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First Nano Reef - Waterbox 20 Build


EvanSPS6

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Hi all!

 

Been lurking these forums for the last several months now and finally decided to post my new nano build.

 

I kind of fell into the hobby as my dad has always kept freshwater fish. However his arowana died and he was left with a 6ft long tank that he was about to sell and give up on keeping fish. Now i have always been fascinated by saltwater tanks but never took the initiative to start my own tank. Seeing as we now have an empty tank I looked into converting it into a saltwater reef tank, however after only a bit of research I soon realised that a 6 foot reef tank was beyond my budget haha. This was when I got lost in the planted freshwater tank game.

 

Fast forward to today, two years later, the saltwater itch started again. That's when I took the plunge and decided on a small nano build to sit in our hallway. After countless hours researching and obsessing on this idea to finally start a reef tank, i purchased a Waterbox Cube 20

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I have always been a huge fan of the minimalist sleek designs of nano cubes!

 

Waterbox Content

Carribsea Aragonite special grade sand

9kgs of Carribsea Life Rock

Red Sea Salt, blue bucket

 

Equipment List:

Sicce Syncra Silent 0.5 Return Pump

Aquael Ultraheater 100w

AI Nero 5

AI Prime HD

Autoaqua Smart ATO Duo

Intank First chamber media basket

 

Some rockscaping iterations below

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After a week of this my rockscape arrived at its final form

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Tank shot, filled up with lights on!

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As I write this post it has been about a month a week of cycling. The wait has been killing me! But it's given me some time to think about my stock list

 

Fish & inverts

Snail CUC

Cleaner Shrimp

1x Ocellaris Clownfish (Tossing up between designer or OG colours)

1x Bicolour Blenny

1x Twin Spotted Goby

 

Corals

Zoanthid garden

Pulsing Xenia

Hammers

Frogspawn

 

And eventually some SPS.

 

That's all for now! And if you've made it to the end of this post, thank you so much! I've never been one to post in forums, always been a lurker! Haha stayed tuned for some picture updates very soon as my tank is finally nearing the end of the cycle!

 

Cheers,

Evans

 

 

  • Like 10
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Hello and welcome to the community! :welcome:

 

Good choice with the Waterbox. They certainly make a very fine aquarium. Looks like you're off to an excellent start with it! I look forward to seeing where the saltwater side of the hobby takes you. 😊

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I’m really digging the scape, and the equipment list is top notch. I thought those Nero5 pumps were quite strong for smaller tank? I’ve read they tend to suck fish in, so you may want to read up on that and see if a 3D printed guard may be needed. 

 

As for posting, I set up a reminder on my phone to check in every month to make sure I don’t forget about it. I’m sure I’ll be glad I did this in a year or longer and want to see how the tank has developed. 

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3 hours ago, TatorTaco said:

I’m really digging the scape, and the equipment list is top notch. I thought those Nero5 pumps were quite strong for smaller tank? I’ve read they tend to suck fish in, so you may want to read up on that and see if a 3D printed guard may be needed. 

 

As for posting, I set up a reminder on my phone to check in every month to make sure I don’t forget about it. I’m sure I’ll be glad I did this in a year or longer and want to see how the tank has developed. 

Thanks! 

In regards to the pump, it is a bit of an overkill but I got it for the controllability and seeing as i already had the AI Prime, the Nero was an easy choice. I can run it until about 40% before my sand starts blowing around! Haha

Thanks for the heads up about the fish though! I did not run into this while I was researching, lucky for me we have a 3d printer at work. I can model something up and have it printed easy.

  • Like 2
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8 hours ago, Elizabeth94 said:

Welcome to  saltwater! Nice list of equipment there. As long as you take it slow and research literally everything, you should be good. 

Thanks for the follow! And yes countless hours of research goes into every move I make! Cycling the tank for over a month has taught me a lot of patience.

10 hours ago, billygoat said:

Hello and welcome to the community! :welcome:

 

Good choice with the Waterbox. They certainly make a very fine aquarium. Looks like you're off to an excellent start with it! I look forward to seeing where the saltwater side of the hobby takes you. 😊

Thanks for the warm welcome! I look forward to posting a lot more

  • Like 1
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This is going to be a beautiful set up! I absolutely love the AIO boxes. I was actually looking into one when my "tank rescue" fell into my lap. Not complaining at all, because I do enjoy my setup. 

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Finallyyyyy my Reef Glass nano skimmer has arrived all the way from the USA. probably paid way too much for this skimmer (Aussie dollar not so good and the shipping was a killer 😅).

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I gotta say though, I knew it was a small skimmer but damn it's actually quite petite. Should look pretty neat in the rear chamber. Ordered the tetra whisper 20 to go with it as this seemed to be the common choice.

 

Also bought some lid clips from eBay and made a little DIY screen to stop any jumpers

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I guess the only thing left to do now is wait for the cycle to finish. It's coming close to a month and a half now and ammonia is finally close to zero. Nitrites are over 5ppm and seems as though my nitrates are about 5ppm as well. I

didn't think I'd be waiting this long for the cycle tbh. I even used dr Tim's one and only a couple of weeks ago, seems as though this didn't make it a quick cycle as others seem to experience.

Anyone else have this problem?

