disaster999
Active Member
My tank of 12 years suddenly decided to spring a leak from somewhere and slowly dripping and leaking all over the the place. Good thing I have my tank on tile flooring, but the walls not so much. This tank been through 4 moves, and 3 different houses. The last 5 years it sat and everything was fine. I had the plumbing redone 2-3 years ago and everything was fine until it wasnt. Here are some pictures of my old setup.
As I couldnt find where the leak was coming from and its creating a mini flood each morning when I check up on the tank and the wall are just soaking up the salt water and the plywood are expanding and being damaged, I had replace my tank asap. I know of Waterbox tanks as Ive seen one shop carrying them on Facebook. They looked pretty desent but I never justified buying one before as there was nothing wrong with my tank before. I decided to hit them up to see if they have any in stock and fortunately they do. Placed an order immediately on Tuesday and scheduled it to be delivered Saturday. I went home Tuesday and start taking down my tank, putting all the corals and rocks I had in whatever bucket, tubs or spare tanks I have.
Saturday came and the movers showed up early which I am not complaining. They took away my old tank and delivered the new one. Didnt take any picture of the move but heres the tank partially setup and waiting to be filled.
Tank filled and salt mixing
All surviving corals moved in
10 hours of work later finally done.
I am totally beat from this move, but pretty happy with the end result. The "scape" you see now is just temporary as I was fighting against time to transfer all my corals into the tank. Ill work on rearranging the corals and rocks to giving it a proper scape once my aching body is up for and time for my corals to recover somewhat.
All in All pretty happy with the tank purchase. The build quality of the tank is very good and well through out. Plumbing quality was very nice, everything is precut to length and no gluing required. The loc-line type return lines and 2 different type of return nozzle was a nice touch. The stand had me a bit worried as it was a bit wobbly at first, but they assured me once youve leveled it and filled the tank with water it becomes rock solid which it was. I was pretty impressed with the cabinetry as well as it seem to be made from quality material and felt nice and solid.
The sump on the other was one area where they fell short on and wasnt that impressive. It seems like there are a lot of wasted space with the long and narrow chamber where water enters the sump from the drain and the filter sock section. The skimmer section and return pump section was barely big enough for the Vertex Alpha 170 skimmer and the Reef octopus Varios 4 pump I have. The filter socks are pretty noisy and splashy as well. Even with the included "silencer" for the filter socks, it did little to keep the noise down and the splashing was pretty annoying . I would much rather they include a lid on the filter socks to keep the splashing to a minimum. The biggest con in my opinion tho is the small "buffer" room available in water level in the return section. With such a small return pump section, theres only a 2-3 inches of water at most of buffer before my pump starts sucking in air, but if you overfill the sump, to get more "buffer" in between top offs, but you will also raise the water level inside the skimmer section making the water depth inconsistent which will affect skimming performance. The only way to combat this is just use an ATO to keep the return pump water level consistent. Also if you power off the return pump, with the return section being so small, water will overflow back into the skimmer section and raising the water level, potentially causing the skimmer to foam uncontrollably and overflow the collection cup. If for whatever reason the return pump fails unexpectedly, the is a potential the skimmer will constantly overflow creating a mess.
Coming from a custom sump I designed myself for my specific needs previously, I guess Im nitpicking at this point, but I do see myself potentially rearranging the sump entirely or making a new one all together, but for now, Ill use the sump as it stands for now.
As I couldnt find where the leak was coming from and its creating a mini flood each morning when I check up on the tank and the wall are just soaking up the salt water and the plywood are expanding and being damaged, I had replace my tank asap. I know of Waterbox tanks as Ive seen one shop carrying them on Facebook. They looked pretty desent but I never justified buying one before as there was nothing wrong with my tank before. I decided to hit them up to see if they have any in stock and fortunately they do. Placed an order immediately on Tuesday and scheduled it to be delivered Saturday. I went home Tuesday and start taking down my tank, putting all the corals and rocks I had in whatever bucket, tubs or spare tanks I have.
Saturday came and the movers showed up early which I am not complaining. They took away my old tank and delivered the new one. Didnt take any picture of the move but heres the tank partially setup and waiting to be filled.
Tank filled and salt mixing
All surviving corals moved in
10 hours of work later finally done.
I am totally beat from this move, but pretty happy with the end result. The "scape" you see now is just temporary as I was fighting against time to transfer all my corals into the tank. Ill work on rearranging the corals and rocks to giving it a proper scape once my aching body is up for and time for my corals to recover somewhat.
All in All pretty happy with the tank purchase. The build quality of the tank is very good and well through out. Plumbing quality was very nice, everything is precut to length and no gluing required. The loc-line type return lines and 2 different type of return nozzle was a nice touch. The stand had me a bit worried as it was a bit wobbly at first, but they assured me once youve leveled it and filled the tank with water it becomes rock solid which it was. I was pretty impressed with the cabinetry as well as it seem to be made from quality material and felt nice and solid.
The sump on the other was one area where they fell short on and wasnt that impressive. It seems like there are a lot of wasted space with the long and narrow chamber where water enters the sump from the drain and the filter sock section. The skimmer section and return pump section was barely big enough for the Vertex Alpha 170 skimmer and the Reef octopus Varios 4 pump I have. The filter socks are pretty noisy and splashy as well. Even with the included "silencer" for the filter socks, it did little to keep the noise down and the splashing was pretty annoying . I would much rather they include a lid on the filter socks to keep the splashing to a minimum. The biggest con in my opinion tho is the small "buffer" room available in water level in the return section. With such a small return pump section, theres only a 2-3 inches of water at most of buffer before my pump starts sucking in air, but if you overfill the sump, to get more "buffer" in between top offs, but you will also raise the water level inside the skimmer section making the water depth inconsistent which will affect skimming performance. The only way to combat this is just use an ATO to keep the return pump water level consistent. Also if you power off the return pump, with the return section being so small, water will overflow back into the skimmer section and raising the water level, potentially causing the skimmer to foam uncontrollably and overflow the collection cup. If for whatever reason the return pump fails unexpectedly, the is a potential the skimmer will constantly overflow creating a mess.
Coming from a custom sump I designed myself for my specific needs previously, I guess Im nitpicking at this point, but I do see myself potentially rearranging the sump entirely or making a new one all together, but for now, Ill use the sump as it stands for now.
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