WasatchAquaria
New Member
A few months ago I ran into this great deal on a Waterbox Frag 105.4 that had never seen water. The owner bought it, put the stand together, but then decided to move and needed to sell it. The tank itself was still in the crate. Bought it for less than half of retail. Been looking to set up an acropora tank for a while, so here we go...
First item on the agenda was to silicone a 1/8 inch sheet of white HDPE to the bottom. This will be a bare bottom build and the hdpe adds some protection for the glass as well as some reflectivity. I purchased this from a local company and provided them the dimensions.
Flow will initially be handle by two IceCap gyres. This should be good while the corals grow from frags into small colonies. I switched out the orange blades for black as this will essentially be a "blackout" build.
Being able to control the gyres remotely is a great feature, but I don't like the fact that they do not restart if they lose power. To help fix that issue, and to protect the future precious inhabitants, I will be using battery backup.
After a lot of consideration I chose the Simplicity 240dc skimmer. It has received good reviews and so far I have to concur. Some have reported that it took a couple of weeks to break in, but mine started skimming almost right out of the box. I considered a Reef Octopus skimmer but this was on sale at Premium Aquatics and ended up being a much less expensive option. Plus it fits in nicely with the "blackout" theme. For a DC powered skimmer it's pretty loud at full power, however I'll be operating it at much lower power. At the lowest setting it's virtually silent. Since I plan on running the Ecosystem Miracle Mud method, the skimmers load will be relatively low and I can ramp it up if needed. This tank will be heavy nutrient in and heavy nutrient out for peak acro health and growth.
For a return pump, I chose the Reef Octopus VarioS4. It's currently running at the lowest setting and is dead silent. I'm still not sure about it's compatibility with the IceCap battery backups, but I'm hoping to be able to eventually daisy chain a couple of backups on this. One note, you'll need to glue the two pieces of the hose adapter together. I didn't and it came undone and shot water everywhere.
Though the Waterbox comes with a built in area in the sump for rodi water top off, I purchase a 10 gallon Trigger reservoir. I live in the high desert of Utah and the evaporation rate is quite high. This Trigger reservoir will last me a full week before it needs to be refilled. Went with the clear version, helping to keep the "blackout" theme.
Decided to go with the BRS heating system with two 200W titanium elements and the Inkbird controller. I know the reviews are hit and miss with this system so we'll see. So far being able to monitor the tank temp remotely has been great. I have used the Cobalt Neotherm heaters for much of my nearly twenty years of keeping reefs but they have been out of stock everywhere I've looked.
Since I didn't want to wait a several months to a year to add acros, I went with live rock from the Florida Keys from KP Aquatics. I ordered 45 pounds of uncured rock shipped in water via Southwest Air Cargo and I picked it up at SLC International Airport. It cost me $131 in shipping costs for this option. The shipment was delayed 9 hours because it failed to make it on a connection and had to be re-routed but it came in no worse for wear.
This was nice rock, but perhaps with a little less than life than usual. KP Aquatics has had some supply issues with their best rock and this seems a bit of a step down in terms of overall corraline growth, etc. I dipped each rock in high salinity 1.038 water for a minute or so and had several small "bad" crabs and a small mantis shrimp evacuate the rock. Also had a porcelain crab and a pistol shrimp that went into the display. The rock also had numerous brittle and serpent stars. I will be adding 30 lbs of Real Reef branch rock that is currently on its way.
I have lights arriving on Thursday along with a controller board and the Real Reef rock. I decided to go with two Kessil AP9X units. This should be more than sufficient until things grow out some, at which point I plan to add the new Reefbrite X series to create a hybrid solution. That's it for now and will update later this week
First item on the agenda was to silicone a 1/8 inch sheet of white HDPE to the bottom. This will be a bare bottom build and the hdpe adds some protection for the glass as well as some reflectivity. I purchased this from a local company and provided them the dimensions.
Flow will initially be handle by two IceCap gyres. This should be good while the corals grow from frags into small colonies. I switched out the orange blades for black as this will essentially be a "blackout" build.
Being able to control the gyres remotely is a great feature, but I don't like the fact that they do not restart if they lose power. To help fix that issue, and to protect the future precious inhabitants, I will be using battery backup.
After a lot of consideration I chose the Simplicity 240dc skimmer. It has received good reviews and so far I have to concur. Some have reported that it took a couple of weeks to break in, but mine started skimming almost right out of the box. I considered a Reef Octopus skimmer but this was on sale at Premium Aquatics and ended up being a much less expensive option. Plus it fits in nicely with the "blackout" theme. For a DC powered skimmer it's pretty loud at full power, however I'll be operating it at much lower power. At the lowest setting it's virtually silent. Since I plan on running the Ecosystem Miracle Mud method, the skimmers load will be relatively low and I can ramp it up if needed. This tank will be heavy nutrient in and heavy nutrient out for peak acro health and growth.
For a return pump, I chose the Reef Octopus VarioS4. It's currently running at the lowest setting and is dead silent. I'm still not sure about it's compatibility with the IceCap battery backups, but I'm hoping to be able to eventually daisy chain a couple of backups on this. One note, you'll need to glue the two pieces of the hose adapter together. I didn't and it came undone and shot water everywhere.
Though the Waterbox comes with a built in area in the sump for rodi water top off, I purchase a 10 gallon Trigger reservoir. I live in the high desert of Utah and the evaporation rate is quite high. This Trigger reservoir will last me a full week before it needs to be refilled. Went with the clear version, helping to keep the "blackout" theme.
Decided to go with the BRS heating system with two 200W titanium elements and the Inkbird controller. I know the reviews are hit and miss with this system so we'll see. So far being able to monitor the tank temp remotely has been great. I have used the Cobalt Neotherm heaters for much of my nearly twenty years of keeping reefs but they have been out of stock everywhere I've looked.
Since I didn't want to wait a several months to a year to add acros, I went with live rock from the Florida Keys from KP Aquatics. I ordered 45 pounds of uncured rock shipped in water via Southwest Air Cargo and I picked it up at SLC International Airport. It cost me $131 in shipping costs for this option. The shipment was delayed 9 hours because it failed to make it on a connection and had to be re-routed but it came in no worse for wear.
This was nice rock, but perhaps with a little less than life than usual. KP Aquatics has had some supply issues with their best rock and this seems a bit of a step down in terms of overall corraline growth, etc. I dipped each rock in high salinity 1.038 water for a minute or so and had several small "bad" crabs and a small mantis shrimp evacuate the rock. Also had a porcelain crab and a pistol shrimp that went into the display. The rock also had numerous brittle and serpent stars. I will be adding 30 lbs of Real Reef branch rock that is currently on its way.
I have lights arriving on Thursday along with a controller board and the Real Reef rock. I decided to go with two Kessil AP9X units. This should be more than sufficient until things grow out some, at which point I plan to add the new Reefbrite X series to create a hybrid solution. That's it for now and will update later this week
