Very nice setup! Those water box tanks have peaked my interest. How do you like the quality of the tank. Also interested in ur opinion of that calcium reactor!
Had a long Day and a couple drinks, so figured this was a good time for honest reviews!
Waterbox tank:
Pros:
- nice clear glass and a glass overflow
- better sump design compared to Red Sea
- schedule 80 plumbing all included
- Stand is good quality, though the instructions are terrible
- don’t include an awful return pump, they let you make that choice
- overflow is quiet once dialed in
- included ATO has been rock solid
Cons:
- Stand arrived with a panel drilled completely wrong. Had to manually modify it and sent them a note about it to hear they were in the middle of a change and I must have gotten mismatched parts
- no protector seam on the silicone, just the main bonding seam. Makes me nervous with a scraper and has a few slight imperfections that tend to magnify when lit up
- metric plumbing is a pain to modify. Took me 2 orders to obtain all the parts to add a manifold to the return
- ATO is too small to be useful...would rather see them dedicate that to a fuge
- plumbing blocks the pre-drilled holes for a light rack which is pretty annoying when you want to make a change.
- no venting or airflow in the “Dry” side of the stand
- on my second set of magnetic door pushes, though they replaced them free of charge with a quick note
- acrylic overflow top section doesn’t fully seal, so it increases the amount of water that will flow back to the sump on a power outage. It still holds it all, but gets dangerously high in the sump
Overall it is a good tank and I would purchase something from them again. I would, however, like to see some changes made in the future to make it better.
Calcium Reactor:
Pros:
- Solid design and construction
- Second chamber for degassing
- bubble counter that matches
- attractive design
- Sicce pump, so should be reliable
Cons:
- I had a slight leak in my main chamber at the bottom seal. Vertex had nothing at the warehouse to replace it with for weeks, but walked me through a DIY fix that had me up and running the next day leak free.
- needs a T with a valve on the recirculating line to help vent air on startup. Easy fix but would be easy and cheap to add from factory
- flow meter should just be tossed...it’s worthless and I have bypassed it
Very happy with the Calcium Reactor so far. I do suggest to get a good regulator and a peristaltic pump for effluent for the best combo though...working on the peristaltic side of mine now.
