Shew's Reef - 20g Waterbox Cube

[shew]

Heya Reefers,

First timer here, super excited to be getting into the hobby. Over the last 3-4 months I have become consumed with the idea of having my own saltwater tank, and I'm so happy that it is finally becoming a reality!

My overarching goal is to create and maintain a beautiful reef tank of primarily (hopefully 100%) aquaculture'd/captive bred livestock & corals. I understand this limits my selection, but it is something I'd like to stay true to as much as possible.



Current Livestock
ORA Ocellaris Premium Black Snowflake Clownfish
ORA Ocellaris Frostbite Clownfish

Current Corals
WWC Bicolor Branching Hammer
WWC White Polyp Toadstool
WWC Spearmint Montiporra

First Corals!​

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Short-Term Goals:

• Third Fish? (Undecided)
• Flowy corals & others i liked in various tanks I saw on youtube (hammers, torches, montiporas, acans, whatever this is)
• I often look at this reddit post for inspiration
• Keep updating this thread!

Current Equipment!:

• Waterbox 20 gallon Cube Tank
  • it came with: Return Pump, filter media (bioballs, carbon, filter sponges), Filter Sock
  • Waterbox Cabinet
• AI Prime 16 HD Light
• Caribsea Liferock (20 lbs)
• Caribsea Fiji Pink Live Sand
• Jebao SLW-20 Pump w/ Controller
• BRS 100w Titanium heater + controller
• Orlushy heater (primarily just as a backup/for water changes)

Equipment Wishlist:

• ATO
• Better powerhead
• glass scraper (flipper? blade?)
• Tubing for water changes?
• Siphon for cleaning sand?
• various medications/dosings to deal with the "ugly phase"

Thank you for checking out my thread!

 

[shew]

Aquascaping... Where do I start.

At first I went for a few Cave designs, but I'm not quite satisfied with how they look.

I landed on this, which I thought looked nice and warranted some final approval from the seasoned vets of r2r

I had a few questions and concerns on it. I attached 2 videos. 1 video is of how wobbly the rocks are, and the other is a more all around view of the scape.

Is this amount of wobble fine? Should I try to settle the rocks in there a little more? Should I scrap this scape and come up with something better?

edit: I feel like i should 100% glue whatever scape i land on. I live in california... I feel like an un-glued scape is just asking to get shaken around by an earthquake. Anyone have good glue recommendations on amazon?

 

[shew]

Here are 2 scapes i'm feeling more confident about. Just not sure if they're tall enough? Enough rock? I want to make sure i have a good habitat to promote coral growth with good flow, safety for fish, etc. And one that's aesthetically pleasing of course

 

[shew]

Planning to put water in the tank Wednesday, which means prep the cabinet and everything else!! Working on setting up my cables, a bit difficult but it's getting there.

I have one issue. My heater's suction cups refuse to stick to my return chamber (or any chamber for that matter). I will squeeze it up to the glass and it will stay for 2 minutes before popping off. You can see it in the 2nd picture, it's the BRS titanium heater 100w. I don't really want a heater that's just suspended in water, anyone have fixes for pesky suction cups?

 

[shew]

We got water in!

 

[jeffrey750750]

Perfect and simple, good hiding spots. Good for flow and placement of corals. Kudos

 

[shew]

Perfect and simple, good hiding spots. Good for flow and placement of corals. Kudos

Thank you! I definitely focused on Aquascaping a ton

 

[shew]

Looks like Sand has been shifting in my tank, if you look at my initial fill post the sand is very even, compared to this.

Moved the powerhead up more in the tank and angled it upwards towards the surface, hopefully that solves the issue

 

[jesspal]

How did you angle a slw-20, don’t they attach flat to the glass?

 

[shew]

How did you angle a slw-20, don’t they attach flat to the glass?

It comes with a curved magnet holder that allows you to put it at different angles.

This guy shows it well in the video. Mine is not the wifi version, but i have the same attachments:

 

[jesspal]

Awesome, I had no idea what that plastic piece was used for. Great little pumps imo.

Also your tank is looking like it’s coming along quite nicely. I’m waiting for my 35.2 AIO to arrive any day now. I have had the rock curing in a Brute trash bins for about a month.

 

[shew]

Awesome, I had no idea what that plastic piece was used for. Great little pumps imo.

Also your tank is looking like it’s coming along quite nicely. I’m waiting for my 35.2 AIO to arrive any day now. I have had the rock curing in a Brute trash bins for about a month.

That is smart curing the rock ahead of time! can't wait to see your tank when it's up and running

 

[shew]

24 hours ago I put in Dr. Tim's, along with 4 ammonia drops per gallon. This is the reading i got after 24 hours. Is this normal for the first 24 hours of a dr tims cycle?

 

[shew]

It's been 9 days since I started cycling, here is my data. I'm wondering if I'm past the ammonia dosing phase? I hit 8 ppm really early on, and Dr tim's even says to try not to exceed 5 ppm. My nitrites went up to 5 a few days ago and are slowly decreasing, but i'm not seeing any big Nitrate boom.

