Waterbox 85.3 Build

[Concord Reefer]

Starting a build thread to document the build of a Waterbox 85.3 frag. I have been out of this hobby for over a decade and have been researching a new tank for over six months, settled in on the 85.3, as it seemed to be of a size that would be manageable for maintenance and fit in the home office where I have been working during the pandemic and with the shift is corporate thinking will be working for the foreseeable future. Tank will be delivered on Monday 12/28/2020, and the rest of the equipment is rolling in slowly.

Equipment specs as follows:

Tank - Waterbox 85.3 Frag
Lighting - 2x Radion xr15 Blues Gen5
Flow Pumps - 2x Ecotech Vortech MP10's w/battery back up
Return Pump - Vectra S2
Skimmer - Reef Octopus 110ext with Sicce Syncra Silent 1.0 feed pump
Bio Pellet Reactor - Reef Octopus BR-70 with Sicce Syncra Silent 1.5 feed pump
Heater - BRS controller with Finnex 300W element
Dosing pumps - I will most probably keep with Ecotech and use the versa when the time comes to dose

Rock and substrate:

Rock - Marco Rock - 25 lbs Reef saver, 20 lbs foundation, 25 lbs shelf
Sand - Caribsea special grade 40 lbs - dry
Bio - 6x BioBlock 2.0"

Water and Salt:

Water - 4 stage RO/DI - Sediment (1 Micron), Carbon block (1 Micron), RO membrane (75 GPD), DI mixed bed.
Salt - TM Syn-Biotic Sea Salt

I plan to fishless cycle with Brightwell Aquatics XLM then move to the Clean for the "ugly" stage.

Well that is my start while I wait patiently for the equipment to arrive and start this journey after a long time away from the hobby.

 

[SurfTrack]

You seem very on top of that, all very good equipment. Looking forward to seeing some pics

 

[Concord Reefer]

You seem very on top of that, all very good equipment. Looking forward to seeing some pics

Thanks - hopefully this will all come together and the parts and pieces will work together for a good reefing experience, not naive to think there won't be issues, just hoping to get off on the right fin - I will post pics as I progress on this journey.

 

[Concord Reefer]

Tank arrived Monday afternoon - stand is built and leveled. Most of the equipment is in place, still waiting on stuff from BRS and the Marco Rock - rest should arrive Tuesday and then I can finish placing equipment and get after routing the wiring etc. Hopefully can get that done in the evenings next week, then start on the Scape.

Happy New Year Y'all!

 

[YNRA]

Hey there, I'm considering getting a waterbox as well! What made you go with the Frag vs the Marine X 90.3.. they seem pretty close in sizes ? Additionally I'm located in Charlotte too, near Uptown. Definitely following the thread, good luck!

 

[Concord Reefer]

Hey there, I'm considering getting a waterbox as well! What made you go with the Frag vs the Marine X 90.3.. they seem pretty close in sizes ? Additionally I'm located in Charlotte too, near Uptown. Definitely following the thread, good luck!

Hi there glad to meet a fellow reefer in the Charlotte area.

Based off my past 2 reef tanks many, many years ago - the first was a std 90 gallon and I recall it not being wide enough, so the aqua scape turned into a rock wall and detritus would build up behind the rocks that were leaned against the rear glass pain, and the custom acrylic tank I had was 30" deep and a pain to get to the bottom and clean - so based on those experiences I went with the wider and shallower tank so I could build the scape and keep it off the glass - the glass is thinner also, so I could get the MP10's which seemed to fit into the flow calculator on ecotech marine's site perfect with 2 pumps - 1 MP40 was sufficient and 2 was overkill and I was looking to run 2 pumps.

That was my thought process - hope that helped!

 

[Concord Reefer]

Update - tank is wet and cycle started yesterday - doing a fishless cycle using Brightwell Dry Rock Starter Kit.

Filled with RODI water 5 gallons at a time, only because I was interested to know how many gallons it finished out at - turns out ~ 50 - confirmed this when adding salt to 1.026 (35 ppt) - took 26 cups of Tropic Marin.

Prior to starting the cycle - tested for PO4 and NO2 with Hanna checkers - P04 8 ppb (0.024 ppm) NO2 0.00 ppm, so rock, sand and/or salt had minor trace of phosphate since the RODI water was TDS 0 and tested 0.00 for P04 and NO2.

Water mixed to ALK 9.5 dkh with Ph 8.00 - so suspect there maybe a CO2 issue, or calibration issue with Ph pen, need to work on that moving forward, but should not cause issue with cycle.

