Waterbox 20 Cube AIO - SPS Dominant; Auto Water Changes

[firedancer414]

Had to tear down my JBJ 8 Gallon about 2 years ago when I moved states. Really sad it was just starting to get rolling! But taking what I learned with that and going for an SPS dominant tank.

My goal is to keep maintenance to a minimum, e.g.: feeding (fish + corals, that's fun), cleaning the glass, mixing water once a month.

Got an order out for ...

• Tank: 20 gallon Waterbox AIO 17.7" length x 14.6" depth x 15.7" height Display
  • Light: Kessil A360X Tuna Blue. Love the look and simplicity. If I mount ~6" above water line, should give me ~130 PAR at the bottom of the tank (12" depth) and 170-260 at the top (6" depth) (BRS). Might be able to mount 4"-5" above water line to get PAR up to ~350 - in their testing video they were using a 24" cube so they needed a wider spread.
  • Flow: MP10. Can't resist these for how easy they are to clean. Might get a second one at some point depending on if there's dead spots
• Water
  • Salt. Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt.
  • Water. BRS 6 stage deluxe plus 200 GBD water saver RO/DI.
  • Auto Water Changes. Neptune Apex + DOS. 2x 45 gallon Brute trash cans in my closet.
    • 2x Sicce Voyager Nano 2000s for mixing salt water
  • Dosing. Not clear if will be necessary if doing ~50% auto water changes per week. If they are, hoping to sneak by with 1 part (All For Reef) or 2 part.
• Filtration
  • Skimmer: None - such a pain to clean
  • Biological: Bioballs in sump
  • Sand: Caribsea Special Grade Arag-Alive (ordered 20 lbs, not sure will use it all). Had Fiji Pink last time, trying Special Grade this time.
    • Briefly thought about bare bottom although I am hoping to have a shrimp/goby pair my kids will love it. If I ever choose - the aquascape can be completely removed in the future and I could hypothetically siphon out all the sand. This is a much better way to do barebottom, anyway.
  • Rock: Caribsea LifeRock Nano Reef Kit (~16 lbs). Love the purple rocks.
  • Carbon: 2 tbsp BRS ROX 0.8 Carbon in Sump

Aquascape. First package to arrive was the rock. Been watching the BRS videos on aquascaping. Shooting for a max height of 7-8" (relative to 16" display height) for lots of room to grow. Have two islands that will likely be a combinations of zoas + maybe a euphilia. Lots of caves for livestock. Using a sawzall to make the bottoms of the rocks relatively flat so they sit better. Lip of the cardboard is sand level.

Hope to be wet and cycling this weekend!

 

[firedancer414]

AquaStik came today so started aquascaping!

Ended up with one big arch + 3 islands (likely 2 for zoas and 1 for euphilia). It's about 7" tall so lots of room to grow for the sticks. Cardboard lip is ~1.5" and about the sand level I'm going for.

My LFS seems pretty great (I moved states and haven't seen what it was like until this week) - they stock Caribsea liferock so might pick up one more piece to create another overhang. Try to cover up the AquaStik with some rubble too. Salt arrived and should be able to start cycling / get wet on Friday.

 

[firedancer414]

Time to get wet !!

Re aquascape, I think I achieved the goals I set out:

• Lots of space for growth - less than half the height of the tank
• Lots of negative space, caves, hiding places to keep pretty well stocked with fish + cool cantilevers
• Lots of real estate for acros
• Separate islands for zoas and euphilia
• Reasonable job of hiding the epoxy
• Very stable - the pieces can all be removed from the tank if I need to move/clean it. All of the pieces are balanced and won't fall over/tip/pivot
• 1.5" of clearance for all walls for better cleaning + flow

Brian

Aquascape in the box!

youtube.com

 

[firedancer414]

Wet + cycling

 

[firedancer414]

Wet and fish cycle

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Doing a fish cycle with an ammonia alert for testing. Keeping lights off, very sparse feeding for a few days, etc. Will set the auto water changes later this week.

