My waterbox 25 AIO

[bvanfish]

Hey everyone I want to start a build here!

Tank / Location / Start:
Waterbox 25 peninsula mini
Chicago, IL USA
SEPT 2022

Light:
Ai prime 16 HD

Pump:
Jecod DC 1200 (dead silent and crazy powerful, fully adjustable)
Hyyger mini DC wave maker (silent and adjustable)

Rock / Sand:
Carrib Sea life rock
2 live rock pieces from LFS
Carrib Sea live sand

Media / Upgrades:
Filter floss : from intank (best thing yet for clarity and cleanliness. Never would use socks). Using Walmart poly fill for quilts. Comes in a large pad I cut.

2nd chamber media holder: from intank. Top is another sponge. Middle is empty. Bottom is bioballs. May add siporax or make the top 2 a refugium.

Gravity fed ATO: Amazon for 6 bucks.

Fish Stocking / Feed:
2 ocellarius clownfish
1 red fairy wrasse
1 royal gramms
Frozen mysis (1 cube everyday) and marine pellets on occasion

Clean Up Crew:
1 - cleaner shrimp
1 - fire shrimp
1 - sand conch
4 - trochus snails
2 - astrea snail
2 - nassarius snails
3 - blue legged hermit (tiny but growin)
1 - purple pincushion urchin
1 - tiger serpent starfish

Coral Stocking:
1 - green with blue tip hammer
1 - pink hammer
1 - spicy lemon favia
1 - dragon soul favia
1 - Yuma mushroom
1 - Florida recordia mushroom (blue, orange, green)
1 - Florida recordia mushroom (orange, yellow, teal)
1 - Mia’s pot of gold favia
1 - branching cyphastrea - my favorite
1 - GSP mixed type frag
1 - Blue ridge coral
2 - acans
1 - emerald digi
1- purple stylo
1 - monti cap

Maintenance:
Daily to every other testing - salinity, temp, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, ammonia. Going to get alkalinity and calcium and mag soon.
Wednesday / Sunday floss change
Sunday - 10-15% WC, rinse sponge, rinse bio balls

 

[bvanfish]

Adding rock scape and filling with water

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Awesome! Do you have pictures?

 

[bvanfish]

Water cleared up. Top view

 

[bvanfish]

Clowns after using fritz 900 to start the tank

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Awesome! Do you have pictures?

Yes, you do. The picture post was posted at the same time as my post. Thanks for sharing.

 

[bvanfish]

Noob arrogance move, saw this awesome hammer for cheap so I bought it after testing my water at about 2 weeks.

 

[bvanfish]

A week or so later after adding more Fritz to finish off ammonia and the cycle I added half my clean up crew. 1 blue leg hermit, 2 nas snails, 2 astrea. 1 trochus. I also added a Yuma mushroom

I also a week or so later added a cleaner shrimp and then a bit later added a fire shrimp as well

the pic of the mushroom is right after putting it in so it’s still a bit unhappy from the dip in revive but looks better now

 

[bvanfish]

I then added 3 more trochus and 1 conch. These guys absolutely mow everything. Haven’t really had an ugly phase yet… I had diatoms and some small algae but my CUC took care of it all fast.

 

[bvanfish]

I added copepods to the tank in hopes to boost the population early. I have seen mixed reviews but I really want this to be a living ecosystem. I also got a bunch of nice coral from ARC that I have added.

 

[bvanfish]

I have been testing ammonia , nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, salinity, temp everyday or bi daily. I also do 10-15% water changes every Sunday. I also change my filter floss every Wednesday and Sunday. On WC days I ring out the sponge in my second chamber and rinse the bioballs in the water change water.

As of now with 2 clowns I feed 1/4 a mysis block everyday and a few pellets in the afternoon every other day.

corals all seem to be doing really well. 2nd day with the ARC corals today so we will see if they will open nicely in the new tank ( yesterday afternoon they were already opening nicely and saw some feeders on the favia yesterday

 

[keithw283]

What are you using to test?

 

[bvanfish]

What are you using to test?

I use all salifert but the digital one you see is at a LFS it is called a lamotte mobile waterlink. They are 2 grand and test all params. I am about 40 mins away so my ph does drop in that time so it’s probably about .1-.2 higher

 

[bvanfish]

Little update from today

Ever seen a coral eat?

youtube.com

 

[69cam]

Liking the rock work

 

[bvanfish]

Liking the rock work

Thank you! I’m liking it too. I’m not sure if I will replace some of the islands with live rock from the ocean someday. But for now I like the way it’s going

 

[bvanfish]

Cool thing I saw today. My cleaner shrimp eating his own molt. Nothing really new in the tank just a cool circle of life picture.

 

[bvanfish]

Little update. Things are going well in the tank did some minor changes with small rock and moved hammers while taking off the plugs and securing with glue.

I am thinking of adding an urchin and maybe a brittle star.

next on the list will be adding a watchmen goby and either a gramma or maybe a wrasse for utility. Undecided as of yet.

 

[bvanfish]

Added a small purple pincushion urchin who has already eaten nori from my hand which was really cool as he’s only been in there a full day now. Also added a tiger starfish. He’s a bit shy but will be interested as night comes to see if he comes out more.

 

[bvanfish]

Doing a two week test on parameters to see if I need to start dosing. I have been adding mag and it seems to fluff things up. This is the first 5 days for reference