Waterbox Marine X 60.2 - In Search of Stability

[Nano_Addict]

 

 

 

 

[PKIBS]

Awesome thread on the tank. Keep up the good work. I have been thinking of doing a Waterbox 60.2 in a very similar hands off set up. Would love to see shots on how you have the sump set up and manage to organize all the electronics inside the small cabinet space. 

[Nano_Addict]

As requested, here's a few shots of the sump and equipment!  I have a cabinet to the left of the tank the houses all of the electronics and also provides a nice little work area.  I might have gone overboard with the gear on this tank... but my plan is to have it running for as long as possible and to that end I wanted to to be as self-sufficient as possible.

 

So far it's been awesome having everything organized and separate from the sump area.  The 60.2 sump is pretty tight on space, that in addition to the amount of salt spray my skimmer puts off would make it a pretty tough place to house the amount of gear I have hooked up to this tank.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PKIBS]

Thanks for the pictures and love the setup!  I figured you had to have the electronics somewhere other than the cabinet with the sump. The extra work area is a nice bonus as well. 
 

I’m thinking of setting it up in my office at my company. So I need my setup to look nice and clean and also not overwhelming the space. This helps give me a lot to figure out. Thanks!

[DevilDuck]

Your setup is so clean! 

[Nano_Addict]

1 hour ago, DevilDuck said:

Your setup is so clean! 

Thanks! The controller board was a must for this build.  The cabinet that houses the electronics was a stand for my previous tank and as you might be able to see there are screw holes all over the walls from the haphazard electronics mounting that tank had.

 

I've debated creating a V2.0 for the controller board since the current version is made from 1/2" plywood since that's what I had laying around and it is HEAVY 😅

[Christopher Marks]

On 1/31/2022 at 12:20 PM, Nano_Addict said:

The tank is officially one year old!  However, I'm still searching for stability. Dry rock and dry sand to start has to be one of the most difficult paths to a reef I've ever taken.  

 

Looking back, the ability to construct a rock structure that matches exactly what I had in my mind was great, but I don't think the trade off of constant stability issues for the past twelve months is worth it.  However, I'm hoping things are starting to level out.  I'm still dealing with a but of stubborn cyano on the sandbed, but even that is beginning to fade.  I also recently dealt with a 2-part precipitation issue.  This was likely my fault.  I was running a CO2 reactor and I believe the pH got too high and created the conditions for the 2-part to begin to precipitate.  I removed the reactor and things have started to stabilize.

Congrats on making it through year one, I think some of the hardest parts are behind you now!

 

I agree that starting with dry rock and sand is a difficult path, but the ups and downs you've been through happen to most new reef tanks, perhaps just on a different timeline. I wish I had started with some real ocean live rock in my pico reef rather than cultured dry rock, in hindsight, but it just isn't as readily available as it once was. Building up a diverse ecosystem takes time, and getting through 'the uglies' takes the most willpower as a hobbyist. You're in the home stretch!

[Sharbuckle]

Wow! You’ve done such a great job organizing all your equipment. I’m just starting to cycle the same tank tomorrow. I’ve got a question for you.

 
What percentage are you running your vectra at? I’m having a hard time getting this thing to run quietly. It’s in our living room and girlfriend has a strict no water noise policy! Haha 

[Nano_Addict]

7 hours ago, Sharbuckle said:

Wow! You’ve done such a great job organizing all your equipment. I’m just starting to cycle the same tank tomorrow. I’ve got a question for you.

 
What percentage are you running your vectra at? I’m having a hard time getting this thing to run quietly. It’s in our living room and girlfriend has a strict no water noise policy! Haha 

Thanks! It was definitely a task getting everything to fit in that equipment cabinet. 

 

As for the Vectra, it's set to 35%.  Unfortunately, I've never been able to get this tank to run completely silent.  I think a lot of the water noise comes from the Klir filter, but even so I have to adjust the main drain valve semi-regularly in order to keep the water level in the correct position.  My best advice (based on everything I've read online) is to keep the water level as close as possible to the top of the emergency overflow pipe.

