

Again, great info and please keep the posts coming!

Thanks for the vote of confidence and for following along!

I have a newb question regarding the plumbing.

Your conversion from metric to standard was done on the pipes that came into your stand, not the pipes in the overflow. Am I correct?

You are correct; I did not convert any plumbing that is inside of the overflow box. I converted only the plumbing that is inside of the stand.

Also the manifold, is this so you can connect other equipment to the return pipe?

Again, you are correct.
However, I ended up not using a manifold. Instead, I connected a pump directly to my UV sterilizer. I soon realized that I do not have the room in my stand for creating a manifold that would be effective; I will be building one on my future system instead. Since my UV sterilizer and future algae reactor (if needed) can handle the same flow throughput, I will just hook them up inline; the UV sterilizer will feed the algae reactor.

I'll be falling down the "manifold" rabbit hole right after this as I know nothing about this. There is just so much equipment and information. It's borderline insanity!

Don't fret; just take your time and ask as many questions as it takes! This was my first plumbing application, and it included conversion from metric to US standard fittings. If I can do it, then so can you!

One piece of advice is that if you have a manifold, don't forget to put a ball valve in between the entry of the pipe to the bottom of the tank and the start of the manifold. By doing so, you will be able to close the ball valve, causing back-pressure that will supply water to your manifold.

I learned a lot by watching YouTube videos and browsing threads, here on REEF2REEF, about plumbing.

 

[count krunk]

how is the tank Nick?

 

[nickkohrn]

how is the tank Nick?

Everything is doing well!

Since my MarinePure brick was cured for nearly six months before adding it to the system, I didn’t end up with a long diatom/algae stage. I was able to add a bunch of life into the tank, and things have been going well.

Coral Additions:

• Green-Tipped Seriatopora
• Pro Corals Rainbow Acropora
• Green, red, and purple Montipora Capricornis
• Tyree Rainbow Stylophora
• Bubblegum Montipora Digitata
• Battlecorals Frankenberry Acropora
• GARF Bonsai (hasn’t kept much purple)
• German Blue-Polyp Montipora Digitata
• Unnamed Acropora
• A handful of Acropora Milleporas

Fish Additions:

• Biota Forktail Blenny
• ORA Indigo Dottyback (currently in acclimation box)

Invertebrate Additions:

• Three Trochus snails

I picked up some new equipment as well:

• Two Vertex 2.5T dosing containers
  • Acropower
  • Sodium Nitrate (can’t keep detectable levels regardless of heavy feeding schedule)
• Hanna Checkers
  • Phosphate ULR
  • Alkalinity
  • Calcium
• Flipper DeepSee Magnifier (awesome piece of hardware)
• Diffusers for my Radions
• Feeding ring for my Neptune Systems AFS

Something else that is awesome happened recently; I became one of two public moderators for the #askBRStv Facebook group. I spoke with Ryan and Randy over the phone, and it was hard to contain my excitement and nervousness. However, it’s been a fun experience and I am humbled to be given the opportunity.

I’ll work on getting some good shots of the tank this weekend. I need to clean it up and perform a water-change. I must have used too much thread sealant when connecting my Neptune flow sensors because I’ve been finding it in the tank after the return pump turns off and back on. It settles on the bottom glass, so I’m going to suck it out this weekend. I think it’s starting to slow down, though.

Also, I’ve visited my dad over the recent weekend, and he had a bunch of spare wood in the barn. We used some to build a mobile station for water filtration. It has been painful trying to filter water in this apartment. There is no sink or Spicket on the first floor, where the aquarium is. So, I had to carry my unassembled seven-stage RO/DI unit, buckets, booster pump, automatic flush kit, and towels up the stairs, assemble everything, carry buckets down to the garage, disassemble everything, and carry it back down to the garage when done. With the wooden mounting structure, I am able to carry everything up in one piece without disassembly. It is quite heavy, but worth it.

