Bruno's Waterbox 20

BrunoL

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Hey All,

It's time to start a little tank log. I'm a long time tropical freshwater fish keeper, but recently pulled the gun on a 2nd, salt water tank.

----- update 09/08/2024 -----

In terms of hardware, I run:
  • Waterbox 20 with inTank chamber 1 media basket (Floss / Seachem Seagel & Purigen / Seachem Matrix)
  • AI Prime 16HD with flex arm
  • AI Nero 3 powerhead
  • AI Axis 40 return pump
  • Kamoer X1 Pro V2 dosing All for Reef
  • Inkbird 308S
    • Aquael UItra 100W heater
    • Tunze Aquawind
  • BubbleMagus MiniQ Skimmer
  • Green Killing Machine 9W UV Sterilizer
  • AutoAqua Smart ATO Duo
  • Eheim AutoFeeder
Livestock I'm hosting:
  • 2x Amphiprion Ocellaris (regular old clownfish)
  • 1x Six-line wrasse
  • 1x Yellow-tail Damsel
  • 1x Blue Leg Hermit Crab)
  • 1x Strombus Luhuanus (Strawberry Conch)
  • Assortment of Snails, mostly Astraea, Nassarius, Cerith & Trochus
Corals:
  • Rasta Zoanthids
  • Goblin's Fire Zoanthids
  • Green Star Polyps
  • Rhodactis Forest Fire
  • Rhodactis Indosinesis Neon Green
  • Caulastrea Ultra Green
  • Entacmaea Quadricolor Sunburst
  • Seriatopora caliendrum Bird of Paradise
  • Montipora mean streak JF (plate montipora)
  • Montipora Setosa (branching montipora)
  • Montipora Digitata Forest Fire
  • Montipora Digitata Red
  • Acropora formosa blue
  • Acropora Tortuosa
----- Tank shot -----

454178710_478669551571544_6986966651499509068_n.jpg


452323986_1547781399508984_5555230719517104_n.jpg


----- Log starts below -----

I got a decent deal on a Waterbox 20. I got some extra goodies with it to make it a full project.

433378940_1137399474107498_5046113607745743964_n.jpg


I also picked up some other essentials, as well as a bucket of Red Sea Coral Pro salt and 9kg of CaribSea Special Grade sand.

433496965_782978833717781_1690260806673293509_n.jpg


Finally, I had a load of Seachem Matrix left over from my fresh water, as well as a little bag of Purigen.

I put some RO/DI water in the tank last night, without salt, just to let it run in and check for leaks. No leaks, so all good. :)

After reading some reviews, I decided to not add the bioballs and I replaced them with the Matrix instead, I droppped that in the back with the Purigen and put the sponges on top of it. I'm still using the filter sock but I'm pretty sure I'll be replacing that.t. The filtersock seems like it'll be a drag to clean and for some reason, it keeps popping up ... Maybe because it's still new. I dropped the heater in the 3rd section with the pump.

Once the hardware installed, I salted it up and oh boy. I respected the quantities indicated on the bucket and ended up with my salinity at 1029. I figured no problem. I took out some water and topped up with RO/DI, let it run for about an hour and checked again ... This time I came in at 1021. I guess it'll take some getting used to understand just how much salt it can take and what the effects will be. I've been adding 25gr of salt every hour and at the time I'm writing this, salinity sits at 1025. I'll try and get another point out of it before going to bed.

After adding the salt this morning and while waiting for it to mix in, I headed to my LFS to pick up some rock. They propose some rock stocked in the back of the shop but after a lot of talking and sheepishly asking, she let me fish about 7.5kg or 16.5lbs of Indonesian live rock out of the store's display tank's sump. It's hard to tell from the pictures but it's one big chunky rock, one small one and two flat ones. The idea being that I'll use the hammer on the flat ones to make the lot in to something nice. I also got a little bag of copepods, on the side there. I dumped those in the middle back area with the filter media. I figure they'll make their way through the tank anyway and there's probably loads of other stuff on the rock. Lastly, I picked up a little bit of reef epoxy to do the scaping, and a bottle of Aquaforest Bio S, nitrifying bacteria to further kick start the cycling process.

433509768_953711539446079_2908305685252757599_n.jpg


As it was getting a little late and I didn't want to keep the rock in the box for too long, I chucked them in the water without scaping. I guess I know what I'll be doing tomorrow ...

I did notice that there's a lot of movement on these rocks. After about 10-15 minutes in the water I've spotted at least 4-5 little bristle stars and I'm pretty sure I saw some type of a worm, judging by some other posts on there, a small bristle worm. By the time I got my phone out to take a picture, it had crawled back in to the rock. This actually brings me to a question, I had my powerhead running on 100% as I wanted the flow to help mix the salt in. I saw one bristle star get sucked in and get chopped. They are tiny though, like a 1 cent piece arms (do they have arms, legs or tentacles??) included so I don't think it matters but I was just wondering if I should shrug that off, or worry about it. I've turned the pump down to 30% now that the salinity is practically sorted.