  • Like 3
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Snow_Phoenix

You might want to swap out the twin spot goby with a different type of goby. Twin spot/two spot gobies have notoriously poor survival rates in nanos and tend to perish prematurely. Otherwise, it looks like you're off to a really good start! 🙂 

  • Like 1
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8 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

You might want to swap out the twin spot goby with a different type of goby. Twin spot/two spot gobies have notoriously poor survival rates in nanos and tend to perish prematurely. Otherwise, it looks like you're off to a really good start! 🙂 

Hmm tbh I'm not entirely keen on the twin spot. I did want a YWM goby and shrimp pair to occupy the bottom of the tank but they are quite pricey here in Australia (about 350) and also the goby seems to get a little too large for my liking. Still undecided. We don't have many goby and shrimp options available in Aus 

  • Like 2
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Snow_Phoenix
55 minutes ago, EvanSPS6 said:

Hmm tbh I'm not entirely keen on the twin spot. I did want a YWM goby and shrimp pair to occupy the bottom of the tank but they are quite pricey here in Australia (about 350) and also the goby seems to get a little too large for my liking. Still undecided. We don't have many goby and shrimp options available in Aus 

I get you on the pricey part. Any chance you could get a Hi-Fin goby there? They pair up very well with pistol shrimp. So you can still get a goby/shrimp pair. :happy:

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14 hours ago, ReefahBarra84 said:

Nice tank ! I should have my 20 here soon.

Thanks mate! I'll definitely be tagging along to see how your tank progresses!

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DSFIRSTSLTWATER

Nice looking tank and :welcome: to nano-reef! I actually just upgraded to the waterbox 20 myself. It's such a great tank. I like how yours looks with the scape and all.

Are you using the filter sock or did you buy an intank media basket? The media basket is so nice if you don't have one.

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DSFIRSTSLTWATER
3 minutes ago, ReefahBarra84 said:

We need to start the official Water box 10 and 20 cube club 

I think there might actually be one...hang on i'll check lol.

nevermind …. this isn't it

 

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  • 1 month later...
13 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

How is your nano reef coming along @EvanSPS6? Hopefully your cycle is all sorted out and finished now!

I've been a bit slow to update but my tank finally finished cycling a few weeks ago! That's about a 2 month cycle.

 

Since then I've seeded my tank with copepods, bought 3 nassarius snails and I picked up a bi color blenny and a zoa frag over the weekend. I'm also finally seeing some diatoms on my rocks! I'm also probably going to pick up a clownfish this coming weekend.

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Here's a shitty pic of my blenny hiding in the rocks haha. It's been two days now and it's still hiding in the rocks, hopefully it comes out soon.

 

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Here's my first ever coral frag. The guy at the LFS said it's an eagle eye zoa but it looks a lot closer to a Rasta to me.

  • Like 3
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Hey all,

 

First FTS since my cycle completed a few months ago.

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Some additions to the tank recently:

 

3 turbo snails - I got these guys yesterday and it seems as though they completely ate all my diatoms in one day.

 

1 trochus snail - I got this guy to eat the diatoms because I didn't think the turbos would eat them.

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1 Ocellaris Clownfish

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Taking my stocking super slow. I was planning on stocking all my fish and inverts before adding any 'serious' coral. Only got a tester zoa in there at the moment but I'm itching to put in a frogspawn colony. How long did you guys wait before putting in LPS?

 

Also not sure if you can see in the pic but I have hundreds of copepods crawling all over my back wall and my rock!

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More weekly updates to come! 

 

  • Like 3
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5 minutes ago, EvanSPS6 said:

Hey all,

 

First FTS since my cycle completed a few months ago.

20190929_200635.thumb.jpg.33321b45c4674d7261e5d954a5c937ee.jpg

 

Some additions to the tank recently:

 

3 turbo snails - I got these guys yesterday and it seems as though they completely ate all my diatoms in one day.

 

1 trochus snail - I got this guy to eat the diatoms because I didn't think the turbos would eat them.

20190929_202029.thumb.jpg.370c796bc10847629145fac1ca477ebb.jpg

1 Ocellaris Clownfish

20190929_202050.thumb.jpg.dd11b8b2a000c7aa31c7d5bbaa35ad9e.jpg

 

Taking my stocking super slow. I was planning on stocking all my fish and inverts before adding any 'serious' coral. Only got a tester zoa in there at the moment but I'm itching to put in a frogspawn colony. How long did you guys wait before putting in LPS?

 

Also not sure if you can see in the pic but I have hundreds of copepods crawling all over my back wall and my rock!

20190929_200527.thumb.jpg.28121348c6611e9388162ad382335ae1.jpg

 

More weekly updates to come! 

 

Looks good so far. 😊

  • Like 1
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Looking great in there! I see you've got some of those big Tongan Nassarius snails. They are monsters when it comes to cleaning up uneaten food, to the point that they may benefit from target feeding if your fish aren't leaving enough leftovers for them to snack on.

 

As for adding LPS, I think that as long as you are confident that your parameters are no longer fluctuating, you could go ahead and pick up a starter frag to test the waters. LPS can adapt to a variety of lighting and water quality conditions, but like all corals they will struggle with rapid changes. So as long as you're confident that things are stable, why not give it a shot? 😊

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