[Nano_Addict]

It's been a long time since I've updated this thread... partially because the tank continues to chug along, but only with partial success.  Over the past 22 months I've had no fish deaths (KNOCK ON WOOD) which has been great! However, coral has been an entirely different story.  I've had short term success with various LPS corals including hammers, lobos, duncans, trumpets, and blastos, but over time they all seem to meet an untimely demise. I've been able to dial in dosing of alk, ca, and mg to levels I would deem normal for a tank with a large amount of coralline and don't seem to be getting mass amounts of precipitation any longer.

 

Here's a recent FTS and the lone survivors.

 

About three months ago I took the skimmer completely offline.  Prior to this, no matter what I tried, I couldn't eliminate cyano and dinos and I thought the skimmer might be stripping out too many nutrients.  Since then, the tank has transitioned from cyano and dino outbreaks to a medium-sized hair algae outbreak which would make sense if there's more available nutrients in the water column.

 

The grand plan for this tank absolutely still includes corals, but I want to get the hair algae under control first. Because some of the hair algae was ID'd as bryopsis, I decided to give ReefHD Fluconazole a try.  I left it in the tank for 3 weeks and It worked wonderfully on the bryopsis and even put a dent in the standard hair algae.  However, once it was removed from the system the hair algae returned to previous levels.  I tried another 3 week treatment, but this time it did not seem to affect the standard hair algae.  During the large 30% waterchange post-fluconazole, I discovered the disaster below... 

 

 

This is my probe holder from the sump. It was positioned juuuuust above the waterline and the rusting magnet was on the inside where it wasn't at all noticeable.  I don't know how long it's been like this, but based on the amount of rust I'd have to guess it's been several months at least!  This gives me some hope that maybe I've figured out what's been killing the corals. Although I have run several ICP tests over this time period and none of the levels have been significantly off.

 

Since I had just done a 30% waterchange, I felt confident that the best course of action was to remove the magnet, toss in fresh carbon along with some Brightwell Purit to hopefully pull any heavy metals out of the water column.  I plan to let that run for a few weeks and send in another ICP.

 

In another attempt to diagnose the mystery coral deaths in the tank, I finally rented a PAR meter and took readings throughout the tank.  I should have done this immediately after setting the tank up.  I had been running the A360X at 80% intensity. Come to find out that the levels (even) at 100% intensity are lower than I expected.

 

Red = 8 inches off the water

Yellow = 7 inches off the water

 

 

Both height settings give me levels that should sustain LPS.  So now the light will be set to 100% intensity going forward.

 

I think my next move is to introduce several macro algae species into the tank.  I haven't decided if this means putting them in a refugium in the sump or ornamentally within the display.  My hope is that by adding some macros I can gently pull the excess nutrients feeding the hair algae out of the water column without stripping the levels to 0 as I was with the skimmer. I just need algae barn to get some of their clean macros back in stock!

 

Anyway, if you made it to the end of this long update, thanks for reading! Here's hoping that the next few months are smoother than the last few. As always, I'll just keep with my mantra: Patience, patience, patience.

[yondermountain91]

Please update us, I am very new and have been reading through the ups and downs. I would love to know how everything is coming along. I so want to get into this hobby like right now, but have been just reading and being patient.

[Nano_Addict]

On 2/3/2023 at 10:58 AM, yondermountain91 said:

Please update us, I am very new and have been reading through the ups and downs. I would love to know how everything is coming along. I so want to get into this hobby like right now, but have been just reading and being patient.

Thanks for following along.  I don't have any pictures at the moment but the tank is still up and running. I'll try to grab some photos and post a better update soon!

[Nano_Addict]

Still haven't taken a lot of tank pics... but here's a teaser for whenever that does actually happen.

[ml86743]

weee want pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nano_Addict]

One eternity later…

 

The tank is really starting to fill in! I’ve had my struggles to be sure… but I think I’ve stumbled upon a secret sauce.  TRACE. ELEMENT. DOSING. The results are astonishing and almost immediate.  After starting to dose daily the colors colored up and starting growing like weeds within a week.  They also look fat and happy. Therefore, I am happy.

 

I also added a kalk stirrer to save on 2-part costs. 

 

Anyway, here’s some mediocre pics!