Waterbox 20 Build

[MikeDesjean]

Hey all,

So yesterday I was able to grab a WB 20 with AI Prime for 175$. thought it was a good deal, just needed some elbow grease to deep clean. Tank was empty when i bought it but the back sections were covered in vermitted snails. so with some bleach water and tooth brush i got everything off. It came with a 2 chamber media chamber for first bay that looked the same but its all cleaned now.

I am making a build thread as i want some advice. I have one WB20 already, it was bought as a new set up from LFS so I am running what it came with filtration wise besides converting to floss instead of sock.
- Floss
- Sponge
- Carbon
- WB Bio Balls

With the new tank i just picked up I want to transfer my smaller 10G tank with Tidal 35 into the WB20. The 10G is fairly new only running for about 2-3 months and only has 2 smaller clowns in it. The WB20 will go where the 10G is now so I can not let the 10G run while I cycle the 20G.

So I wanted to get some advice before I go through with the swap. My plan was to take everything out of 10g and place in buckets, take the sand out which has only been in tank for 1.5 months as the tank started bare bottom and use that as well as half a new bag of fiji pink in the 20g when it is moved into place. I would then fill the tank with all of the water from the 10g and all the rock.

For filtration I will run floss in the media basket with carbon under it. in the middle chamber I will add ceramic rings and add all the bio media from the tidal 35 that was running in the 10g tank. to be safe I will add a bottle of turbo start as well.

If anyone has some suggestions that would be helpful!
Thanks!

 

[tbrown]

Can you take half of the 10 gallon water out and relocate it temporarily? That would mean not taking the sand out yet though, I guess. I would say put the clowns, rock, corals in a temporary holding bin (bucket or tub or small tank), remove the sand and add it to the 20G along with remaining water from the 10G, let the water settle, and then add the rocks and livestock after no ammonia spike after a couple of days. I'd consider adding some beneficial bacteria when you fill the 20G too, just in case.

I'm getting ready to do this same thing from my 75 to a 125 but I don't have to tear down the 75 so I'm going to play the game super slow - possibly for 6 months or so.

 

[MikeDesjean]

Yea I am going to do something similar to that.

Going to put fish/coral/rock into a bucket and along with all the water. Ditch the sand and use the new bag I have. Once the sand and some water settle out I will add the rock and fish and the rest of the water from the tank plus new heated salt water.

I bought a new sicce 1.5 from my LFS and he told me I should use my Tidal 35 from the 10 g to hang on side of WB for a few to allow new ceramic rings to pick up some beneficial bacteria.

if I can get some turbo start today I will use that too but my LFS dosnt carry it I have to go to a diff store a little further away. But he was confident that the rock and tidal hob from the 10g I am moving over should work fine

 

[tbrown]

Reusing the sand is a great idea since it has a significant amount of your beneficial bacteria. If you're ditching it I'd say relocate the 10G temporarily if you can. Take half of the water for the 20G and leave everything in the 10G until there's no ammonia/nitrite showing in the 20G. You're going to need 3-5 gallons of it for the bucket anyway and the rock has all of your bacteria (if you toss the sand) so you'll need to reestablish that in the 20G before you put the fish and any corals in so it might mean having the fish and stuff in a bucket for a week or so.