Waterbox Marine 45.2 Build

[Atkins]

This is the start of my build thread. I got this setup second hand in September 2022. So some of the equipment is used and needed some TLC

Waterbox Marine 45.2
Tank dimensions 24×18×18 (roughly)
Tank volume 30 gallons with a 15 gallon (I'm pretty sure) sump on the bottom

Equipment that came with the setup
Ai Prime 16
Vortechs MP10
Hydor 700 return pump I believe, not sure on the model.
I immediately had issues with the mp10 wet side so I switched it out for a Nero 5 and trying to get a new wet side for the MP10


The tank is my basement fishroom, not the cleanest setup right now but I'm working on it

 

[Atkins]

Around the end of September I filled it with freshwater, let it run for a few days to address any leaks. Mixed salt in the empty tank, to 1.025 sg.
I'm using red sea blue bucket, it came with the tank and that's what the nems are used too. But I'm using red sea black bucket on my other nano reef, when I run out of blue bucket I plant to switch back to black bucket on all my reef tanks. Will this be ok?? I do like the higher alkalinity of the coral pro.

For sand I'm using caribsea live reef sand. It's not to coarse or to fine.

 

[Atkins]

November 16, I acquired the livestock, rocks, Nero 5 and ATO,
Fish included a pair of oci clowns
A beautiful rainbow bubble tip nem which was one nem when I picked it up, and it quickly split into 2 nems, guessing from the stress of moving
A bullseye pistol shrimp ( very shy and hard to photograph)
A long spine urchin, 2 hermit's, various snails

Also came with some soft corals, a massive Kenya tree, a pretty good size colony of zoas, some xenia. Also has a few large aptasia and hair algae

Rock is bout 2 years old. I transferred everything from the previous owner, they had 2 tanks and I moved everything into this new tank.

Letting this tank settle for a bit but I plan to remove the keys tree and replace it with my hammer coral in my other tank, or maybe my toadstool leather would look good there.

 

[shadyraro]

Looking good nice pick up, how old was the tank?

 

[Atkins]

Ah I figured out to make pictures bigger lol, still new and figuring this out!

This is my tailspot blenny, currently in my 10 gallon reef, I would like to move him into this new reef soon. I'm gonna put a possible fish list below

Current stocking
• 2 captive clownfish
• 1 bullseye pistol shrimp
• 1 long spine urchin

NEW POSSIBLE STOCKING?
• 1 Tail Spot Blenny
• 1 Fire fish
• 1 captive bred Royal Gramma
• 1 pearly Jawfish
• 1 captive bred green mandarin dragonet

now I know this sounds like alot for 45 gallons but I don't know if everything will go together so I would like some options. I'm open to any suggestions and tips!

 

[Atkins]

Looking good nice pick up, how old was the tank?

This tank the owner had running for only a little bit and wasn't using it, already had it cleaned up, but they also had 2 more small tanks still running, almost 2 years running. The clowns are 3 years old. It was kinda crazy but we got it done.

 

[Atkins]

My Ai Prime 16 schedule

Been running this since start up, I really enjoy the slow ramp of the blues and UV in the morning, then it ramps down to a more white spectrum, then back to blues and UV, a slow ramp to 0%

 

[kevgib67]

Well thought out, following.

 

[Atkins]

Well thought out, following.

Thanks! I still need to take a PAR measurement but corals and anemone seem happy

 

[Atkins]

Dec 05-22
Did my first waterchange at 5 gallons using red sea blue bucket. I also took the chance to remove the huge Kenya tree, had to use a screwdriver and hammer and broke it from the rock. Parameters before waterchange.
Salinity: 1.026
NO3: 1.9
PO4: 0.10
ALK: 7.4
CAL: 400
MAG: 1300

I got a Red Sea screen top with a Neat Aquatics feeding portal from BRS on black Friday. Not the best install on the netting but it's not the easiest to work with. Gonna try some different material soon.

I also picked up a new fish, Nemateleotris magnifica (Fire Fish Goby) the clownfish we're a bit agressive at first but have chilled out on him, he's eating really well and starting to come out of caves more often every day

The clownfish are getting so fat! Honestly I do feed once a day, maybe twice. Prime reef flake, TDO pellets, or brine shrimp and mysis.

The anemones are doing well, started with one, now I have 2! My friend says they are rainbow rose BTAs so I'm sticking with those till I get corrected with pictures. The anemone names are getting crazy ‍ but all I really care about is that they look awesome


I also added some LPS from my 10 gallon reef tank
Prism Goniastria
Green alveopora
Purple Rim Caulastraea
Ricordea Florida

 

[Atkins]

Update 12/16/22

I moved the Nero 5 to the right side instead of the back, not sure if I mentioned it but the mp10 I got used, westside was broken and I switched it for a Nero 5, both my reefs now run Nero's, I can say I like them alot better then mp10.

I also added my Tailspot Blenny from my 10 gallon reef, over to the new tank

And I added a rock with zoas, a hammer, candy cane coral and my toadstool leather

My 10 gallon reef is looking empty, but that's kinda the plan, I have some more zoas and a Duncan that we'll get moved over soon. Gonna use the 10 gallon as coral qt/ fish observation tank as I'm bad at QT and I have bad luck with sterile tank QT. Any advice appreciated

This is my tank under blues for those crazy colors lol.

 

[Atkins]

February 28, 2023
It's probably gonna be a long post because a lot has happened and I'm terrible at posting!
Some bad news, some good news and new additions.

I'll start with the bad news, the firefish goby past away. I'll show a video of him a couple hours before he finally passed on January 07th

I noticed he stopped eating then went missing for a couple days. I'm not sure what happened, maybe aggression or a disease?

I was hesitant to add anything for a while and waited to see if my other fish were affected. They seem perfectly fine though

Around January 20th I added a Simplicity 120 DC skimmer, at first I tried running it 24/7 and noticed it bottomed out nutrients super fast lol, so I put it on a time for 6 hours at night to boost pH a little and let's the food decay a bit so filter can actually do its job. I Noticed when I feed with the skimmer on it just killed the amount of bubbles in the skimmer, not overflow which I thought was odd, seeing my skimmer is "slightly oversized" so far working a lot better and not bottoming out now.

Now update on the fish

The clowns have been doing really good, they host the anemone and sleep in it every night, I gotta try to get a photo, it's really cute. The anemone moved a little bit too

Benny my Tailspot Blenny has found a cute spot to claim, right in a bed of deadly zoas lol. Love his personality

So I also have got new fish in the past week!

Meet the new Royal Gramma! I ordered him from Biota aquaculture, BUT that's not all . . .

A biota mandarin dragonette too! This is a big jump in care level I know, but I wanted this tank for a Mandarin, since the live rock is from a 2 year old system before it went into my tank, I already have an abundance of pods and microfauna

This is my sandbed at night I also know that these mandarins being captive bred accept frozen foods and some prepared foods like masstick and TDO pellets, which I also picked up for the mandarin. With heavy filtration with the amount of food for the mandarin I shouldn't have issues with nutrients.

I haven't added any corals, but they are growing, the LPS are consuming alk, cal & mag at a slow rate, so I've started doing All For Reef from tropic Marin, dosing 9ml every other day my parameters: 02/25/23
SG: 1.026
ALK: 8.6
CAL: 410
MAG: 1360
NO3: 7.8
PO4: 0.00

my phosphates still reading 0 with my Hanna checker, so looking into ULR checker, using LR as I thought nutrients would be easier to deal with.

So that's my very long update, I enjoy feedback and comments. Thanks for checking out my tank!