Waterbox 10g "Viewing" Thread

[NoviceNanoReefer]

Overview

 

Tank: Waterbox 10g

 

Equipment:

• Supplied pump
• AI Nero 3
• AI Prime 16HD
• AquaEL Ultra 50W Heater
• Kamoer ATO SE

 

Media: 

• Poly-filter
• Supplied media (Activated carbon, sponges and plastic bio balls)
  • Plans to change this to something like ceramic bio balls, but I believe most beneficial bacteria is on the rocks
  • Plans to get rid of the carbon, due to polyfilter

 

Rocks: Caribsea Dry Rock Arches

 

Sand: Aqua Natural Course Aragonite Sand 9kg (not all used)

 

Salt: Aquaforest Reef Salt

 

Water: Tap water (TDS: 39) with dechlorinator

 

 

Fish:

• Percula Picasso Clownfish
• Orange Ocellaris Clownfish

 

Inverts (and Nems):

• Green Bubble Tip Anemone
• Rose/Rainbow Bubble Tip Anemone (unsure?)
• 3x Small hermit crabs
• 4x 3x Turbo Snails (I knocked a Turbo snail off the glass cleaner when using it, and by chance it fell into the mini maxi)
• 4x  2x Nassarius Snails (one hermit keeps eating them for their shells....)
• Blue/Yellow Mini Maxi Anemone

 

Corals:

 

Softies:

• Orange Bam Bam Zoas
• Alpha and Omega Zoas
• Eagle Eye Zoas?
• Unknown Green skirt, yellow centre Zoa
• Green Ricordea Mushroom

 

LPS:

• Pink tipped green elegance
• Green alveopora
• White and blue alveopora
• White alveopora
• Green and brown hammer
• Blue hammer
• Purple hammer
• Purple and green hammer
• Purple acans
• Red acans

 

Future Plans:

• Sexy Shrimp
• Redline Cleaner Shrimp
• Fire Goby

 

Hi everyone,

 

I've found that I loved looking at all the build threads on this site, and I thought I would share some of my build thread experiences. My tank has been already 'built', however I thought I would try to share photos of how it matures, even if it is only for my own entertainment.

 

Having previously fallen in love with the freshwater hobby over a year ago, I'm not particularly experienced, however I like to think I've learnt a lot since starting.

 

I was first attracted to the saltwater hobby over a year ago, when I discovered the first marine lfs where I live. I instantly fell in love with the 'more colourful' fish, and I thought that corals would certainly be far too hard!

 

Fast forward to March this year, and being in Australia, I had been spending a lot of time at home. Eventually my girlfriend allowed me to get a second tank if that was what I kept to. I'm proud to say its stayed at two tanks for the time being!

 

In April, I picked the Waterbox 10 at my local lfs because I liked the cube shape, and the AIO nature of it, and I thought it would be a reasonable place to start in the saltwater hobby. After consulting my lfs, I bought everything that was needed, setting it up with:

- 5 kgs Caribsea Dry Rock Arches,

- ~6 kgs Course Aragonite Sand,

- AI Prime 16HD with Flex Arm

 

Then what followed was an extremely frustrating process of waiting. I had prepared myself for approximately a month of cycling, and my ammonia was at 0 after approximately 3 weeks, but the Red Sea test kit showed nitrite at the maximal 1, with nitrates often being 5-10. This led me to believe I couldn't start until I had 0 nitrate due to my lfs and my experience in freshwater.

 

I then was curious about what could possibly be causing this, and I discovered my rocks were leaching small amounts of ammonia, and reasonable amounts of nitrite, by way of an experiment. I did this by performing an experiment with a control, with the rocks separately in buckets of water, and with the sand again in separate water. The rocks had 0.25 ammonia each and 0.5 nitrite each after 2 days. I have no explanation for how this occurred. (I'm a science student, can you tell?)

 

I eventually came upon information that nitrite is not toxic to marine life in low levels around July, after buying and using so much bottle bac! However being cautious I waited it out, hoping my nitrite would reduce. Finally I bit the bullet and bought a basic ocellaris clownfish. Thankfully, all was well for about a week, with no signs of stress, and so I wanted to get 'it' a friend. Whilst at the lfs I fell in love with a picasso percula clownfish, as well as a small green bta. I also grabbed a small clean up crew of turbos and hermits. Having researched the gbta previously, I know it was a dubious decision, however, is my tank mature after being dormant since April? Who knows? The gbta quite quickly settled in a location and to my surprise was extremely happy visually. A few days later the picasso percula then started hosting it!

 

 

I then visited the lfs a couple weeks later, where my girlfriend had spotted a nem that she loved. So I figured when I returned I'd entertain her and see what nem it was. It was a 'rainbow' bubble tip, and when we returned to the lfs she pointed it out in their display. I asked about their availability, and they offered to sell that exact nem to me, as it had split! I had also hoped that given my clowns weren't paired they could have a nem each for the time being! Unfortunately the percula decided both nems were theirs, defending them both from the poor ocellaris.

