Waterbox 7226 Build

[hubble]

Any update on the tank? I'm also looking at this for my next tank.

 

[jblasi]

Hey everyone, sorry about the long absence. I am currently deployed for work so there has not been any pictures posted or updates. My wife have been keeping up with the cycling process and has added a large amount of clean up crew. The major algae blooms have come and gone. I still have another three months to go before I am back. Then the build will continue. I am hoping to have all the fish in the tank and possibly some of the more hardy coral in.

 

[jblasi]

Hello everyone. I’m back home from being out of country for work and have a lot to catch you up one. Unfortunately I have to start out with the news of my Reefer 250 being totally nuked by our children back in June. My 2 children thought it would be nice to help their mother out and feed the tank while my wife had momentarily went upstairs. They each dumped 3/4 of a pellets container into the tank. With them being small pellets it did not take long for them to dissolve. A 50% water change was done immediately along with some other things however thousands of dollars in coral was lost as well as all our fish except for 2 clowns. Many tears were shed! ..... So we are pretty much starting from ground zero.

The tank is pretty much cycled at this time.Most of the equipment from the Reefer has been transferred over to the Waterbox. This includes....
Apex w/ Probes
ATK w/ Reservoir sensor
LDK w/ 2x sensors (One in sump, One in Calcium Reactor area)
Trident
PMK (PAR)
AFS
1x MP 60
2x MP 40
1x MP 10 (in ATO Reservoir)
2x XR30 G4 Pro’s

Still need to purchase....
1x XR30 G4 Pro
GEO CR618 Reactor with accessories
1x MP60 or MP40 (not sure yet, will dependent on flow requirements once we start placing corals).

 

[najer]

Wow, welcome back, sorry you had so much loss of life.

 

[jblasi]

Wow, welcome back, sorry you had so much loss of life.

Thank you. It is good to be back home and playing with the tank. If it wasn’t for already having the peninsula bought and setup, we probably would have left the hobby for a while.

 

[jblasi]

Fish update....
1x yellow tang
1x yellow eye kole tang
1x Orange fin tang
2x clowns
3x purple fire fish
1x pink lyretail anthia

Looking to purchase a few more fish this weekend. Just not quite sure what we are going to get yet. The yellow tang has become quite the bully even though all fish were added at the same time. 200 gallons of water and he seems to think he owns every gallon of it.

 

[jblasi]

Started playing around with the flow today before I start PARing the tank. I was pretty certain even before we purchased our tank that we would not be able to maintain the sleek clean look of the Peninsula for too long, however I gave it my best shot with all the power heads on the overflow side. The tank is just too long for consistent flow all the way across without cranking them all the way up and creating one heck of a fish grinder. So I moved my MP60 to the other side and found the best spot for now. I tried to keep it as clean looking as possible. But but there comes a time when a functional tank trumps ascetics.

It is day 4 of the trident being operational and I can say so far it has been worth it. I have experienced that the tests have been dang near spot on with my Salifert kits. I have been slowly bring my parameters up to where they need to be... we are about there. Looking to possibly drop in a few hardy acros in a few weeks. That will hit the 8 month mark of the tank being established. Will probably search for the upcoming holiday sales for the GEO CAL reactor to finish out the build.

 

[jblasi]

i have a few questions for you Calcium Reactor savy reefers our there. I have been doing a lot of research over the last several months and looking at a lot threads on here but I am still on the fence about one thing in particular. The water input. I know some people use needle valves and some use dosing pumps. I do have a DOS at my disposal that I have entertained installing. However, as I have displayed below, I plumbed out from the return pump into the reactor chamber for a water source.

I am able to control the flow of the water with the valve pictured. But I have read that the flow of water can change pending the amount of ALK being used, is this correct? Would it be wise to install my dosing pump online to meter the water output? I have all my equipment in the cart ready to pull the trigger, I just want to figure out the last piece of this puzzle. As of right now I am purchasing...
GEO CR618 Calcium Reactor
Carbon Doser regulator w/ the check valve
10lb CO2 tank

Any advice or opinion is greatly appreciated. I want to do this right the first time.

 

[jblasi]

The reactor chamber is finally ready and all cable management has been completed for the the time being. Don’t mind the Gatorade bottle. That is the waste for the trident. I should probably change the bottle because it looks just like purple Gatorade.
I have decided to go with a Kamoer peri pump for my Geo reactor. I am going to set it up to pull the water through instead of push it. The plumbing that I originally planned for the CaRx will remain for future addition... possibly a media reactor of some sort.

 

[dragon99]

I think you will be happy with the kamoer on the carx. I might still suggest using the plumbing you have in place to feed the reactor though. I've seen a few people that had problems with the the kamoer pulling water thru the carx. The negative pressure can pull air into the reactor. Using the manifold from your return keeps a little positive pressure in the carx.

