Floribraska
Community Member
Howdy, and thanks for checking out this build thread. I've been a long-time lurker on R2R but have never posted much, so maybe that will change as this tank progresses!
I have been fortunate enough to have been around aquariums my entire life. My grandpa was a prolific diver and has been a reefer for over 60 years. I've learned a lot from being apart of his successes and failures over the years with his ever-evolving system (an in-wall ~300g display plumbed to an exterior workshop with custom sump, tied into another ~200g Angelfish dominated display tank, 120g seahorse tank, 120g clowfish harem tank, etc... you get the idea) but I'm excited to finally be in a position where I can try to make him proud of my own tank!
Unfortunately, my wife is reasonable and didn't agree to let me compete with Gramps in our new house (North Texas area) by converting the entire place into an aquarium, so we settled on sticking to a ~6ft long display in our living room as the primary focal point. We built a home theater and don't want a TV where the previous homeowners had their living room entertainment system, so we had a perfect spot for the tank there! One of the limitations of this location however is a lack of reasonable access to plumb anything in or out, so all equipment must stay confined to the aquarium cabinet.
I ended up deciding on a Waterbox after comparing RedSea, quotes for custom-built locally, Planet Aquarium, GlassCages, and a couple other options. I ordered the Waterbox 220.6 and most of the equipment back before COVID really hit the US hard, and so I had most things delivered in early March. In the meanwhile, I also had 2 dedicated 15amp circuits added to power the tank, since the existing circuits were not going to cut it.
Edit: Equipment list as of 6/1/22
Tank & Sump:
Waterbox 220.6
72"x25"x24" - 167g display with internal overflow
39g Sump with Refugium Section in use
18g ATO reservoir with Tunze Osmolator 3155 ATO Controller
Lighting:
4x Radion XR30 G5 Pros
1x AI Prime Fuge light
Filtration:
Red Sea RSK900 Skimmer
Refugium section topped with chaeto algae. Also holds marinepure blocks & spare live rock
2x BRS Canister Filters for Carbon and GFO
57W UV Sterilizer
Sicce Silent 5.0 pump (UV & Chiller plumbed in-line with flow-rate optimized for UV turnover)
Return & Flow:
1x Vectra L2 - main return
4x MP40s - 2 on each side of the tank
RO/DI & Water Mixing Station:
2x 55gal Containers - 1x for Mixing Salt & 1x for clean RO/DI
1x Vectra L2 (also serves as a swappable replacement for primary return pump if necessary)
BRS 7 stage Pro Plus 150GPD system
Heating/Cooling:
Ranco Temperature Controller
BRS 600W Titanium Heating Element
Arctica 1/3HP Chiller
6x PC fans controlled by a DIY controller via a Rasperry Pi for proper airflow through Chiller
Dosing & Testing:
Versa 4 Pack with Base Station
3x compact 4L dosing containers with Red Sea Foundations A,B,C
Vodka dosing
Salifert Test Kits (Ca, Mg, and Nitrate weekly)
Hanna Phosphate Checker (weekly)
Hanna Alk Checker (daily)
Salinity refractometer (daily)
MQ-210 PAR meter
Tank Delivered!
Safe in the garage for unboxing.
Pretty well-packaged. No scratches to be found!
Moving the tank into position was delayed when I discovered an issue with the Waterbox stand; no holes and threaded inserts for the support feet were in the front support! Waterbox customer service was pretty responsive with me on resolving this. They offered to mail me the threaded inserts and let me drill the holes myself (2-3day shipping) or send a replacement panel with the holes and inserts correctly installed (7-10 day shipping). While I'm comfortable with my ability to drill holes, I opted for the latter option to be safe.
Electrical line added. I had to go up from my main box, through the attic, and back down like this. No one ever sees this tiny side-yard, so it was the best option.
More stand assembly. Waterbox provides lackluster instructions... It's fairly intuitive, but I'd really like to see them improve on their assembly documentation.
All done.
In the meanwhile I had purchased dry rock from BRS, and been playing around with aquascaping. I laid out a cardboard cutout with the tank dimensions, and this is what I came up with. I like having some negative space to help ensure flow can move detritus from behind the rocks, plus I wanted to leave ample space for coral to grow out. It's much easier to add more rock than take it away once it's already in there I figured.
Couple shots of the mixing station in the utility room. I had a pretty limited space to work with, but it'll do.
In mid-March we got the tank moved into place. 3/4" glass is HEAVY! All hands were on deck and needed to get it into place! Aquascaping moved into the tank, and this pretty close to the final product. It needed to have a good side-view too, since one end is quite visible from our kitchen table.
I didn't take any photos of water and sand being added, but for cycling the tank I used MicroBactr7 and did a fish-less cycle, which worked exceedingly well. I also added some red and purple algae spores from ARC to seed the dry, dead rock and color it up. I was skeptical at first, but it does work!
Despite being at home everyday for the last 6+ months (I worked from home even before COVID), I took surprisingly few good pictures of the tank and it's progress over the first few months, so we'll have to just jump straight to current-day in my next post.