Got the Apex setup, loving the new liquid level sensors from Neptune. Hope to snag 3 more for ATO and mixing station

Have a small fan setup to control heat and the Neptune Pump as an ATO

Really happy with how things are turning out !

 

[diabolical_clownfish]

Following. Looks great!

 

[firedancer414]

Following. Looks great!

my daughter has named the fish Nancy and fancy

 

[diabolical_clownfish]

How are you mounting the new Liquid Level Sensor? BRS just says "mounting clip included" but no details. Is it like a hanging clip or a magnetic one?

 

[firedancer414]

How are you mounting the new Liquid Level Sensor? BRS just says "mounting clip included" but no details. Is it like a hanging clip or a magnetic one?

Liquid level sensor

youtube.com

It’s a hanging clip really easy to use.

Made my first dangerous mistake today - almost set up an inverse siphon to my ATO and drained my tank before I remembered that you don’t put the tube in the water of the tank! Took me a minute to figure out why my pump was working really hard.

 

[diabolical_clownfish]

Liquid level sensor

youtube.com

It’s a hanging clip really easy to use.

Made my first dangerous mistake today - almost set up an inverse siphon to my ATO and drained my tank before I remembered that you don’t put the tube in the water of the tank! Took me a minute to figure out why my pump was working really hard.

Thanks Brian!

 

[firedancer414]

3 days into the cycle and still waiting for ammonia and nitrate to show maybe I’m not feeding the clowns enough

 

[firedancer414]

Nitrate finally started to show at detectable levels. Took out the ammonia alert and have added a little more stock

• Blood shrimp
• Firefish
• Bandai cardinal
• Helfrichi firefish
• Royal gramma

Unclear if you can keep multiple dart fish but will give a shot

it’s been really great having the tank on my desk. I feed a few times a day and get to be really engaged with it.

Will probably wait until nitrate is around 5 before setting up the auto water changes.

I seeded EcoPods from AlgaeBarn and some from my LFS to get those going.

Also seeded some of the new coralline algae - that will be my main indicator for when I’m ready to add corals

Will add cleanup crew when I start to get algae/uglies

thanks for reading ! Brian

Tank, fishies

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[firedancer414]

If I got lucky and somehow got these Firefish to pair I would be so happy

Firefish

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[firedancer414]

Watching the nitrate slowly tick up - it was 2.7 60 hours after the 1.2 reading. Really happy with how the first month of the tank has gone. All fish are eating and happy.

It’s becoming really clear to me that so many of my past issues have been related to not feeding enough. I attempted to do Triton for my first tank with a pretty good refugium (H380 powered for a 40 gallon). The tank was generally limping along when I realized that the phosphate and nitrate were at completely undetectable levels. I’ve been feeding this tank 3 times a day looks like adding ~0.6 PPM nitrate / day which the auto water changes should be able to manage pretty easily.

 

[firedancer414]

Red firefish murdered the helfrichi firefish so learned a lesson there

Nitrate hit 6 today - the curve kinked because I added a filter sock that I'm rinsing twice a week. Not sure if I'm going to keep it. Over long term I'll be targeting ~5ppm. Will do a water change soon, I'm waiting on an aquabus extension cord from Neptune to set up the DOS.

Keeping the tank exclusively under blues at around 15% so haven't seen any sign of algae / uglies yet. This is by design to let the bacteria establish. Following the 3 month cycle (blue light / LPS light / SPS light) that BRS uses.

 

[officialreefbros]

Awesome! How did you set up your auto WC? Do you have any issues with anything precipitating from the salt?

 

[firedancer414]

Awesome! How did you set up your auto WC? Do you have any issues with anything precipitating from the salt?

I actually haven't done a single water change (3 weeks into the cycle) and haven't set up the auto water changes yet. I've been waiting 1) for nitrates to get up into the 5-10 ppm / range and I just hit 6, and 2) for some extra equipment (a longer aquabus cable for the Apex).