As of right now, the tank looks like this. There's still some air bubbles on the glass, I'll be giving that a rub down tomorrow. I'll be sure to add some pictures in the following days when I get the scape down. :)

430970914_1222771175363207_1272296704082310889_n.jpg


I'm not sure if the tank will stay there, or if I'm picking up the Waterbox stand.

Now that all that is out of the way, I do have some questions!
  • Considering the live sand and the rocks taken out of an established tank, what should I expect in terms of cycling? Will it even need to cycle, considering the live copepods and the live rock from an established sump?
  • I didn't get an ATO (yet?), the idea being that I'll be placing a lit to reduce evaporation and that the tank is in my work-from-home office, so I'm basically checking it every day. That said, considering I have the heater in the 3rd chamber, should I be worried about the water level dropping that fast overnight, that the 3rd filter section runs dry? Aside the heater issues, a drop like that would probably have an impact on my salinity levels no? The room the tank is it generally sits at about 18C-19C overnight.
  • I also didn't get a skimmer, but I've been eyeing the Tunze 9001. I plan on stocking 2 clowns, and a goby / shrimp combo. Do I need a skimmer?
  • How should I organize the back filter? This is how I've set it up for now. Ideally I upgrade to the InTank basket, but they're such a pain to find / get in Europe.
Untitled.png


Anyway, that's it for tonight, thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates! 436723669_446387407842768_2723227294438980122_n.jpg 435722627_303755815947646_6918353809677998942_n.jpg 436960465_903721378105814_5343275695122276165_n.jpg
 
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CO2TLEY

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Waterbox stand is very nice for what it is. Convenient for storage like Ato container
 

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Following to see how it turns out
 
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BrunoL

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Morning update. I turned off the heater last night because I didn't really know just how much the water would go down and I didn't want to risk exploding it. As it turns out, it hardly went down at all. So that's cool.

I also managed to see the worm last night, again I didn't have my phone but he seems to be going through the crevasses and holes in the rock. This morning there's also 6 bristle stars on the glass, I'm not sure how many I have on the rock.

Finally, I'm a little disappointed with the Sicce Silent pump, it's very noisy. I hear it over my PC fan, and I can hear it from the other room. Is that common for these little pumps? Is there maybe some air in there? Should I try and take it out and check or should I just let it do its thing and mark this down as the pump just starting running in?
 

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I have the 1.5 pump and it is pretty quiet. I also have a fair bit of freshwater experience(4 tanks atm) and can say it is definitely the quietest of the lot.
Edit... might be worth checking that the little rubber feet are stuck down properly, I had to stuff around with the outlet hose to get the length to just right.
 
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BrunoL

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I have the 1.5 pump and it is pretty quiet. I also have a fair bit of freshwater experience(4 tanks atm) and can say it is definitely the quietest of the lot.
Edit... might be worth checking that the little rubber feet are stuck down properly, I had to stuff around with the outlet hose to get the length to just right.

I'll try it out, it's by far the most noisy pump I've had ...I'm also not entirely sure how much flow I should have through it, I've set it to about half way open now.

After tweaking a bit with the salt last night and letting it rest until the morning, salinity clocked in at 1025 again. Solid! This was also a good time to test my Hanna meter, alkalinity came in at 9.8.

With those values in mind I headed back to my LFS. I picked up 5 nassarius, 5 Astraea and 2 clowns. They had some beautiful picasso, black ice and percula platinum clowns, but I went for the standard version, as they were on sale and I want to make sure I can take care of these guys first. :) They're still juveniles, we'll see how they grow out.

Something did strike me as surprising. The shop I go to will ask new customers to bring some of their water, so naturally I complied. They checked the parameters and oddly enough, my calcium was at 405 and magnesium at 1150. I found that surprising as the salt I'm using (Red Sea Coral Pro) should come in at 450 and 1350 respectively for the salinity level I have. Oddly enough, she measured my dKH at 8 using that same JBL marine test kit. I found this weird as 1h earlier I checked it at 9.8 with the brand new Hanna meter. I'm not sure what to go with now. I've not purchased calcium and magnesium kits yet, as I don't have any corals yet and it doesn't really matter for fish ...

Anyway, my bags all loaded up I headed back home and started warming up the fish to my water. While that was going on, I had a go at the rockscape.

The idea was to have a pyramid on the left, and rock layers with overhang on the right with some sort of a tunnel between them. I'm not sure I like how it turned out, but I'm rolling with it for now. Ideally I get a little CaribSea arch to put on top of it, but they seem real hard to find here. At least I think it has a lot of really good coral spots, there's a plateau on top, overhang, an island, ... I did use some reef epoxy to fix the rocks together. I'm paranoid about them sliding or falling over.

