some bridges and overhangs

[mizimmer90]

FTSs:

2024 Jan

Original post:

After a year of getting my feet wet in a 20 gal AIO (figuratively and literally), I can definitively say that I'm obsessed, arguably addicted. I've read multiple books on marine biology, and find myself spending all my free time on this forum/perusing websites for corals.. I am leaning into this addiction and upgrading my system! I want as big of a system that I can afford (or the true bottleneck, that my partner will let me buy lol). So here's the final plan:

Custom Waterbox 55 gal with metal stand and sump
Dimensions: 36" x 19" x 18" with internal overflow
Cabinet: 36" x 19" x 34" made with 20/20 aluminum frame
Sump: 30.3" x 16.5" x 15" with glass panels

Sump designed with 5 chambers: The inlet chamber, skimmer chamber, refugium, return, and ATO reservoir. For plumbing, I will have a manifold with 2 lines; one for a carbon/GFO reactor, and another as a possible UV light. Expected delivery date is end of October / Early November!!

I've already started buying equipment for the tank and here is the plan.

Equipment (purchased already)
Lights: 2x Radion XR15 Pro 6th gen with tank mount arm
Wavepump: 2x Redsea Reefwave 25
Fleece roller: Redsea Reefmat 500
Return pump: Sicce Syncra SDC 6.0 wifi
Dosing pump: Kamore X1 pro wifi
Reactor: BRS mini reactor
Heater: 200W BRS titanium
Temperature controller: Ink bird ITC 306a

Equipment (desired)
Skimmer: Akula UKS-160
Refugium light: Neptune GRO light
Monitoring: Hanna pH/Temp/Salinity monitor (does anyone have one of these? Does this track changes in an app or is it all just instant viewing only?)

I am starting with dry rocks and have been cycling them using Fritz ammonia in a 10gal brute for the past month. I have a 75W heater in there with 2 AC pumps (though the water doesn't seem to be moving around much because of the rocks obstructing flow ). Been testing the water regularly and it looks like it's cycled!! I added a couple bottles of coraline algae; no idea if this will help seed the rocks but figured it's worth a shot lol.

I've been thinking a lot about what I want as far as corals/inverts/fish inhabitants. Corals will be mostly LPS, Zoas, a RBTA, and mushrooms (carrying over a hammer, cristata torch, Duncans, acans, trumpets, and leptastrea, a variety of zoas), but I’m interested in getting into some more SPS (other than a small monti frag I’ll be carrying over as well). My current livestock that will be carried over will be:

Livestock (current CUC)
2x turbo snails
3x Cerith snails
5x hermit crabs (3 red legs, 1 blue legged, and 1 scarlet)
1 emerald crab
Mico-brittle sea stars
Bristleworms (to me, these guys are pests though and I wouldn’t mind something to eat the jerks!)

Livestock (current)
2x clowns
1 lawnmower blenny
1 yellow watchman goby / candy cane pistol shrimp pair

As far as new inverts, I like the idea of a cleaner shrimp, or either an arrow crab or coral banded shrimp! I actually really love the arrow crab but am scared it will nibble my CUC (anyone successfully keep one without it bothering smaller hermits/snails?).

For future fish, my top pick is a Mandarin goby! I’m hoping the refugium will supply enough copepods for this guy once the tank is established (I will wait ~6 mo to a year until I make this addition). Another possible peaceful fish would be a clown goby! I would love a wrasse, but similarly to the arrow-crab, I don’t want it eating my CUC . Perhaps a fairy wrasse or flasher, but these seem less exciting to me. I also want a type of schooling fish. I am between 2 options for future additions:

Definite stocking
2x clowns
1 lawnmower blenny
1 yellow watchman goby
1 mandarin goby
1 clown goby

And either

Option 1
4-5 cardinal fish
Fairy wrasse

Or Option 2
4-5 blue-green chromis
1 orchid dotty back (will this be aggressive enough to put a school of chromis in line yet peaceful enough to not bother other inhabitants?)

There will not be much room for storage, so I have been planning to add baskets on the inside of the doors, along with hooks to hold foods/equipment. I have been drawing up sketches (everything is to scale!) to lay out the position of baskets/controllers. I also have fish in the tank for these sketches to get a feel for how it might look!

I’m so excited and absolutely can’t wait to get this thing up and running! I’d be interested to hear if anyone has comments or suggestions on the build!

