FM's 15g Waterbox Peninsula

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

After almost a decade hiatus from the hobby, I got the itch again and decided to do things "better" this time around and correct some of the mistakes that I made my first go at this. The goal was to keep things as simple as possible, utilize a small footprint, purchase quality equipment, create an "easy" to maintain system, and stay under a $1,000 budget for all tank/equipment/rock/sand to get things started (looking back at this laughing at the thought of all this). Below is what I ended up with (I even hit my budget mark with $50 to spare!):

 

Tank: Waterbox Peninsula Mini 15

Lighting: AI Prime 16

Controller: Neptune Systems Apex

Pumps: Sicce Syncra Silent .5 

Powerheads: Hygger Mini Wave Maker

ATO: AutoAqua Smart ATO Lite

Heater: Eheim Jager 75w (2 for redundancy)

Substrate: CaribSea Special Grade (15lb)

Rock: BRS Dry Rock (10lb)

RODI: RO Buddy 50gpd

 

Entire tank was setup 5/16/21 and running in about 6 hours, which was mostly just waiting for salt to mix. Live sand and dry rock clouded things up but cleared in under 12 hours (assuming I can thank the filter sock for a big part of this). Not planning to add any live stock for at least a month after cycling with the assistance of MicroBacter 7 and some live rock rubble from an established tank to seed the dry rock. No lights at all or water changes during cycling until confirmed completed. Will do a 80%-90% water change when cycle is completed to get any excess nutrients out of the tank for when the lights get to turn on to avoid any nuisance algae that can be avoided.

 

Looking forward to seeing how things go!

 

May 2021

[Reefkid88]

I like your plans so far. Sounds solid and I love the aquascape. 

[tassos]

Good luck! The waterbox peninsula is a nice-looking tank. Your aquascape is very cool

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

After tirelessly looking through the forums to see what folks have used for lids, I decided it was worth breaking the bank a bit to get something nice that isn't going to warp and makes it convenient and easy to feed livestock and maintain a clean look which is difficult with lids on rimless tanks. Kraken Reef has some fantastic stuff and looks to be highly recommended among Waterbox folks that use their lids. Now I get to wait a month until it shows up...

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Whether intentional or not, it's extremely convenient that the rear section of the Waterbox has only tinted glass so all of the unlit equipment is hidden almost completely from view, but I have great visibility of the ATO sensor straight from the front of the tank to make sure it's working properly (and I don't at all mind the snazzy glow from the LED either). AutoAqua ATO Lite comes highly recommended so far, by the way. much more sensitive than I thought it would be which is great as I've only got around 12.5 gallons or so in the tank after accounting for rock and sand volume. Reservoir only has around 1.5 liters at any point in time and has needed filling only around once every 3-4 days. impossible to overflow the display in the event of a malfunction, and flashes red if the pump runs dry. way better than topping it up twice a day to make sure the return pump doesn't run dry as the last chamber is only around 4-5 cups of volume probably.

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Couldn't help myself, had to setup the AI Prime 16 HDs and see how they looked. Did not disappoint. Can't wait to be able to get these on a schedule down the line once we're cycled...looks too nice to keep them off all day....

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Cycle headaches...

 

Dosed Ammonium Chloride to 2ppm around 3 weeks ago to kick things off and I had a feeling that something wasn't right after checking the levels every couple days. Finally over the last couple days Ammonia has almost bottomed out at zero but my nitrites were well over 10ppm and nitrates sky high at around 160. Assuming that the Microbacter7 dosing schedule that they recommend for "seeding new aquaria" may have overdone things and stalled things out. I decided to do a 50% water change and see if that would help it along at all, at the recommendation of the local LFS. They also were gracious enough to provide a couple pieces of live rock rubble from their clown/RBTA tank to help seed my dry rock and potentially help things along. I scattered it about after checking through them for visible pests. Probably could have done a better job of this, but ultimately the pods and feather dusters had me reeled in after staring at it...amazing how quickly the excitement makes you do unsavory things...

