Waterbox 35.2

[Zwerispetras]

Hi everyone, my name is Pedro and I am new here, I thought why not to introduce myself and show you my new little project.

I have been keeping small tanks for about 8 years with a 2 year hiatus, I never owned a tank bigger than 120 litres.

I moved out recently from the Netherlands to Germany and that was the perfect excuse to upgrade from my waterbox cube 20 to a slightly bigger 35.2. I decided to frag the majority of my corals from my previous tank and was able to sell them in the Netherlands.

I did this in order to mitigate any losses during transport which unfortunately happened, my acros unfortunately rtn’d and some lps are still recovering.

I’m hoping everything else will pull through and hopefully having a beautiful mixed reef soon.

This is the aquascape, I confess it is fun but also a frustrating chapter, I can’t seem to get reef cement to work for me so I decided to use some 2 part epoxy ( I ran out of grey and had to finish the job with purple) doesn’t look great, hopefully coraline will cover the whole thing soon

This is how it’s looking inside the tank

I will be adding flow and lighting tomorrow and if I have time set up the ATO and the Apex controller.

Equipment:

- Light: Actually I am still divided into using my radion xr15 or a Chinese light popbloom rl180 that I bought for another project.
- Flow: Jebao dmp 30
- Skimmer: Red starfish skimmer, I will use it mostly for oxygenation and to help me keeping the ph where I want it, it will be connected to a co2 scrubber.
- Return pump: jebao dc pump 1200l/h but after setting it up I realised it would be better to have a little bit more turnover, I’ll probably get a 2000l/h (530 gallon per hour)
- Aqua medic reactor s for carbon or other chemical filtration media when and if needed
- Kamoer ato
- hob refugium with chaeto
- Milwaukee ph controller to be set up for dosing kalkwasser during a 12 hr cycle every evening
- chihiros doser for 3 part for when the kalk can’t keep up with kh/cal consumption ( I don’t expect this to happen soon)
- Apex Jr a3 controller

I am considering using live rock or ceramic balls from my previous tank to speed up the cycle but I really don’t want to introduce any hitchhikers into my new tank, what’s the best way to cure the rock and how long does it take for all non photosynthetic to die?

I would really appreciate if any of you could share your experience with me.

I will be posting more updates as soon as possible.

 

[Tahoe61]

Lovely scape. Hard choice on the light, personally I would try Radion first. I do like Popbloom though.
Just cycle your live rock or dry in a tote or other container for 3 weeks. Heater, flow, bacteria in a bottle and Ammonium Chloride for dry rock.
Or get Tampa Bay live rock and or sand.

 

[Zwerispetras]

Lovely scape. Hard choice on the light, personally I would try Radion first. I do like Popbloom though.
Just cycle your live rock or dry in a tote or other container for 3 weeks. Heater, flow, bacteria in a bottle and Ammonium Chloride for dry rock.
Or get Tampa Bay live rock and or sand.

Thanks, appreciate the feedback, I will prepare the container, I have some bacteria but also live rock and ceramic media that I can use to seed the dry rock. Do you have experience with the popbloom? I know is quite capable in terms of par I am just not sure about the spectrum and if the corals will look good under it.

 

[Tahoe61]

This is a Reef Casa 6 gallon Pico that ran a Popbloom RL90.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Love the aquascape!

 

[Zwerispetras]

This is a Reef Casa 6 gallon Pico that ran a Popbloom RL90.

Beautiful Clams!

 

[Zwerispetras]

Love the aquascape!

Thank you!

 

[Zwerispetras]

Popbloom rl 180 and Jebao Dmp 30 are both installed. The Dmp is working on 30% and still moving some sand in the front left corner as you can see, the popbloom seems powerful too, came with the shade which definitely helps a lot with the light spill, the light is mounted roughly 24 cm from the water (9 inches). I’m curious to see how corals look under the light.

Today I will do a big water change, set up the apex jr, the skimmer and depending on the parameters add the first inhabitant.

 

[scarbay13]

Love your scape! I just started a 35.2 myself excited to see how they turn out

 

[Zwerispetras]

Love your scape! I just started a 35.2 myself excited to see how they turn out

Thank you, cool, is it your first tank? I will upload some photos of my progress soon, it’s been 3 months now and so far has been the smoothest maturing of any tank Ive ever had. I think due to the fact I used cycled media from my previous tank and started dosing phyto and zooplankton from day one. I also dosed, or rather overdosed, some different types of nitrifying bacteria from different brands and that caused a minor bacterial bloom.