 

[mizimmer90]

Link to my soon-to-be discontinued nano:

Edit:

Current pic:
April 2023

 

[mizimmer90]

New tank is just a few weeks away! Made some DIY dosing vessels in preparation. I followed in the footsteps of the core DIY thread, but swapped out the core bottles for fancier wide-mouthed glass smoothie bottles.

They're about 500mL each and I really like how they take up minimal footprint. Thinking of mounting them with a bracket or just putting a small table for them to sit on.

 

[larryl]

Looking good so far.

 

[mizimmer90]

Looking good so far.

Thanks!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[mizimmer90]

Tank arrival day!!!

Honestly, this tank from waterbox is amazing! Excellent craftsmanship! Even the sump, for being barebones glass, is beautiful!

I moved the 20 gal into a different room and now have this in its spot. My cat is wondering what happened to all the fish lol

 

[Zaxh]

How much was your custom? Thinking of doing a custom cube from them if you dont mind me asking

 

[mizimmer90]

How much was your custom? Thinking of doing a custom cube from them if you dont mind me asking

In total, it was ~$2700; Definitely not a cheap option lol! But I can attest that it's quality! Most of the cost is actually from the stand, but that's one of the main reasons I wanted to go with Waterbox (the stand has an aluminum frame and really nice laminated plywood exterior). The price include the tank, sump, plumbing, and lids:

They charge you some amount upfront (non refundable) to go into the drawings phase. I was anxious to lock in the money without a definite plan, but the process was great. I had about 10 back and forth with the drawings (I kept changing my mind on dimensions and sump layout lol) and they were always pretty quick about responding and sending a new drawing over.

 

[Zaxh]

In total, it was ~$2700; Definitely not a cheap option lol! But I can attest that it's quality! Most of the cost is actually from the stand, but that's one of the main reasons I wanted to go with Waterbox (the stand has an aluminum frame and really nice laminated plywood exterior). The price include the tank, sump, plumbing, and lids:

They charge you some amount upfront (non refundable) to go into the drawings phase. I was anxious to lock in the money without a definite plan, but the process was great. I had about 10 back and forth with the drawings (I kept changing my mind on dimensions and sump layout lol) and they were always pretty quick about responding and sending a new drawing over.

Interesting that that the cabinet was more than everything combined. I'm wondering if you thought about buying a cabinet from a 3rd party with the correct dimensions. Thanks for this!

 

[mizimmer90]

Interesting that that the cabinet was more than everything combined. I'm wondering if you thought about buying a cabinet from a 3rd party with the correct dimensions. Thanks for this!

Yeah, I also checked out glass cages; Joe was great but since this tank is smaller than what they normally do for aluminum stands, he quoted me a much much higher price.

I had drawn up plans to make my own t-slot stand and attach panels via high powered magnets but I couldn't get my partner to sign off on them. She doesn't trust my DIY abilities for something that will be a prominent feature in the living room (probably rightfully so lol) and has STRONG asthetic appeal; she would only agree on a tank in the house if it were located in a specific spot, have very tightly specified dimensions (hence the need for custom), and fit her asthetics. Given the constraints, my only option was the custom Waterbox.

I only stress a little bit on days like waterbox's blue Friday, where I could have saved nearly $1k for an out of the box tank with slightly different dimensions lol. But alas, I'm just happy she even agreed to this at all lol, this is definitely not her hobby. She doesn't know whats in store if this goes well though, I have plans for a 300 gal with a dedicated fish room... no one introduce her to reef2reef

 

[Zaxh]

Yeah, I also checked out glass cages; Joe was great but since this tank is smaller than what they normally do for aluminum stands, he quoted me a much much higher price.

I had drawn up plans to make my own t-slot stand and attach panels via high powered magnets but I couldn't get my partner to sign off on them. She doesn't trust my DIY abilities for something that will be a prominent feature in the living room (probably rightfully so lol) and has STRONG asthetic appeal; she would only agree on a tank in the house if it were located in a specific spot, have very tightly specified dimensions (hence the need for custom), and fit her asthetics. Given the constraints, my only option was the custom Waterbox.

I only stress a little bit on days like waterbox's blue Friday, where I could have saved nearly $1k for an out of the box tank with slightly different dimensions lol. But alas, I'm just happy she even agreed to this at all lol, this is definitely not her hobby. She doesn't know whats in store if this goes well though, I have plans for a 300 gal with a dedicated fish room... no one introduce her to reef2reef

Yep! I’m in the exact same boat as you. My wife only wants cubes tanks and I want a tang! Blue day, we bought the largest cube tank they have, the marine x 60.2 (35 gallon display), and she wants white cabinets and wants it in the living room in this exact spot. So maybe in the future I’ll get a custom cube way bigger or maybe I can convince her for a long tank, once I show her the bigger fish we can get with a long one!