 

 

 

I'll leave the thread at that for now, I hope you enjoy it!

 

 

[NoviceNanoReefer]

So I thought I would just post another update.

 

The RBTA moved around a lot in the general location it was in, so I moved it and it seemed happy in its new location for about a week. I then hesitantly bought my first round of corals, mainly softies, with a couple lps. I didn't glue them down and figured if the nem moved, I'd relocate the corals as I'm in lockdown, and literally forced to be at home all the time.

 

I grabbed a few zoas, a green ricordia, a small hammer, a large hammer, and riskily, an alveopora. I placed them all in after a quick iodine and hydroxide dip on the zoas, and set off. The zoas were pretty instantly happy, the mushroom opened right up, and I was lucky with where I placed my alveopora as it quite quickly extended and looked amazing. I've attached photos of how everything looked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About a week later I also grabbed an AI Nero 3 to go with the light. I figured it would probably be easiest if they were compatible. So far no complaints, but why does it automatically start at 75% when turning it on!

 

 

[NoviceNanoReefer]

Thought I'd do another small update. After falling in love with alveoporas, I decided on getting some more. I just think they look so lovely! I also grabbed a few more different types of corals, and some hammers. I think the hammers just look exceptional in the flow, and I got some acans to see how they go. Lastly I grabbed a mini maxi anemone, with the hopes of getting some sexy shrimp to consider hosting it in the future! Unfortunately they're a nightmare to track down in Aus, but such is life. Just thought I'd add some photos to show how the tank has changed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

Tank is looking good! I love Alveoporas and Gonioporas also! 

[NoviceNanoReefer]

So a small unfortunate update.

 

Yesterday I found a number of black worms on my small green hammer. I had noticed some small black things on it, but I thought it was the polyps folded around onto the skeleton. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of the hammer before, but here’s the flatworms. I believe they are euphyllia eating flatworms.

 

 

I then did some research after manually removing as many as I could. I found that people dipped their hammers into freshwater for a few minutes, as the worms are quite sensitive to salinity changes, they lose their grip on the hammer.

 

I then attempted this with my remaining hammers, but thankfully I found no other worms. I then checked the original green hammer for eggs, finding some. I attempted to scrub these with a toothbrush. I plan to keep an eye on the hammer and continue to remove any adults as soon as I find them.

 

Affected hammer after removing the worms.

 

After the freshwater dip two of the hammers have recovered reasonably well. They’re shown below.

 

 

 

But one hammer, my large blue hammer, has appeared quite affected. It seems to be ‘melting’, or having polyps fall off in strands. At the moment I just plan to keep an eye on it, and see if it can recover.

 

 

Any advice on how to help it improve?

[NoviceNanoReefer]

So unfortunately today my large blue hammer died, and the green hammer is looking about “half-dead”. I believe that I may have done the freshwater dip for too long (5ish minutes). However given the other two hammers recovered almost immediately, I am suspicious that neither of these hammers were particularly healthy.

[NoviceNanoReefer]

On 10/20/2021 at 10:34 PM, NoviceNanoReefer said:

So unfortunately today my large blue hammer died, and the green hammer is looking about “half-dead”. I believe that I may have done the freshwater dip for too long (5ish minutes). However given the other two hammers recovered almost immediately, I am suspicious that neither of these hammers were particularly healthy.

So to add to this, the previously flatworm infested hammer died as well. I'm not particularly sure what to think of these two deaths to be honest. I definitely  think I dipped them in the freshwater for too long, but my more recent hammer purchases, which should arguably be more unhealthy due to having had less stability, both survived. And not only that, after the freshwater dip starting extending their polyps less than an hour afterwards.

 

Its also interesting that the two hammers that died came from the same place, and the two that didn't are from two separate places. The alpha and omega zoas I also got from the same hammer place have also never looked as good as the other zoas I purchased... weird.

 

Guess I will probably avoid them in future, but they did get me a mean alveopora which should be a more sensitive coral than the hammers. But then also, both hammers were reasonably fine prior to the freshwater dip.

 

As you can see, it goes round in circles a bit in terms of how and why they died... maybe I'm looking into it too much, and I just killed them in the freshwater...

[DevilDuck]

Sorry about your hammers. I find it helpful to keep 2 types of coral dip handy, a pest removing one like CoralRX and a antiseptic like lugol’s solution with euphyllia. 

[NoviceNanoReefer]

On 10/23/2021 at 3:45 PM, DevilDuck said:

Sorry about your hammers. I find it helpful to keep 2 types of coral dip handy, a pest removing one like CoralRX and a antiseptic like lugol’s solution with euphyllia. 

Yep, I’m planning on looking into some coral dips before anymore corals. Surprisingly I’ve had trouble finding them at my local shops, so looks like I’ll have to get them shipped…