My tank is on my desk next to a walk in closet that has 2 44 Gallon brute trash cans in it, a Neptune DOS, and 2 new 36 inch liquid level sensors. I was planning on using one tank for new salt water, and the other for waste water. I have a Sicce Ultra Zero pump, and every 1.5 months I need to pump the contents out into the same bathroom shower. Eventually, if I'm in try hard mode, I could route the waste water under a bathroom sink that's maybe 20 ft away, but not sure if I really want to do drywall work.

Effect of Water Changes Calculator

Aquarium calculator; Estimate the effect of repeated water changes on the concentration of a given substance.

www.hamzasreef.com

My nitrates have been going up ~0.5ppm per day. Based on the hamzas calculator, looks like to maintain 5ppm nitrates if it's going up 0.5ppm / day, I need to change out 7.4 gallons / week (37% weekly water changes). So hopefully I need to just mix water ~once every 1.5 months.

For salt, in the initial setup I used Brightwell salt - great salt, runs alk at 7.5 dKH which is perfect, and my LFS had it (so I could get my tank cycling. Over the long term I was planning on using Tropic Marin (also in the 7.5 dKH range), and from what I've seen on BRS should have the least precipitation + gunk.

 

[officialreefbros]

I actually haven't done a single water change (3 weeks into the cycle) and haven't set up the auto water changes yet. I've been waiting 1) for nitrates to get up into the 5-10 ppm / range and I just hit 6, and 2) for some extra equipment (a longer aquabus cable for the Apex).

My tank is on my desk next to a walk in closet that has 2 44 Gallon brute trash cans in it, a Neptune DOS, and 2 new 36 inch liquid level sensors. I was planning on using one tank for new salt water, and the other for waste water. I have a Sicce Ultra Zero pump, and every 1.5 months I need to pump the contents out into the same bathroom shower. Eventually, if I'm in try hard mode, I could route the waste water under a bathroom sink that's maybe 20 ft away, but not sure if I really want to do drywall work.

Effect of Water Changes Calculator

Aquarium calculator; Estimate the effect of repeated water changes on the concentration of a given substance.

www.hamzasreef.com

My nitrates have been going up ~0.5ppm per day. Based on the hamzas calculator, looks like to maintain 5ppm nitrates if it's going up 0.5ppm / day, I need to change out 7.4 gallons / week (37% weekly water changes). So hopefully I need to just mix water ~once every 1.5 months.

For salt, in the initial setup I used Brightwell salt - great salt, runs alk at 7.5 dKH which is perfect, and my LFS had it (so I could get my tank cycling. Over the long term I was planning on using Tropic Marin (also in the 7.5 dKH range), and from what I've seen on BRS should have the least precipitation + gunk.

Awesome, that looks so cool. I can't wait to see it set up. I'm taking notes because I've been looking into automating small water changes like that, but haven't had a chance. What type of stocking are you planning?

 

[firedancer414]

Feeding time

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One month in and Nitrates hit 8 ppm and started to see diatoms so did my first water change about 60% (manually). Will confirm should be 4 ppm today. Checked the tank this morning and didn’t realize one of the clowns had gone missing. I had the top off for a while cleaning the glass / sand and worried it had jumped and I didn’t notice. Couldn’t find it anywhere on the carpet though. Cleaned filter sock and checked sump, still nothing. Finally removed the bio balls from the sump and find her there lol. What a dope

 

[firedancer414]

Awesome, that looks so cool. I can't wait to see it set up. I'm taking notes because I've been looking into automating small water changes like that, but haven't had a chance. What type of stocking are you planning?

Thanks ! Auto water changes are really great for me I try to minimize maintenance. Roughly try to keep it on a once/month cadence, except for feeding which is fun.

Stock - so I have a pair of clowns, firefish, royal gramma, and a cardinal (5). I will definitely add a diamond watchman goby and a midas blenny. Maybe a tailspot blenny, maybe some small wrasse. Waiting for the tank to mature and have more algae before adding sand sifters/algae eaters.