ReefCoder's Waterbox 220.6 Dream Tank Build

ReefCoder

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I figured I would start a build thread to document my dream tank build so here we go!

I currently have an IM Nuvo Fusion 40g, have had several reef tanks over the last 10+ years, even bred clownfish for a while - at one point I had 23 20g tanks in my garage hooked up to a 250g sump :) I recently moved up north a bit to a bigger house and during the move lost most of my SPS and several fish mostly due to poor planning on my part. To top it off the tank is completely overrun by vermetid snails. I originally started purchasing new marco rock from BRS to try my hand at negative aquascape and do a total reboot on my tank with new rock and sand, etc. I enjoyed creating the scape so much I bought some more rock and kept going (way too much for my 40). I figured this would be a good opportunity to start a new build in a tank that could house the wife and my dream fish, an Achilles Tang!

After several weeks of negotiations with my better half, we landed on the Waterbox Reef 220.6. I was originally thinking a Peninsula 7225 but realizing that where I wanted to place it would be somewhat inconvenient, we decided on the 220.6.

What am I going to do differently this time? QT corals and CUC. I have always been very careful with fish, probably stemming from my breeding days and several heavy losses in my early reefing career. In my 40 I stuck to captive bred fish only shipped directly from ORA to my LFS and left in the bag for me to pickup. This time around, because I want to get a tang gang going, I plan on purchasing from Elliot at Marine Collectors.

Anyway, on to the details:

Waterbox Reef 220.6
Ecotech Radion XR15 Pro Gen 5 (4)
Ecotech MP60wQD Powerheads (2)
Reef Octopus Elite 200SSS Skimmer
Reef Octopus VarioS-8 Return Pump
Aragonite Special Grade Sand (80-100lbs) for a 1" sandbed
AI Prime Fuge Light
Apex (from my current tank)
Old School Aquamaxx Reactor (have held on to because I loved it) for GFO

Everything has been ordered, with the exception of the Fuge light. Almost everything should be here by Tuesday of next week. I did see that the tank is currently in Baird, TX showing a shipping exception due to weather as of yesterday :-/ While I realize they were hit extremely hard by winter storms recently, I did check the weather there yesterday and it was a sunny 75 which made me chuckle a bit.

Will post an update next week when things start showing up!
 
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HD_Reefer

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I figured I would start a build thread to document my dream tank build so here we go!

I currently have an IM Nuvo Fusion 40g, have had several reef tanks over the last 10+ years, even bred clownfish for a while - at one point I had 23 20g tanks in my garage hooked up to a 250g sump :) I recently moved up north a bit to a bigger house and during the move lost most of my SPS and several fish mostly due to poor planning on my part. To top it off the tank is completely overrun by vermetid snails. I originally started purchasing new marco rock from BRS to try my hand at negative aquascape and do a total reboot on my tank with new rock and sand, etc. I enjoyed creating the scape so much I bought some more rock and kept going (way too much for my 40). I figured this would be a good opportunity to start a new build in a tank that could house my the wife and my dream fish, an Achilles Tang!

After several weeks of negotiations with my better half, we landed on the Waterbox Reef 220.6. I was originally thinking a Peninsula 7225 but realizing that where I wanted to place it would be somewhat inconvenient, we decided on the 220.6.

What am I going to do differently this time? QT corals and CUC. I have always been very careful with fish, probably stemming from my breeding days and several heavy losses in my early reefing career. In my 40 I stuck to captive bred fish only shipped directly from ORA to my LFS and left in the bag for me to pickup. This time around, because I want to get a tang gang going, I plan on purchasing from Elliot at Marine Collectors.

Anyway, on to the details:

Waterbox Reef 220.6
Ecotech Radion XR15 Pro Gen 5 (4)
Ecotech MP60wQD Powerheads (2)
Reef Octopus Elite 200SSS Skimmer
Reef Octopus VarioS-8 Return Pump
Aragonite Special Grade Sand (80-100lbs) for a 1" sandbed
AI Prime Fuge Light
Apex (from my current tank)
Old School Aquamaxx Reactor (have held on to because I loved it) for GFO

Everything has been ordered, with the exception of the Fuge light. Almost everything should be here by Tuesday of next week. I did see that the tank is currently in Baird, TX showing a shipping exception due to weather as of yesterday :-/ While I realize they were hit extremely hard by winter storms recently, I did check the weather there yesterday and it was a sunny 75 which made me chuckle a bit.

Will post an update next week when things start showing up!
Awesome - can't wait to see it all come together!
 
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ReefCoder

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So I just put the finishing touches on the scape. Not totally sure on arrangement yet, but here here is what the pieces look like. I may need to add another island or something once I get everything in the tank, will see how it looks!


PXL_20210306_121159201.jpg PXL_20210306_120932806.jpg PXL_20210306_121207302.jpg PXL_20210306_120911427.jpg PXL_20210306_120939166.jpg PXL_20210306_120944877.jpg

In other news, the tank started moving again and made it to Phoenix last night! I am about 2 hours north so I think delivery should be happening Monday!
 

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revhtree

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Very cool!
 
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ReefCoder

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Tank, stand and all of the gear has arrived over the last few days. I was more than a little worried when he was lowering the pallet off the truck as I saw a 10"x10" hole in the front of the crate! We opened it up and found that the tank was perfectly fine, no damage at all. Man do they pack these things well.

I have arranged with a local coral / reef business to help out with moving the tank from the garage into the house and down a few stairs to the lower level. He is coming on Saturday with 6 dudes and 200g of RODI :) In the meanwhile last couple mornings I have been working on putting the stand together - it's assembled and ready for leveling, only thing left is to hang the doors which I will do once its leveled and in its home. I will say that Waterbox SUCKS at instructions and instructional videos, assembly was easy enough to figure out but probably would have been a bit quicker with more than a single sided page of some basic diagrams (no explanation of what fasteners to use where, counts, etc) I know a lot of folks have complained about this - seems like an easy enough thing to fix to me.