 

[Lizbeli]

Looks nice in there. I am a fan of their 20 cube. If I had more room I would set up another Waterbox and that would likely be the model.

Is your heater in the return section? If so I would move it into the middle chamber. If some weird happens and your pump chamber goes dry you will have more than a burnt out pump. Heaters get ridiculously hot out of water.

 

[Jilly92]

Heya Reefers,

First timer here, super excited to be getting into the hobby. Over the last 3-4 months I have become consumed with the idea of having my own saltwater tank, and I'm so happy that it is finally becoming a reality!

My overarching goal is to create and maintain a beautiful reef tank of primarily (hopefully 100%) aquaculture'd/captive bred livestock & corals. I understand this limits my selection, but it is something I'd like to stay true to as much as possible.

We are just getting started, so here is a current picture of my tank

Water is in!




Short-Term Goals:

• 2 Clowns
• Third Fish? (Undecided)
• Flowy corals & others i liked in various tanks I saw on youtube (hammers, torches, montiporas, acans, whatever this is)
• I often look at this reddit post for inspiration
• Keep updating this thread!

Current Equipment!:

• Waterbox 20 gallon Cube Tank
  • it came with: Return Pump, filter media (bioballs, carbon, filter sponges), Filter Sock
  • Waterbox Cabinet
• AI Prime 16 HD Light
• Caribsea Liferock (20 lbs)
• Caribsea Fiji Pink Live Sand
• Jebao SLW-20 Pump w/ Controller
• BRS 100w Titanium heater + controller
• Orlushy heater (primarily just as a backup/for water changes)

Equipment Wishlist:

• ATO
• Better powerhead
• glass scraper (flipper? blade?)
• Tubing for water changes?
• Siphon for cleaning sand?
• various medications/dosings to deal with the "ugly phase"

Thank you for checking out my thread!

If you like a good laugh I would go with a lawnmower blenny. They have the funniest personalities. Mine comes straight up to the glass and shows off, even plays with my 2 year old when he's banging on the glass haha

 

[shew]

Looks nice in there. I am a fan of their 20 cube. If I had more room I would set up another Waterbox and that would likely be the model.

Is your heater in the return section? If so I would move it into the middle chamber. If some weird happens and your pump chamber goes dry you will have more than a burnt out pump. Heaters get ridiculously hot out of water.

God call! Yes the heater is currently in the return section, but I definitely will move it to the middle section. I'm planning to have carbon + filter sponge in the middle section as well, so would I put the heater above or below those ?

I've notice the middle section is where most of my evaporation happens as well and it's where I do all my top offs

If you like a good laugh I would go with a lawnmower blenny. They have the funniest personalities. Mine comes straight up to the glass and shows off, even plays with my 2 year old when he's banging on the glass haha

omg that's adorable!! I will definitely have to add that to the list. I'm eager to get out of the cycling depression phase

 

[shew]

Haven’t posted an update in a few weeks, so here we go.

finished cycling last week! Took the weekend to decide on my fish, I landed on an ORA Frostbite & an ORA Black Ice on LiveAquaria's site. I was told by an ORA representative that these orders are dropshipped from their aquaculture facility.

They shipped yesterday and arrived today. Unfortunately, they were dead on arrival. Being a noobie, I assumed they were just hard sleepers in the bag. I float acclimated for 20 minutes, and put them in a bucket, where they were completely unresponsive.

Tested the water, it was at 1 ppm ammonia, and the water smelled horrible. The smell is still stuck in the air of my room. Whoever shipped them must have not adequately starved the fish so they wouldn't poop themselves to death.

Really frustrated with this, because it's not fair to the fish. I had done my research, looked up best practices, and did my best to become an informed reefer for my first tankmates. They deserved better than to be mishandled by whomever shipped them. I didn't get into this hobby to let innocent things die because of negligence... At the same time I'm aware that every reefer will kill something, but this wasn't even my doing.

I even looked up how ORA handles shipping and it looked like they did a great job. I don't particularly like any of the LFS in my area (they also have limited stock), so I prefer to order my livestock from reputable sources online.

 

[shew]

Clowns being Clowns!

After the last incident with Liveaquaria, I decided to place another order with the store credit I was provided. I got these 2 clowns. one ORA Premium Black Snowflake, and one ORA Frostbite (both ocellaris)

Acclimated them and put them in earlier today. I was worried I hurt the Black Snowflake when putting him in since he went lightning quick straight into the glass, but clowns are hardy from what i'm told. So far he exclusively chills in the corner, while the frostbite explores a bit. He really doesn't like leaving that corner

 

[shew]

Big Update!

Took advantage of @WWC 's Fragtoberfest, I got a Branching Hammer and a Toadstool Leather. They were so awesome that they threw in a free Spearmint Montiporra Much appreciated, you guys rock. Let's I take good care of these corals.

I'm planning to leave them in the frag plugs at the bottom for a day or two, until they fully open. Then ideally I'll find their perfect home and glue them down. From the pictures it looks like I can just trim them all off at the putty, I don't think any have encrusted over the frag yet. Is that recommended?

Also, here's a clowns being weird clowns video.