Below are some photos that I took last week of the aquarium:

Below are the containers that I will be using for dosing:

Below are photos and a video of my mobile filtration mount as well as a video that shows the path that I take (recorded before the mount was built):

Below are videos of some of the corals that I picked up:













Below are a few videos of my fish:









And I’ll throw my dog, Mac, who is a Bernedoodle, in for fun:

He was bad, so he got to watch the neighbor dogs play outside while he was stuck inside:



He goes to daycare a couple times each week, so here he is after I picked him up. He was so tired that he fell asleep sitting up with his head against the back seat while drool ran down the seat. The wind in his fur must have felt good that day:



I apologize for the sound in the videos. I forgot to mute them all before uploading them to YouTube.

 

[Gaspipe]

I became one of two public moderators for the #askBRStv Facebook group.

Congrats!! Since I'm not on Facebook does this mean I can ask you here?

And thanks for the update, enjoying this thread.

 

[Patrick Fox]

What's new with the box of water and sticks!? [emoji451]

 

[nickkohrn]

I’ve been acquiring corals over the recent month, but I’ll post photos of them when the overwhelming stage of brown algae dissipates.

In the meantime, I picked up a PM1 and another temperature probe to make water-changes easier. When I mix fresh saltwater, I put a 32g Brute can next to my stand and drop a couple of smaller heaters and a pump into it. The most frustrating part of it is trying to get the mixing saltwater’s temperature to consistently match the temperature of my system’s water; it usually requires an entire day to calibrate the heaters and incrementally turn the dials. Since I use an Apex, I connected the PM1 and temperature probe to it, which can hide in my cabinet when not in use. This led to a set-it-and-forget-it approach to heating the water in the mixing container.

I was also able to dial in my skimmer, which has been producing dark skimmate. I’m happy with its performance. I made a makeshift stand for it out of light diffuser panel and PVC, but I have a custom stand that marc Levenson made and is arriving today.

I placed an order for a backup COR-15 return pump because that will be nice to have when I clean the one that’s currently being used. Some things are absolutely worth having a backup of, and, to me, this is one of those things.

The pump will pull double duty since I’ll be using it for performing water-changes. Currently, I mix saltwater next to the stand, and then I drain he system into a second Brute can. Once that’s done, I pump the new water into the system with a MJ-1200 pump. Afterward, I use that pump to pump the old water out through the garage, where it races to a nearby sewer. That process takes more time than I’d like because that pump isn’t made to push water through 40 feet of tubing. The new COR-15 will replace that pump.

The COR-15 will have a 90° elbow on the input, with the opening facing downward, to pull as much water from the can as possible. While mixing saltwater, I’ll have a 90° elbow attached to the output, which will create a high-intensity churn in the mixing container. When it’s time to pump that water into the tank, I’ll remove that fitting from the output and attach the 3/4” fitting, which will consist of a barb and hose so that I can quickly pump the new water into the system. Then, I’ll be able to quickly pump the old water through the garage in a small fraction of time of what it currently takes.

I’ve also added a second AFS. We leave for vacation this weekend, and I wanted to ensure that my fish will still be fed regularly. The feeder on the left feeds a small amount of Reef Nutrition TDO pellets 3x each day, and the right feeder feeds algae pellets 1x each day. Occasionally, I’ll see a leftover pellet or two when watching them eat, but that’s not often; they consume that small amount of food quickly. To combat a rise in phosphates, I added a GFO reactor to keep phosphates low, which have constantly been 0.01-0.04 ppm for the last two weeks; they were 0.45 ppm than a month ago! ;Wideyed

However, I like fat and happy fish, so it’s more important to me that I feed them often and make up for it with additional methods of export. My nitrates don’t rise above 5 ppm, so I’m happy with how the system is handling feedings.

I’ve been satisfied with the bonsai structure that I got from Paul at West Mariculture because it makes deep-cleanings easy. I simply remove the shelves that the corals sit on, place them into a a Brute can, and scrub!

Now, it’s time to save for my next purchases!

Fish update coming soon!

 

[Deiblerj]

Question...why are you scrubbing your structure? Is this to remove algae? I would try and keep it going to build up the beneficial bacteria and use a CUC to maintain algae control