THE STRZA’s Waterbox 220 Build !

[THESTRZA]

Hey everyone! Getting excited to start my Waterbox 220 in the coming weeks! The tank is already in place and I’ve been gathering the following equipment:

Tank: Waterbox 220.6
Skimmer: Reef Octopus Regal 200 INT
Lighting: 3 G5 XR15 Pros and 2 G5 XR30s with the RMS mounts
Flow: 4 MP40s
Return Pump: Vectra L2
ATO: Tunze 3155
Heater: Two 300 Watt Eheim Jager
Heater controller: Inkbird controller
Upgraded to 6 stage BRS RODI system
Neptune Apex: EB832
Neptune Trident
Neptune DOS for Auto water changes
Two 55 gallon Brute containers for RODI and Auto water changes
120 pounds of dry rock (plus about 60 from my existing tank)

I hand dose for now, but probably will not be able to keep up at a certain point as I am almost quadrupling my water volume. I plan to explore Kalkwasser or just straight dosing TM all for reef!


I’ll be building a rock scape in the coming week! I will be building from dry rock, but using all of the existing rock in my RedSea 250 to seed bacteria. I will be rinsing the sand pure with tap water and giving it a salt water rinse before entering the new tank. I will also be transferring the current stock from my 250 with my existing coral:

Juvenile Hippo Tang
Two larger clowns
Blue chromis
Watchman goby

I plan on building a 60 gallon frag tank down the road that I plumb into the sump at some point! I’ll add pictures in the next few posts! Thanks for following along!!!

 

[blaxsun]

Best of luck with the new build!

 

[THESTRZA]

Thanks @blaxsun !!

Started the aquascape tonight! Going to be doing an HNSA inspired scape and whatever I think looks cool!

I will definitely more glue and instant set!

More to come! Taking my time and trying to do this right the first time!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Best of luck with figuring out the aquascape to use!

 

[THESTRZA]

Aquascape pretty much complete!! Will be subbing in about 60 pounds of liverock that will be spread through tank (mostly on the right of the scape) to seed this dry rock! I am going to attempt a skip cycle or just a very small one.

Next on the list to do is mortar the structure! I had a ton of fun building the scape!! I wanted it habitat friendly for varying fish, with lots of upper surface area for SPS. I will try to keep some euphyllia lower, but plan on high intensity lighting and some good flow!

 

[Buckyboy]

That scape looks great!

 

[THESTRZA]

That scape looks great!

Thanks!! The build has been paused until I can get an electrician to wire another circuit. I have an ideal situation for this, but of course it is not easy to find someone

The tank is plumbed, I upgraded and refreshed my RODI system, Sand is rinsed (will show some pictures of this process), and the rockscape is in the tank! Excited to get this going!!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Thanks!! The build has been paused until I can get an electrician to wire another circuit. I have an ideal situation for this, but of course it is not easy to find someone

The tank is plumbed, I upgraded and refreshed my RODI system, Sand is rinsed (will show some pictures of this process), and the rockscape is in the tank! Excited to get this going!!

Glad you got the tank plumbed!

 

[THESTRZA]

Electrician coming out on Friday! Super excited to get the tank up and running!!!

 

[THESTRZA]

Here are some pictures!! Awaiting the electrician Friday to make the actual tank transfer and fire up all equipment, but ill be able to safely run two mp40s, heat the water and run my return pump on my current load! Hope to finish filling the tank and sump tonight as my 66 gallon tank goes lights out tonight.

Sand was rinsed clean - will make a post very specific to that process when I am up and running, sand was added after the 100 gallons of water and was totally clear less than 6 hours later.

Will keep you posted!! Exciting times!!

 

[THESTRZA]

Coral and fish have been transfered! Everything went very smoothly!!! Will be cleaning my apex probes tomorrow with citric acid and firing up the lights with a very patient acclimation period as I have drastically upgraded.

Question for those who have transferred a large tank - should i run my protein skimmer from the get go or should I wait a week or two to accumulate some nutrients?

 

[crossroads of sanity]

The scape looks great. I look forward to seeing it stocked. I can’t answer the skimmer question, I don’t use them. I keep a light stocking of fish and inverts, and let the macros in the fuge eat the waste. I have a very low tech approach.

 

[THESTRZA]

Everything going great so far! My hippo tank is hiding under a rock, definitely stressed so I will for sure be keeping an eye on him. He is breathing and his fins are moving. Hope my little guy is okay as I have had him since he was about one inch!

 

[THESTRZA]

 

[THESTRZA]

Sorry for the blue pictures, but my boy is out!! The gang is back together!

 

[THESTRZA]

Has been a few days, but the transfer has been extremely successful!! Added my stock for the time being to the tank:

OG crew - all but the hippo tang at least three years old
Hippo tang - almost two years old
2 clowns
1 green chromis
1 watchman goby

New stock added over the last three days
Two biota yellow tangs - got to my LFS have been there since 8/4
Tiny purple tang
Atlantic Blue tang
Two fairy wrasses
Five pink anthias ( one is mia)

No signs of ich and everyone is getting along great so far! Corals also look great as I still have 23 days to ramp up the radions. Here are some pictures - sorry again for the blue, will update thread with filtered pics soon.

 

[THESTRZA]

Just an update!!

Dinos were strong yesterday, but have seemed to back down completely this evening. I did a manual removal and changed the filter socks and it seems to have helped a lot! Still some in the sand, but i feel like my live rock bacteria is also competing with them. Going to just let thiings play out until this weekend before I do a 10% water change.

All my fish look happy and healthy! They are small, so I am resisting the urge to add a few more friends as things will eventually get crowded with coral and full size fish!

I have lost my orange lens, so pictures are on hold for a bit!

 

[THESTRZA]

Photo dump!! Glass needs another scrape already, so far so good!!

I ordered a lot of acros from WWC’s flash sale - ready to increase the flow as the lights are still in acclimation mode!

 

[THESTRZA]

Not too much to post about, but I did clean up my power cords a bit! Going to add a small hinged door at some point to the front in order to hide everything!

Coral is growing pretty rapidly under the radions - i have like 3 new heads on on my frogspawn and my contraband digitata is taking really taking off. My GMK frag is about to drop two more heads and my OG bounce bubbles are much larger than in the 65 gallon. My alk dropped to about 5 last week after the quick spirt of dinos. Now im in the brown hair algae phase, which the tang gang is anhilating. Slowly but surely getting back the alk back to the 8-8.3 range.

Here some coral pics! Glass needs another scrape!!!

 

[Swackro]

hows it look from the front