ghostmantank
Community Member
I am new to the hobby I am only about 6 months into it but wanted to share my limited knowledge and things I have learned so far with the AIO.
I bought the aquatop 24 thinking this would be the best way to enter the hobby but learn that the AIO is not setup the best. I wanted to do a nano reef with some fish coral and anemones. So here is what I have learned and things you should think about when getting this tank (it is not a bad tank at all I am not saying that but if you want the tank to really take off do these things out of the box and save yourself a lot of trouble)
1. The light that comes with it does nothing it was just enough to keep the coral alive but I did end up losing some coral at the bottom. So I changed the light out with an AI HD Prim Reef light and wow now the tank is getting the light it needs
2. The first (intake) chamber, the sponge that comes with it might as well be an open door it does nothing and gets dirty but would back flow it into the tank when doing water changes. So I took this out and cut it down to just 1 inch and used that as a base to add filter floss, nitrate reducing pad, carbon pad so that is what I have in my first chamber.
3. The skimmer that it comes with I am not impressed with at all it really doesn't skim much. I have not found an answer to this yet ( very open to ideas) it seems like there is nothing I can find.. yet... that would fit in the chamber and replace it so I am still working on this issues. Also thinking about just doing a DIY sump and not using the chambers at all but we will see where I go with that idea.
4. the media baskets, the first basket again is a joke and does nothing it is just cut up chunks of the same type of sponge from chamber one so I took that out and put in a layer of filter floss, active carbon and filter floss (I did it this way so the carbon doesn't have a way to get out of the basket and end up in the tanks. The second basket it has the ceramic rings I didn't change this I left it as is. The third basket just had more of the rings so I dumped that our and replaced it with high performance biofilter balls. With this setup the parameters are way more stable now than when I first got the tank going.
5. The last chamber where the pump is (this pump is rated at 375 gph but never hit above 200) so I added a 575 gph wave maker to the other side of the tank. I have the wave maker pointed to the front of the tank and up to get a nice ripple effect and then the system pump I have pointed at the middle of the glass at a slight down angle. This seems to get a nice flow all around the tank with no dead spots. Also in this chamber is where I added the water heater which works great in this chamber and keeps the tank at a constant 78.5F.
I setup this tank and let it run for a month before adding anything then for the second month I was having long hair algae and algae all over the glass it was a huge problem and the nitrate was all over the place very high. After chasing all these problems in month 4 I made the above changes and it has been 2 months now running like this and the tank is stable.
Just wanted to post this to share my experience by no means am I an expert or anything and for the people that have been in the hobby a long time please let me know you thoughts on what I have done if you think it is good or bad I would love any feedback.
I bought the aquatop 24 thinking this would be the best way to enter the hobby but learn that the AIO is not setup the best. I wanted to do a nano reef with some fish coral and anemones. So here is what I have learned and things you should think about when getting this tank (it is not a bad tank at all I am not saying that but if you want the tank to really take off do these things out of the box and save yourself a lot of trouble)
1. The light that comes with it does nothing it was just enough to keep the coral alive but I did end up losing some coral at the bottom. So I changed the light out with an AI HD Prim Reef light and wow now the tank is getting the light it needs
2. The first (intake) chamber, the sponge that comes with it might as well be an open door it does nothing and gets dirty but would back flow it into the tank when doing water changes. So I took this out and cut it down to just 1 inch and used that as a base to add filter floss, nitrate reducing pad, carbon pad so that is what I have in my first chamber.
3. The skimmer that it comes with I am not impressed with at all it really doesn't skim much. I have not found an answer to this yet ( very open to ideas) it seems like there is nothing I can find.. yet... that would fit in the chamber and replace it so I am still working on this issues. Also thinking about just doing a DIY sump and not using the chambers at all but we will see where I go with that idea.
4. the media baskets, the first basket again is a joke and does nothing it is just cut up chunks of the same type of sponge from chamber one so I took that out and put in a layer of filter floss, active carbon and filter floss (I did it this way so the carbon doesn't have a way to get out of the basket and end up in the tanks. The second basket it has the ceramic rings I didn't change this I left it as is. The third basket just had more of the rings so I dumped that our and replaced it with high performance biofilter balls. With this setup the parameters are way more stable now than when I first got the tank going.
5. The last chamber where the pump is (this pump is rated at 375 gph but never hit above 200) so I added a 575 gph wave maker to the other side of the tank. I have the wave maker pointed to the front of the tank and up to get a nice ripple effect and then the system pump I have pointed at the middle of the glass at a slight down angle. This seems to get a nice flow all around the tank with no dead spots. Also in this chamber is where I added the water heater which works great in this chamber and keeps the tank at a constant 78.5F.
I setup this tank and let it run for a month before adding anything then for the second month I was having long hair algae and algae all over the glass it was a huge problem and the nitrate was all over the place very high. After chasing all these problems in month 4 I made the above changes and it has been 2 months now running like this and the tank is stable.
Just wanted to post this to share my experience by no means am I an expert or anything and for the people that have been in the hobby a long time please let me know you thoughts on what I have done if you think it is good or bad I would love any feedback.
. Which one did you get and do you have a build thread for your RSR tank?