 

[pythpyth]

Nice tank man! Fellow dutchman here! I just started a 35.2, my old tank failed. So wanted to do it right now. I only got a 1000 liter return pump on it, I couldnt fit anything larger in the outflow nozzle? What did you do for this? I would love to have a higher turnover as well. I am starting with Modern reef biodiversity, biobac, nitribac and ammomix, as well with AF life source as a starter. Started with macro rock and caribsea live sand.

 

[Zwerispetras]

Nice tank man! Fellow dutchman here! I just started a 35.2, my old tank failed. So wanted to do it right now. I only got a 1000 liter return pump on it, I couldnt fit anything larger in the outflow nozzle? What did you do for this? I would love to have a higher turnover as well. I am starting with Modern reef biodiversity, biobac, nitribac and ammomix, as well with AF life source as a starter. Started with macro rock and caribsea live sand.

Hey cool tank man, I am originally not Dutch but it was my home for a long time, I can’t point you out to some stuff I used that can speed up the cycle and mature the tank way faster, I am not a veteran reef hobbyist but I have been doing it for some years I am now using a 2000 l/h pump but I also replaced the original nozzle from the aquarium and it makes a huge difference both in the water flow but also improved so much the circulation on the rear sump which is great to avoid detritus accumulation on the back. I also used modern reef biodiversity, I used also aqua forest bio s for the bacteria. It would help you to start adding live copepods and live phytoplankton from colombo as an example. Something that will be very handy, specially when you start adding fish is the easy-life water conditioner, you can add it as soon as you see any ammonia spike or stressed fish. For now I would try not to clog the rear sump with too much stuff, like filter media or bioballs, I would somehow hang the media instead of just dropping it on the back compartment.

 

[pythpyth]

Thank you! With what did you replace it? Would love to now. I do got some bioballs in a bag. I would love to get the flow right. I still got a jebao DXP 1500, which would be an improvement. And indeed the difference would be massive for sure. Again please let me know what you are using at the moment :)

Edit: just got the bag higher in the compartment

Hey cool tank man, I am originally not Dutch but it was my home for a long time, I can’t point you out to some stuff I used that can speed up the cycle and mature the tank way faster, I am not a veteran reef hobbyist but I have been doing it for some years I am now using a 2000 l/h pump but I also replaced the original nozzle from the aquarium and it makes a huge difference both in the water flow but also improved so much the circulation on the rear sump which is great to avoid detritus accumulation on the back. I also used modern reef biodiversity, I used also aqua forest bio s for the bacteria. It would help you to start adding live copepods and live phytoplankton from colombo as an example. Something that will be very handy, specially when you start adding fish is the easy-life water conditioner, you can add it as soon as you see any ammonia spike or stressed fish. For now I would try not to clog the rear sump with too much stuff, like filter media or bioballs, I would somehow hang the media instead of just dropping it on the back compartment.

 

[Zwerispetras]

I got a D-D pump 2000l/h, very similar to the jebao dc pumps, which are great and very affordable.
Then I found a shop on etsy that sells a variety of products for reef tanks, mostly 3d printed and got a double random flow nozle which is bigger and allows me to direct the flow to dead spots, the shop is called 3D Reefstore, they send to Holland too, please message the shop if you don’t find the product on their list they are very helpful and their costumer service is great. I don’t use mechanical filtration, except when I do a water changes and place some filterwool for a couple of hours on the filter sock compartment to get all the detritus or algae on the water column, then I remove it and just throw it away, so much easier and cleaner than filter socks also so much better to keep your nitrates and phosphate under control. I stopped using carbon 24/7, now I place a bag on one of the back compartments if I see the water getting tinted or if I suspect some chemical warfare going on with the corals, I leave it for a couple of days.
To avoid problems with cyano during the cycle you can dose your bacteria with some calcium carbonate (flocculant) like coral snow or AF build, the phytoplankton and copepods will also help.
These steps will help you cycle the tank faster and luckily mitigate the ugly phase. I didn’t cycle with ammomix because I used live media from my previous tank and don’t have any experience with using ammonia to cycle but you should be careful and follow the product instructions. Hopefully in a couple of weeks you’ll have measurable nitrates.
please keep updating your progress so we can share some experiences, after a month I introduced fish, and last week Corals, the tank is now 3 months in and I struggling with stabilising the nutrients and Alkalinity, my skimmer is skimming so good I have to dose nitrates everyday to avoid dinos . Good luck there Ill try to be more active and post more updates.