Tank Recommendations - Cade / Redsea / Waterbox

[apista]

Hi Team,

What are people recommending for tanks in 24, Redsea or Cade, Waterbox is out for me due to the particle board cabinet. I am interested in setting up a four foot aquarium and have owned Redsea and Cade in the past.

Thanks in advance

 

[TX_REEF]

Waterbox has aluminum stand frame though - I have Redsea and wouldn’t buy it again. Pros and cons below based on my experience with the Reefer 350 G2. I’d go waterbox if I had to do it again.

Pros

• looks amazing in my opinion, super clean design. I love the rimless open top look, even if it means more evaporation
• Great dimensions in my opinion, deep and wide enough for an awesome scape, but shallow enough to reach down to the bottom as needed
• custom fitted stand, sump and plumbing. You can almost everything you need all in one kit
• I personally love the rear center combined drain and return, it means filtered water is effortlessly disbursed
• runs silent if set up properly (you'll only hear the hum of your skimmer, if you choose to have one
• lots of custom fitted accessories (I fitted a reefmat 500 to it and personally love it)
• G2 version has thicker glass and protective plastic over the silicone seams to (hopefully) eliminate the silicone seam failure issues. Time will tell, but it seems solid to me. Just don't be slamming your mag float or whatever you use to clean the interior glass up against the seams.

Cons

• The stand is HORRIBLE to assemble, and frankly feels cheap for such an expensive system. I'd much rather solid wood or metal.
• The ATO reservoir for gravity-fed top off seems great and works well at first, but it's actually way too small, prevents you from using the sump space fully, and in my case the float valve and rubber tube that allow the fresh water to flow down constantly clog or something. I replaced this with an optic ATO with external reservoir to eliminate all of these issues, but it's a shame because now everything is not under stand stand. I'm currently gearing up to use the ATO reservoir as a rimless freshwater planted tank instead
• fairly expensive
• you will lose some jumping-prone fish if you don't add a custom fitted cover
• I don't like all of the "best fitting" red sea accessories (i.e I went with kessil for lighting, octopus skimmer), so fitment can be a little challenging
• the sump looks great but I HATE how tight it is. there is next to zero space behind and around it for magnet-mounted accessories (heaters, ATO sensor, etc) check my reefer 350 build thread for pics of just how tight it is. I even removed baffles to make more room for the skimmer, reef mat and algae turf scrubber.
• The center rear overflow has pros like I said, but it also causes the issues of needing a custom cover since it's not a perfect rectangle (if you want a cover) and the overflow stack can also disrupt even flow from powerheads. I have 2 mp40s and 2 cheap powerheads for surface agitation to combat this.
• The doors on the stand are super annoying to open and close. Again, at this price point, disappointing

 

[Fishboy9227]

Crystal Dynamics made a fantastic tank for me.

Isn’t Red Sea particle board as well?

 

[Naekuh]

Innovative Marine.

 

[apista]

Waterbox looks very unengineered to me, and I would never buy a particle board tank, Redsea as far as i know a lot of models are marine ply.

My Cade is a nice tank but the stand is very average, it’s solid but the attention to detail is very disappointing. It was full of swarf, looked to be scratched from the factory (tooling marks) and was very dirty and grimey. They look typical of many modern day companies get things to 90% and put them on the market, never worrying about that last 10%.

Interesting thoughts, looks to me like none of them are worth my money, which is what I kind of expected.

 

[mizukage]

Waterbox looks very unengineered to me, and I would never buy a particle board tank, Redsea as far as i know a lot of models are marine ply.

My Cade is a nice tank but the stand is very average, it’s solid but the attention to detail is very disappointing. It was full of swarf, looked to be scratched from the factory (tooling marks) and was very dirty and grimey. They look typical of many modern day companies get things to 90% and put them on the market, never worrying about that last 10%.

Interesting thoughts, looks to me like none of them are worth my money, which is what I kind of expected.

Check out these guys https://ultumnaturesystems.com/full-reef-system/ they have a stellar rep for aesthetics in the freshwater space and have moved to saltwater recently.