WaterBox 20 Cube

[Nway93]

Was in the hobby maybe 10yrs ago and always had tanks in the house growing up. Finally got to a point where I thought I could handle a tank again a started gathering equipment.

Lighting: None at the moment, plan is for a XR15 once it's ready for coral
Flow: Sicce 0.5 return and Mp10 set to 100% reef crest at the moment
Heater: 2 50w Ehiem Jaeger
Filtration: Just filter pads and carbon when needed. Hopefully can avoid a skimmer
Top Off: Tunze Osmolator 3155

Had enough ro/di water made yesterday to start mixing salt and made up a whole small box of Tropic Marin Pro. Filled the tank this morning and got the cycle going with the Brightwell dry rock kit. Going to follow the BRS/WWC cycle and go barebottom as the last tank I had long ago was. Plan is for SPS in the top 2/3 and some acans and zoas on the bottom. Fish wise planning on a Tailspot Blenny, Cryptic Sixline, and maybe a Firefish of somesort.

Here's a quick iPhone FTS, there's probably 12-15lbs of rock held together with just superglue.

 

[Peach02]

Sounds like it is gonna be awsome, following along

 

[js_marra]

I like. Could likely avoid a skimmer if you do consistent water changes and keep the filter media fresh

 

[Tv79]

You can run it with no skimmer if your doing mostly corals. Run Carbon every couple of weeks to get the coral and other chemical waste out

 

[Nway93]

So the tanks been running for 14 days and not a whole lot is going on with the cycle. Tested the water when I got home from work and ammonia is at 1.2 and 0.1 nitrite.

Its been pretty much the same since day 3 except the nitrite came up a little. Had a big bacterial bloom after I added the Microbacter XLM that cleared up within a day. Not sure if I should try another bacteria product but will let it ride for another week.

This is the first tank I've started with 100% dry rock and in the past if I used fresher live rock it was cycled by now. Not in a rush but kind of in uncharted territory personally and would like to get some pods in there well before adding any fish.

 

[2Sunny]

Do you have access to a friend's healthy reef from which to get water? Water from an existing reef can dramatically speed up the process. Otherwise have you seen Danny's Aquarium videos on YouTube? He does a 10 gallon perfectly and shows his timeline for success in the comments. I also like the second video as an excellent example of what can be done in a 20.

 

[Nway93]

Do you have access to a friend's healthy reef from which to get water? Water from an existing reef can dramatically speed up the process. Otherwise have you seen Danny's Aquarium videos on YouTube? He does a 10 gallon perfectly and shows his timeline for success in the comments. I also like the second video as an excellent example of what can be done in a 20.

Not close by. I have a couple buddies I'll get frags from when the time comes that are 2-3hrs away.

 

[Bosreef]

Do you have access to a friend's healthy reef from which to get water? Water from an existing reef can dramatically speed up the process.

This is not true water carries very little bacteria, you want some sand or preferably rock.

 

[2Sunny]

This is not true water carries very little bacteria, you want some sand or preferably rock.

Adding biologically active water speeds up the process. Yes, live rock would be better, but in terms of accelerating the process having water that comes from a healthy reef tank is helpful. I have been doing this for 2 decades. I think I know something about reefkeeping . . .

My reef 2011

My reef 2017

My 2.5 Pico I set up 2 weeks ago using water from my reef, bagged live sand and a piece of live rock from KPAquatics. I've been doing water changes using water from my reef and have had no cycle whatsoever.

 

[Nway93]

Figured I'd give a quick update, cycle has been slowly moving along. Down to 0.2ppm today. I'd think within the next week it'll be good to go.

Thanks @2Sunny for the links and info that's a good looking tank. However I'm not shooting for a "instant tank" full of softies and lps. I'd be perfectly fine with no corals for the next year just want a fish to look at as rocks are pretty boring lol.

 

[js_marra]

Figured I'd give a quick update, cycle has been slowly moving along. Down to 0.2ppm today. I'd think within the next week it'll be good to go.

For your cycle, I saw you are using Microbacter XLM. Have you used anything else? Reason I ask is I see your have dry rock, and no live sand to start. I think it would be really beneficial to add other bottled bacteria or better yet, to add bio media from a friend or LFS' established tanks. Given you are starting with basically a sterile system, a bunch of different bacteria is really needed to have success in the long run. Just a thought. Love the build so far!