I have been fortunate enough to have been around aquariums my entire life. My grandpa was a prolific diver and has been a reefer for over 60 years. I've learned a lot from being apart of his successes and failures over the years with his ever-evolving system (an in-wall ~300g display plumbed to an exterior workshop with custom sump, tied into another ~200g Angelfish dominated display tank, 120g seahorse tank, 120g clowfish harem tank, etc... you get the idea) but I'm excited to finally be in a position where I can try to make him proud of my own tank!
Unfortunately, my wife is reasonable and didn't agree to let me compete with Gramps in our new house (North Texas area) by converting the entire place into an aquarium, so we settled on sticking to a ~6ft long display in our living room as the primary focal point. We built a home theater and don't want a TV where the previous homeowners had their living room entertainment system, so we had a perfect spot for the tank there! One of the limitations of this location however is a lack of reasonable access to plumb anything in or out, so all equipment must stay confined to the aquarium cabinet.
I ended up deciding on a Waterbox after comparing RedSea, quotes for custom-built locally, Planet Aquarium, GlassCages, and a couple other options. I ordered the Waterbox 220.6 and most of the equipment back before COVID really hit the US hard, and so I had most things delivered in early March. In the meanwhile, I also had 2 dedicated 15amp circuits added to power the tank, since the existing circuits were not going to cut it.
Edit: Equipment list as of 6/1/22
Tank & Sump:
Waterbox 220.6
72"x25"x24" - 167g display with internal overflow
39g Sump with Refugium Section in use
18g ATO reservoir with Tunze Osmolator 3155 ATO Controller
Lighting:
4x Radion XR30 G5 Pros
1x AI Prime Fuge light
Filtration:
Red Sea RSK900 Skimmer
Refugium section topped with chaeto algae. Also holds marinepure blocks & spare live rock
2x BRS Canister Filters for Carbon and GFO
57W UV Sterilizer
Sicce Silent 5.0 pump (UV & Chiller plumbed in-line with flow-rate optimized for UV turnover)
Return & Flow:
1x Vectra L2 - main return
4x MP40s - 2 on each side of the tank
RO/DI & Water Mixing Station:
2x 55gal Containers - 1x for Mixing Salt & 1x for clean RO/DI
1x Vectra L2 (also serves as a swappable replacement for primary return pump if necessary)
BRS 7 stage Pro Plus 150GPD system
Heating/Cooling:
Ranco Temperature Controller
BRS 600W Titanium Heating Element
Arctica 1/3HP Chiller
6x PC fans controlled by a DIY controller via a Rasperry Pi for proper airflow through Chiller
Dosing & Testing:
Versa 4 Pack with Base Station
3x compact 4L dosing containers with Red Sea Foundations A,B,C
Vodka dosing
Salifert Test Kits (Ca, Mg, and Nitrate weekly)
Hanna Phosphate Checker (weekly)
Hanna Alk Checker (daily)
Salinity refractometer (daily)
MQ-210 PAR meter
Tank Delivered!
Safe in the garage for unboxing.
Pretty well-packaged. No scratches to be found!
Moving the tank into position was delayed when I discovered an issue with the Waterbox stand; no holes and threaded inserts for the support feet were in the front support! Waterbox customer service was pretty responsive with me on resolving this. They offered to mail me the threaded inserts and let me drill the holes myself (2-3day shipping) or send a replacement panel with the holes and inserts correctly installed (7-10 day shipping). While I'm comfortable with my ability to drill holes, I opted for the latter option to be safe.
Electrical line added. I had to go up from my main box, through the attic, and back down like this. No one ever sees this tiny side-yard, so it was the best option.
More stand assembly. Waterbox provides lackluster instructions... It's fairly intuitive, but I'd really like to see them improve on their assembly documentation.
All done.
In the meanwhile I had purchased dry rock from BRS, and been playing around with aquascaping. I laid out a cardboard cutout with the tank dimensions, and this is what I came up with. I like having some negative space to help ensure flow can move detritus from behind the rocks, plus I wanted to leave ample space for coral to grow out. It's much easier to add more rock than take it away once it's already in there I figured.
Couple shots of the mixing station in the utility room. I had a pretty limited space to work with, but it'll do.
In mid-March we got the tank moved into place. 3/4" glass is HEAVY! All hands were on deck and needed to get it into place! Aquascaping moved into the tank, and this pretty close to the final product. It needed to have a good side-view too, since one end is quite visible from our kitchen table.
I didn't take any photos of water and sand being added, but for cycling the tank I used MicroBactr7 and did a fish-less cycle, which worked exceedingly well. I also added some red and purple algae spores from ARC to seed the dry, dead rock and color it up. I was skeptical at first, but it does work!
Despite being at home everyday for the last 6+ months (I worked from home even before COVID), I took surprisingly few good pictures of the tank and it's progress over the first few months, so we'll have to just jump straight to current-day in my next post.
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