433425760_388458194127590_8336238590742591602_n.jpg



The clowns seem to be exploring a bit, although I'm not sure if maybe I have too much flow. The return pump sits at about 50% power (I guess about 500L / h) while I put the Nero 3 on random flow between 10% and 30% speed. The snails however, don't seem to have moved all that much. One nassarius went for a little stroll but the astraea snails are still chilling where i dropped them down ...

431019700_3483161138496537_4346905418369497347_n (1).jpg


I'll be feeding the clowns tomorrow, maybe there'll be some more movement then. I'm also curious if I should feed the snails something in particular. The tank doesn't have much algae of any kind, I just want to make sure they have sufficient material to eat.

Finally a last thought, I'm keen on getting an anemone for the clowns the chill in, any recommendations on what type to get? Are they hardy? I keep reading horror stories of them strolling in to the powerhead so it seems like a challenge.

I'll make a new picture of the scape tomorrow when the lights come on again. :)


That's all for today!
 

CO2TLEY

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BTA probably the simplest to take care of. Probably want to wait atleast 6months-1 year for a more mature tank. They will walk if they feel like they need to, to get more or less flow and this goes for lighting as well. Once comfortable they normally take a seat ime
 
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BrunoL

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The lady in my LFS told me I'll have to dose calcium & magnesium before I can drop corals in. To be honest it's awesome they check new customers' water parameters. At least they know the fish and corals are in a good environment. However that doesn't explain how the values are so low, when according to the list on the bucket of salt I use, I should be fairly high on those ...

My next purchase leans more towards an ATO and / or skimmer. There's a few options out there, and opinions appear to be divided on the forums here. :D

My options for an ATO available over here are:
  • Tunze 3152
  • Tunze 3155
  • Red Sea ReefATO+
  • AutoAqua Smart ATO Nano
  • AutoAqua Smart ATO Duo G2
  • AquaMedic Refill 2.0
Now I'm leaning towards the Tunze 3152 or the AutoAqua Smart Duo, any opinions on those? There's some others as well such as Deltec but they seem quite chunky and not really nano oriented.

Thanks!
 

CO2TLEY

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I have the same tank, and went with the 3155 for redundancy. 3155 has two sensors an optical and a float switch. The 3152 only has one sensor
 
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BrunoL

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I checked the Sicce pump as suggested, I think it's the vibrations making it sound noisy. I tried to fix it again the other way around, but still the same result. Is this maybe because I restricted flow and have it running at only about half capacity? Should I be running it at full power? It's a 950L/h pump (250 gph)

It was time to give the clowns their first meal this afternoon as well. My LFS gave me Omega One marine flakes, are these good for juvenile clowns? Like any good amateur, I forgot to turn on feed mode and all the flakes instantly disappeared in the sock. Tried it again with feed mode active this time (and the Sicce unplugged). The flakes seem very big and once the feed mode stopped, like 90% of it still got cycled and floated in to the filter sock compartment. The clowns didn't seem super interested but the flakes instantly made the nassarius snails crawl up the glass though. Since I'm used to feeding the large tank, I naturally went in heavy handed and overfed too much (at least I think). I waited a good 10 minutes and then took out the sock to give it a rinse in RO/DI water. I didn't want all that sucked up left over food rotting away in the sock. Since feeding them, the clowns are hanging out in a corner, swimming down against the stream under the filter inlet. Maybe they're claiming it as their turf or is there too much / not enough flow?

433725751_402665762372451_590203627921062282_n.jpg


I also tested my water again:
  • Salinity 1026
  • Alkalinity 9.8
  • Phosphate 0.00 (first time using the Hanna ULR)
I've ordered a calcium and magnesium test kit. I'll check those once I get the kits.

Finally, here's the one I called George, he likes chilling on this little bit of rock.

431037275_3589044431359062_969555865465444165_n.jpg
 
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BrunoL

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Almost had a first casualty, I found a Nassarius snail crawling down the side of the tank, on the outside ... I guess they're exploring and searching for food. I broke up and threw 2 Hikari algae wafers in the tank. Considering the tank is new and doesn't have algae, I'm guessing the snails are hungry and scavenging. Is this a common thing though, should I order a cover?
 
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BrunoL

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Top shot a few minutes after tossing in the wafers:


433285425_431816822570804_7484675757802674603_n.jpg


I also managed to catch this on photo, can anyone confirm that this is in fact a bristle worm? Should I try and fish it out, or keep it there?

433462733_664926289047965_8859847511375592623_n.jpg


The clowns are still hanging around in the corner, curious they don't want to explore some more.
 