 

[mizimmer90]

I got some LED lights for under the tank so I can see while I'm working down there. The lights are motion activated, rechargeable, and are magnetic.

I also got a long power strip with individual on/off switches! For extra control, I'm throwing on a few wifi controllable outlets (brandname is govee and I've used them for some lights around the house with good success!). I drilled the strip onto the wall behind the tank!

This is my first time plumbing and I was anxious until it passed a small leak test where I put a cup of water in the overflow haha. Am still a little anxious because the reefmat is tugging on the pipes a bit and I'm worried the stress on the glass will cause it to crack... otherwise I'm pretty happy so far!

 

[mizimmer90]

What I'm not happy about is my terrible luck with epoxy bonds/putty/morter...

I spent the day making my rock work. I hammered and chiseled pieces to fit certain shapes.

At first I was using IO epoxy: it was working okay but I find the epoxy difficult to work with. I feel like it sticks to anything but the rocks lol.

I was making good progress but ran out of the putty, so I went to the LFS and got some marco ec400 mortar! I had never used mortar before and was inspired to make some arches and overhangs! I think it turned out beautiful... except it feels like it's crumbling... the mortar just turns to sand if I touch it. I like the scape but there's no way I'm putting these overhangs in the tank to fall and hit a glass wall; it's effectively just packed sand lol

I will check it again in the morning to see of it has hardened any more but it's not looking promising. I bought some nyos mortar, having read that it doesn't crumble as much as the marco stuff. It'll get here later this week

 

[Zaxh]

What I'm not happy about is my terrible luck with epoxy bonds/putty/morter...

I spent the day making my rock work. I hammered and chiseled pieces to fit certain shapes.

At first I was using IO epoxy: it was working okay but I find the epoxy difficult to work with. I feel like it sticks to anything but the rocks lol.

I was making good progress but ran out of the putty, so I went to the LFS and got some marco ec400 mortar! I had never used mortar before and was inspired to make some arches and overhangs! I think it turned out beautiful... except it feels like it's crumbling... the mortar just turns to sand if I touch it. I like the scape but there's no way I'm putting these overhangs in the tank to fall and hit a glass wall; it's effectively just packed sand lol

I will check it again in the morning to see of it has hardened any more but it's not looking promising. I bought some nyos mortar, having read that it doesn't crumble as much as the marco stuff. It'll get here later this week

Is the mortar wet or too dry?

 

[mizimmer90]

Is the mortar wet or too dry?

I'm not sure, it feels dampish but it's been nearly 7-8 hours and the parts i mixed with more or less water are all equally sandy. It just crumbles away :`(. On this forum I'm finding mixes of people this happens to. Some chalk it up to bad batches of the bonding mix. The directions are to fill the liquid pouch with water to "top it off". Maybe I added too much and diluted the bonding mix? Either way I'm not optomistic it will harden

 

[mizimmer90]

Update on the marco morter: today some of the rock was reasonable stronger. Still not rock hard or concrete level, but definitely better. I'm thinking maybe the mix didn't have enough bonding liquid in it, or maybe the water diluted it too much.

So with that in mind, I mixed it up again but this time very very wet and let it dry out a little before putting it in. Worked much better! I just started pouring it onto the rock joints like I was pouring sidewalk!

I'm still a little worried that it will crumble but am coming around to the idea of just sticking it in the tank.

Heres the final rock scape!

My goal was to minimize the footprint of the rock on the Substrate and to maximize the amount of elevated rock for corals. Essentially I'm lifting the rockwork off the sand with a few bases of support.

I'm also trying to take advantage of the height to layer the rock so I can put different species of corals at different layers without issue.

 

[mizimmer90]

I think it has multiple nice viewing angles, with arches, tunnels, and overhangs! My partner thinks it looks like the McDonald's arches lol

 

[mizimmer90]

Rocks are in the tank and it's filled with sand and water!

The red sea reefmat filtered out all the little dust particles like a champ! Love this thing already.

 

[Mikeltee]

That's sweet bro. Why didn't you go a lot bigger? It appears that you have the funds. Bigger is easier and once you are over the initial investment, the cost is roughly the same.