Dosed the required volume of Quick Start and verified via test kit that indeed it was ~ 2 ppm ammonia and added recommended ml caps full of Microbacter Start XLM - today I am seeing Nitrite and a slight reduction in Ammonia so that is encouraging as I have read about "inert" starter bacteria etc.

I will test per the instructions - only because I have a curiosity and gives me something to do - wont get hung up in the #'s too much as there is no stopping the cycle at this point - once NH4 is 0.00 I will look at add my first quarantined fish - most probably a pair of clowns.

Need to clean up some wiring under the hood, but wanted to get this going and now I have time on my hands to finish up the detail work in the sump while the bugs do their work.

 

[Concord Reefer]

Eight days into cycle starting to see NO2 spike and Diatoms are beginning to form on sand and rock work. Shouldn't be too much longer

 

[Concord Reefer]

Diatoms have begun fueled I imagine from Silicates, did not test for those - 2 weeks into cycle - PO4 - 0.037 ppm - ammonia zero - nitrites 1 ppm plus - showing nitrates also - once NO2 shows zero will test for NO3 and make water change to reduce as required and start with clean up crew.

Based on tank size any recommendations on the CUC lineup?

I was thinking:

10 Trochus
5 Nassarius
10 Hermits
1 Conch

 

[calvin22580]

Looking to get setup with this tank as a beginner so your detailed descriptions are appreciated. Will follow the progress

 

[Concord Reefer]

Tank has cycled - started the bio pellet reactor a week ago at 1/2 the recommended volume of pellets (Katalyst) for a low nutrient system, added half recommended dose of Microbacter Clean and Microbacter 7, doing this zeroed out phosphate and stopped the decrease of NO2 (phosphate required for bacterial development). To counter act this I began dosing ~5ml of NeoPhos every morning to provide a phosphate source, tank was consuming all dosed phosphate in a 24 hr period. Today Phosphate was 4ppb (0.012 ppm) - subsequently - Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are Zero with - PH 8.2 - I also added a CO2 scrubber to the intake of the protein skimmer to counteract CO2 in the house (confirmed this to be the issue with air stone - bubbled sample in house and no increase in PH - then repeated outside and PH increased significantly therefore concluded it was not a circulation issue inside tank) - Alk is currently @ 7.3 dkh so that will need to be dosed or corrected with a minor water change.

Next I need to build the screen top, but prior to that I need to set up lighting with par meter that is on its way from BRS on rental, may need to move lights on rear wall of tank to get best spread. I have coralline in a bottle and pods on their way also, meantime I will re dose ammonia and see how the system handles it.

Also - quarantine is up and running. Soon there will be either pre quarantined fish in DT and/or conditioned ones in QT.

Since the DT is turning out low nutrient at the moment, and I have be running the lights on AB+ schedule since starting the tank and it seems very clean I am going to hold off on clean up crew until there are fish to provide something to clean up

Any suggestions as to what the first fish should be?

 

[michaeladair]

Any updates? I've also been out of the hobby for a few years and this is very similar to what I want to do.

 

[mcc21]

Update - tank is wet and cycle started yesterday - doing a fishless cycle using Brightwell Dry Rock Starter Kit.

Filled with RODI water 5 gallons at a time, only because I was interested to know how many gallons it finished out at - turns out ~ 50 - confirmed this when adding salt to 1.026 (35 ppt) - took 26 cups of Tropic Marin.

Prior to starting the cycle - tested for PO4 and NO2 with Hanna checkers - P04 8 ppb (0.024 ppm) NO2 0.00 ppm, so rock, sand and/or salt had minor trace of phosphate since the RODI water was TDS 0 and tested 0.00 for P04 and NO2.

Water mixed to ALK 9.5 dkh with Ph 8.00 - so suspect there maybe a CO2 issue, or calibration issue with Ph pen, need to work on that moving forward, but should not cause issue with cycle.

Dosed the required volume of Quick Start and verified via test kit that indeed it was ~ 2 ppm ammonia and added recommended ml caps full of Microbacter Start XLM - today I am seeing Nitrite and a slight reduction in Ammonia so that is encouraging as I have read about "inert" starter bacteria etc.

I will test per the instructions - only because I have a curiosity and gives me something to do - wont get hung up in the #'s too much as there is no stopping the cycle at this point - once NH4 is 0.00 I will look at add my first quarantined fish - most probably a pair of clowns.

Need to clean up some wiring under the hood, but wanted to get this going and now I have time on my hands to finish up the detail work in the sump while the bugs do their work.

Hi
Any updates? I been researching this tank.
Also in the picture how many pounds of sand is in there for that level of sand bed?
Thanks

 

[dawi03]

anyone with any updates on this?