Floopynoopers

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I checked the Sicce pump as suggested, I think it's the vibrations making it sound noisy. I tried to fix it again the other way around, but still the same result. Is this maybe because I restricted flow and have it running at only about half capacity? Should I be running it at full power? It's a 950L/h pump (250 gph)

It was time to give the clowns their first meal this afternoon as well. My LFS gave me Omega One marine flakes, are these good for juvenile clowns? Like any good amateur, I forgot to turn on feed mode and all the flakes instantly disappeared in the sock. Tried it again with feed mode active this time (and the Sicce unplugged). The flakes seem very big and once the feed mode stopped, like 90% of it still got cycled and floated in to the filter sock compartment. The clowns didn't seem super interested but the flakes instantly made the nassarius snails crawl up the glass though. Since I'm used to feeding the large tank, I naturally went in heavy handed and overfed too much (at least I think). I waited a good 10 minutes and then took out the sock to give it a rinse in RO/DI water. I didn't want all that sucked up left over food rotting away in the sock. Since feeding them, the clowns are hanging out in a corner, swimming down against the stream under the filter inlet. Maybe they're claiming it as their turf or is there too much / not enough flow?

433725751_402665762372451_590203627921062282_n.jpg


I also tested my water again:
  • Salinity 1026
  • Alkalinity 9.8
  • Phosphate 0.00 (first time using the Hanna ULR)
I've ordered a calcium and magnesium test kit. I'll check those once I get the kits.

Finally, here's the one I called George, he likes chilling on this little bit of rock.

431037275_3589044431359062_969555865465444165_n.jpg
I have mine tuned almost right down and it doesn't seem to make much noise so I wouldn't think that is the problem,however I have a straight outlet after my pump (ie no duck restrictor random flow generator etc) so not sure if you do and that could be increasing pressure ? If not try to make sure it's not too close to any of the walls (as much as possible in a small tank)
 

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The setup of your sump is fine

If you were worried about evaporation and water level dropping too much in 3rd chamber before you get your ATO, you can fit the heater inside the filter sock in 1st chamber until you get your ATO

As for variable readings between your Hanna testers and the fish shops, there can be a lot of variables to consider so I wouldn't read into too much, your calcium was only a tiny bit lower

Seachem complete is a good one to dose for beginners to raise calcium and magnesium. 1 capful twice a week

As for flakes, I would have gone with the same food the local fish shop was feeding with to keep things consistent. I find the pellets better as they sink, so don't go straight into the filter sock and any left overs get cleaned up by your cleanup crew
I'm running the water box peninsula 25 if you want to check out my thread to see pics of the mesh lid, skimmer setup etc or feel free to pm me for any questions you have regarding setup
 
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BrunoL

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I have mine tuned almost right down and it doesn't seem to make much noise so I wouldn't think that is the problem, however I have a straight outlet after my pump (ie no duck restrictor random flow generator etc) so not sure if you do and that could be increasing pressure ? If not try to make sure it's not too close to any of the walls (as much as possible in a small tank)

I'm using the stock outlet, so just a straight tube in to the stock nozzle. I've centered it in the filter compartment. I'll take it out and check the whole thing when I do the water change.

The setup of your sump is fine

If you were worried about evaporation and water level dropping too much in 3rd chamber before you get your ATO, you can fit the heater inside the filter sock in 1st chamber until you get your ATO

As for variable readings between your Hanna testers and the fish shops, there can be a lot of variables to consider so I wouldn't read into too much, your calcium was only a tiny bit lower

Seachem complete is a good one to dose for beginners to raise calcium and magnesium. 1 capful twice a week

As for flakes, I would have gone with the same food the local fish shop was feeding with to keep things consistent. I find the pellets better as they sink, so don't go straight into the filter sock and any left overs get cleaned up by your cleanup crew
I'm running the water box peninsula 25 if you want to check out my thread to see pics of the mesh lid, skimmer setup etc or feel free to pm me for any questions you have regarding setup

Thanks for the response, I'll check it out!

She suggested I dose them separately as I should get each to a specific value. I have the Salifert test kits on the way. I'll wait a few more days, do a 25% water change and check again after that. Normally I should be close to what the listing reads on the salt tub ...

As for the food, she said it's the same stuff they're using there, but the flakes seem pretty big. I realized I had a little tub of NLS Thera+ as well, tiny granules, so I'm swapping to those. I prefer the NLS food for my freshwater tank as well, it's the best I've found so far. I fed some frozen Mysis I had in the freezer a couple of hours after lights on, I'll do some flakes tonight.

On the more practical side, how do you guys clean the black pack panel? Do i just take a little cloth and get my arm wet? I noticed there's some dust stuck on there, probably from when I dropped in the sand ...
 
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BrunoL

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Sorted it out using the good old membership card method, gave everything a little scrub and now the back panel and inside windows are all neat too. :)
 
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