Frustrated with my Geo Calcium Reactor

Don’t overthink it. Looks like everyone setting up to push through the reactor is doing just fine with no bubble issues. Thanks for the calming advice @Water Dog. :D

www.reef2reef.com

Frustrated with my Geo Calcium Reactor

Don’t overthink it. Looks like everyone setting up to push through the reactor is doing just fine with no bubble issues. Thanks for the calming advice @Water Dog. :D

www.reef2reef.com

 

[jblasi]

I think you will be happy with the kamoer on the carx. I might still suggest using the plumbing you have in place to feed the reactor though. I've seen a few people that had problems with the the kamoer pulling water thru the carx. The negative pressure can pull air into the reactor. Using the manifold from your return keeps a little positive pressure in the carx.

Frustrated with my Geo Calcium Reactor

Don’t overthink it. Looks like everyone setting up to push through the reactor is doing just fine with no bubble issues. Thanks for the calming advice @Water Dog. :D

www.reef2reef.com

Frustrated with my Geo Calcium Reactor

Don’t overthink it. Looks like everyone setting up to push through the reactor is doing just fine with no bubble issues. Thanks for the calming advice @Water Dog. :D

www.reef2reef.com

I will definitely keep that in mind once all the equipment gets here. It sounds like it will take some time before the reactor gets here. I do have the push fittings that I was going to put in place of the barb fitting. I really appreciate the info and the thread link!

 

[SkiCatTX]

Nice setup, following.

 

[jblasi]

Quick live stock update. The other day we added...
3 Peppermint Shrimp
1 Hippo Tang
4 Anthias (2 different types, couldn’t tell you which ones.)
My wife has seen me spending a lot of time online looking at a lot of the Acro’s we had before the big incident. I had a few in the cart and she proceeded to tell me some of our very high end pieces were relocated to our friends tank briefly before it had happened (to include my RRC Angry Birds colony). Thank goodness for preemptive thinking on her end when she was experiencing some inconsistencies in the last tank. Heading over there this weekend to pick up all our pieces and bring them home. It’s always a little nerve racking putting coral into a new tank. Even though the parameters have been super consistent for a few weeks now.
Tank has been PAR’ed and light intensity adjusted. Top shelf’s sitting between 280-300 and the floor sitting between 60-200. Perfect for my Monti obsession. I’ll snap some pictures once all the coral is in place.

 

[jblasi]

nothing more relaxing then sitting on a Saturday morning day off, drinking a cup of coffee, watching the lights come on and the fish come alive.

 

[jblasi]

Small coral update. We finally have the few frags back in our tank that were saved by a friend of ours after the big crash. Unfortunately they are still coloring up so bare with me. Also, we have added a couple new pieces. Everything is looking very happy and healthy! I will take much better pictures with flow off once the few dull pieces fully regain their color.
TSA Spyro the Dragon

CC Voodoo Majick

TSA Optimus Prime

Pink/Purple Milli

He didn’t know what the last one was. It was a colony that was given to him because it was almost dead. He brought it back and my wife loves milli’s so he cut me a piece.

The parameters are holding very steady! The Trident has been running for almost a month now and I would say it is worth every penny! It’s very nice to not test every morning and evening. I still manually test once a week to make sure everything is where it needs to be.
Next post will be the installation of the Calcium reactor and all the components. I should be receiving everything any day now.

 

[jblasi]

Merry Fish-mas to all! Christmas arrived a little early.

Everything installed and will be running for a few days to purge all the air bubbles. I will work on cleaning up all the wires and maybe do so hose length adjustments once I figure out exactly how I want them to route.

 

[jblasi]

Slowly dropping down the PH in the reactor to what that tank likes for stability. Things are really starting to come along. During the pre-planning of this tank I was considering the Klir filters that drop directly into the filter sock holes, but I had seen consistent bad reviews on them for functionality so I decided against it. Now, 9 months in to the tank being fully functional. I am so tired of the socks and floss that I have been changing every couple of days. I looked back into the KLIR’S and it seems their design has drastically improved. Talking to some reefers on here that have used them for some time testified that the design is much better then when they were originally introduced to the hobby. I pulled the trigger on 2 of them and I would say so far they are working out awesome!

 

[Fishyjoey]

Very nice tank, thanks for sharing.

 

[dragon99]

Looks like the Klir was an easy drop in install? I'm interested to hear how you like them after a few weeks and how much fleece is used.

 

[jblasi]

Looks like the Klir was an easy drop in install? I'm interested to hear how you like them after a few weeks and how much fleece is used.

Yes, they were very easy to just drop in and remove. 3 days in and i have actually been impressed with how they have function in regards to the past issues. I will definitely give a status update in a few weeks on how they are working out.