Has anyone ever tried Tropic Marin Syn-Biotic? It came to me Monday that I probably didn't want to use my last full bucket of TM Pro Reef to fill up this new tank then be potentially without for months until they figure out production issues. I ordered 3 80g buckets (only size BRS had), figured it sounds like a great way to help seed the tank. I have read its a bit cloudy when mixing but clears up quickly.
 

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Just a suggestion. VarioS-8 Return Pump is my favorite pump. But when I ran it, it was overkill even at the lowest setting. However if you're going to run anything off your two manifold spots, such as a UV and a reactor, then this pump is perfect.

Why did you decide on the 4x xr15s? I did 4x XR15 GEN 4s and had a decent amount of shadowing. However 4x xr30s front to back took care of everything.

I love love love my Reef Octopus Elite 200SSS Skimmer. Fits perfect allowing for a refugium. Have to go with the SSS in order for you to close off the refugium chamber.
 
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ReefCoder

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I realize it has been a while since my last update, things are moving along though. Was able to get the tank moved and filled about a week ago last Saturday with the help of 6 awesome guys from a local reef store / coral business. By Sunday I had it up to temp, rock and sand added and started the cycle. 10 days in today and still seeing very high nitrite (>2ppm) and a small amount of ammonia left.

I have some Maxspect Nano-Tech Bio Spheres arriving today which I plan on soaking in some MB7 and throwing into the fuge which should compensate for the lack of rock in the display.

Here's a pic of the tank so far, thinking I need to build out some caves / add some smaller pieces of rock to it - not sure what I am going to do yet. Definitely open to suggestions. Still need to attach the MP60s properly (right one isn't on at the moment) and run wires into the cabinet for lights and powerheads. Please also excuse the glass - have a Tunze magnet that should be arriving on Friday ;Shamefullyembarrased

PXL_20210323_121323531.jpg
 

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Wow! Great build and beautiful tank :)
 
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ReefCoder

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Just a suggestion. VarioS-8 Return Pump is my favorite pump. But when I ran it, it was overkill even at the lowest setting. However if you're going to run anything off your two manifold spots, such as a UV and a reactor, then this pump is perfect.

Why did you decide on the 4x xr15s? I did 4x XR15 GEN 4s and had a decent amount of shadowing. However 4x xr30s front to back took care of everything.

I love love love my Reef Octopus Elite 200SSS Skimmer. Fits perfect allowing for a refugium. Have to go with the SSS in order for you to close off the refugium chamber.
So I actually learned a lot from your build thread and based my decisions for the pump and skimmer on your experience! I do plan on adding at least one reactor.

I actually found that the pump is running ok at the moment since I tweaked the plumbing a bit. I grabbed a 1.25 -> 1" slip bushing and a 1" barb from BRS and that seems to have calmed it down a bit - originally had a piece of 1.25" vinyl tubing attached to the barb that came with the pump then a 1.25 - 1" barb-barb reducer (all I could find locally). I currently have it running on #2.

As for the XR15s - I based this decision on ReefDudes peninsula 7225 build. Looking at the PAR numbers he was getting I am pretty much shooting for the same - may end up adding a 5th XR15 if need be. In my past experience XR30s are a bit overkill unless your tank width is closer to 30" or is stacked front to back. I am also planning on having some LPS in the tank and I don't want to fry them. Hopefully I don't regret this decision :D

I was originally planning on the Regal 200 INT but read in a thread somewhere that it's too tall. I put the skimmer in place a couple of days ago and it fits nicely, a little tight but still completely accessible.
 
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In an effort to increase the diversity of the bacterial population in my tank (because I am using Marco rock) I recently ordered some "Reef Rubble" from AquaBiomics.com - I originally heard about these folks from a video Ryan from BRS did about testing the microbiome in his 360 dream tank. If you aren't familiar, they offer a service whereby you collect samples from your tank (rock surfaces, etc) and they run DNA sequencing on it to generate a report as to what lives in your tank - this includes parasites, pests, bad bacteria, etc. Ryan found that he found that he had very little diversity and attributed his use of dry rock / no additives to the problem - the lack of diversity was thought to have led to several outbreaks of unwanted algae and dinos I believe.

Anyway, after checking out their site I discovered they sell small containers of rubble from Fiji (IIRC) that have been sampled and DNA sequenced checking for parasites and unwanted life. I thought this would be a great way to establish some diversity on my substrate and get some coralline algae going while still not throwing some rando rock in there with out knowing what else I might be introducing.

They literally sell out of this stuff in MINUTES (like less than 10) as soon as it becomes available on their site. I would recommend signing up for in stock notifications on the reef rubble page and checking out their testing schedule to determine when the next batch will be released. I attached some pics below.

In other news, my cycle is done! Seeing no detectable ammonia (Salifert), high nitrates (Nyos) and some nitrite (API). I am not concerned with the nitrite due to an article I read recently, written by Randy Holmes-Farley. I also added the Reef Rubble yesterday which was super stinky (2 day shipping) along with all of the water per their recommendation and seeing no ammonia this morning. My first fish is on its way from ORA - Mocha Storm clown, along with some chaeto. Hoping he still arrives today as there was a shipping delay in FL last night. My plan is to put the new clown in first, then my existing female from my 40 (she lost her mate during the move several months ago - was really bummed, this was the last clown I had left that I raised from fry and the pair had also recently started spawning)

Will post an update once he arrives and I get him settled - no QT for him assuming he looks healthy, as he is being shipped directly from ORA.

PXL_20210401_024515784.jpg


PXL_20210401_024540830.jpg
 
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