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Lots has changed since square 1, 6 months ago! Have been gradually adding some small frags and have seen great growth over even a short period of time. Below are some livestock that I introduced in July along with some shots from shortly after they opened up within the first couple days:

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Lots has changed in the last 5-6 months, though! Including some new additions as well:

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Full list of current livestock:

• Cleaner Shrimp
• 2 Cerith Snails
• 2 Nessarius Snails
• 2 Red-Legged Hermit
• Green Pipe Organ
• Blue-Green Candy Canes
• Indo Neon Green Branching Hammer
• Green Florida Ricordea Mushroom
• Pink Rapture Zoas
• Eagle Eye Zoas
• Red People Eater Zoas
• Blueberry Pie Zoas
• Blue People Eater Zoas
• Gatorade Zoas
• Luck of the Irish Acans
• Blue-Rimmed Orange Acans
• Starburst Cap Montipora
• WWC Toxic Glow Montipora
• WWC Honeycomb Leptastrea
• WWC Blue Center Green Star Polyps
• White Center Green Star Polyps
• Green Birdsnest
• Hollywood Stunner Chalice

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Is it overkill, ABSOLUTELY. I took advantage of BRS's holiday sale and bought an Apex controller. The probes barely fit in the return chamber of my Waterbox, but it all works! Salinity probe is definitely off, but I've heard that is common with probe wiring crossing other AC channels. 

 

Idea is to eventually have a much bigger system than this so I can grow into it much more comfortably when the time comes. Can't wait to play around with things a bit more!

 

 

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Full setup with tank: 

 

Really want to get the hammer onto a rock. The blue-center GSP (left on frag rack) is something that I'm hoping to get onto the back wall to grow out since it's SO bright green and fantastic, but it's not growing nearly as fast as the white-center (right on frag rack). Slowly working to program the Apex appropriately, but most items are still on my surge protector with switches for the time being.

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Apex saved me today in a big way...originally I thought the purchase was overkill and a waste of money for such a small system, but boy was I wrong!

 

Yesterday evening I filled my ATO reservoir, and while doing so I always switch off my ATO pump when pulling it out while I lug the 5g reservoir to the RODI for a fill. I'm usually pretty good about making sure to switch it back on when I put the pump back in the jug. 

 

Shortly after 1am, I got an alarm from the APEX that my temp was outside of my range setting, which I've set at 77 as a minimum because my OCD is awful. As it turns out, I forgot to switch the ATO back on which caused for evap to lower the water level in the back of the tank enough that my heaters tripped off to avoid running dry (I have a small AIO tank so there really isn't any other place for them). 

 

Since the heat in our home turns down to almost 62deg at night thanks to Nest Eco settings, the tank could have very quickly found its way to room temp if I hadn't been woken up by the alarm and came to fix the issue. Such a simple error that could have caused for loss in the tank that was completely avoided thanks to the "expensive, unnecessary" tech that I treated myself to for Christmas. I'll be an Apex Fusion believer for life. Such peace of mind.

 

Question - Does anyone have suggestions for redundancies and alerts that they've set for their controllers that they can recommend for someone who is the "belt and suspenders" type?

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Algae plague is in full force...GHA, Bryopsis, and Bubble Algae are taking over everything. I've made no changes at all to warrant this and have been cognizant of feeding less, even. Nitrates are near-zero, likely due to the algae keeping numbers down, but I've been sucking out everything with weekly water changes and it doesn't seem to get any better. RO water at 0 TDS and is checked every time I fill for RO or salt mix. 

 

I am, however, continuing to use the Tropic Marin Pro reef...of which I've confirmed that I have a box that was made in their Turkey facilities. There doesn't seem to be a ton of info online, but is it possible that there is an excess of nutrients that are feeding the bloom I'm dealing with here? I'd hate to discontinue as I've noticed none of the clarity or sediment issues that folks have mentioned and I tested for Calcium/alk/ph/etc. with no noticeable differences lately.

 

I dosed 1ml of Vibrant today and will continue every 2 weeks to see if this will help get me back on a good footing...if after 3 doses, nothing is happening, I might increase to weekly after water changes and see if it's helpful. I have been running 2 Tbs activated carbon for a few months but I think I'll discontinue to see if that might have been something in-play.

 

Any suggestions are welcome! I'll continue trying to manually suck out as much as possible with water changes in the meantime. Corals are all super healthy and don't seem to mind at all which is nice...

[FM's Round 2 Reef]

Haven't added a thing to the tank in well over 6 months and all of a sudden I have these guys popping up everywhere. Can anyone ID? Good snails? Bad snails?

[LazyFish]

Type of limpet. They are prety neat. They make a home scar (a flat spot they have cleaned off) that they return too when they rest or when.the tide is out. Most are algae eaters but some types will eat corals. 

[Reefkid88]

Its a good part of the CUC,I would leave it. I also had amazing success with using fluco to beat bryopsis and mine was WAY WORSE than yours is.