 

[Nway93]

The bottle says not to add any other bacteria til its cycled. But I do plan do regularly dose microbacter clean and dump in some dr tims one and only once its cycled. After 6 months or so I'll dose microbater 7 as brightwell reccomends.

 

[Nway93]

Ammonia was down to zero last Sunday and nitrates through the roof. Did a roughly 8gal water change with what was left from initially mixing up water. Tested again today and 0 Ammonia, 0.0-0.05 Nitrite, and 10 ppm Nitrate.

Going to order some pods from algae barn and begin weekly 10% water changes. Tried to find some Dr. Tim's locally but no one had any, with it being in the 90's pretty much everyday figured i'd be throwing money away to order it. Did start adding Microbacter Clean as per the instructions on the bottle.

 

[Nway93]

Well guess it wouldn't be reefing without set backs...

Started to get a light dusting of diatoms last week and went to pick up some snails. LFS had a tiny little sixline a little bigger than my thumbnail. Left with 3 trochus snails and the sixline. Pretty sure the sixline had internal parasites of some sort as all was good for 3 days but it had white stringy poops. It disappeared Monday and Tuesday morning it was stuck to my vortech slightly decomposed.

Probably too much livestock all at once and the ammonia spiked to 1.2ppm when I tested this past Wednesday. The snails seemed fine so I didn't do a huge water change and wanted to let this play out as obviously the bacteria population isn't where it needs to be. I got a 4oz bottle of fritz turbo start and added that Thursday. Ammonia and Nitrites are back down to zero and Nitrates are off the charts. Going to do a big water change today to get nitrates down and not add anything except maybe some more pods for at least 2 weeks.

Going to look into skimmers as well as I think I'm going to need one down the road. Leaning towards the icecap k1 and even if it does draw out too much for $100 if I have to take if offline it won't break the bank.

 

[RipleysReef]

Sorry to hear about your setback, Skimmers are always a great investment for waste removal that our mechanical media doesn’t remove.

 

[Nway93]

Things are getting back on track.

Got the nutrient spike under control, I think it had a lot to do with lack of bacteria diversity. For the past 2 weeks I dosed Microbacter 7 following the instructions on the bottle and ghost fed a bit of frozen food every other day or so. Used the quickstart I had from the initial cycle to make sure the tank could process 2ppm in 24hrs. All was good with that.

Picked up a trio of Springeri Damsels on Thursday that will hopefully keep coral pests in check down the road and should be all the fish I add.

Next on the list of things to do is find a clean source of coralline to seed the tank and get a light. Going back and forth on the Radion and just throwing a 250w halide over the tank but I think the heat and electricity might not be worth it with the halide.

 

[Nway93]

Tank has been on cruise control for the past 4 months, just weekley water changes and dosing MB7. Kept putting off getting a light and finally caved and picked up a G5 xr15 pro last week from BRS. I work a little over half an hour from Top Shelf and WWC so plan is to shoot over there next week one day after work and get a couple tester pieces. Need to find a skimmer that fits around the Radion mount aswell.

 

[Nway93]

Made a run to Worldwide and Top Shelf Sunday evening and picked up a few corals.

A couple Acans from WWC

And a Red Planet frag from TSA

Need to play around with my Iphone as these are pretty crappy pics. Atleast need a filter as the tank is far from that blue. Going to give it a month or so to see how the Red Planet does then add a few more "easy" acros. Also added some coralline scapings out of one of the displays at WWC that I'm hoping takes off.

 

[Nway93]

Have some coralline popping up on the rocks. Got somewhat of a ugly phase going on with a hair algae outbreak. I think over feeding played into it as phostphates got a bit high at .25ppm. Have been doing 10% water changes every 3 days for the past week and a half, turned down the lights, cut back ffeding to every 3 dyas instead of daily, and added some trochus snails today. They've put a decent dent in the algae for the short time I've had them so hopefully it will play out in a week or two.

 

[Nway93]

Well got through the hair algae outbreak but introduced ulva (sea lettuce) on a frag plug while letting a garf bonsai frag aclimate to the light before breaking it off. Didn't notice it til I broke the frag off but its now pretty well covered the higer light areas. Got an urchin last night that has ate some but also came home to quite the dino bloom.

Have been contemplating getting some KP aquatics rock and sort of do a reboot after the sea lettuce incident. We'll see how the next few weeks play out as PO4 is .05 and nitrates are undetecable on the redsea kit. But cooking some live rock for a month or two then draining the tank and "restarting" looks to be where my plan is.