For people with waterbox aquariums

Marylynn11 · Mar 17, 2021

Hi everyone!
I recently bought and set up my 20 gallon cube waterbox aquarium. I had a couple questions. What happens if the water level gets lower than the intake since its a pretty small high up intake. Will the pump break? How do you deal with putting your hands in to move things, seems like it overflows every time I put my hand in the back filter and rises pretty high when my hand is in the tank.

Ghost25 · Mar 17, 2021

If the water level is lower than your overflow slots you need to add more water. It can damage your pump if it runs for a long time without water but it will be fine for a while before that happens. Just put my hand in slowly and water redistributes to the sump.

To determine your water level, put just enough water in so that with the pump on and all the equipment in your pump can circulate water. You will likely hear gurgling/splashing because there is not enough water. Slowly add water until the noise stops. You shouldn't hear any water noise. The amount of water you need will depend on the flow of your pump. Bigger pump needs slightly more water since it can pump out more and the water level coming in needs to be higher to compensate.

Marylynn11 · Mar 17, 2021

Ghost25 said:
If the water level is lower than your overflow slots you need to add more water. It can damage your pump if it runs for a long time without water but it will be fine for a while before that happens. Just put my hand in slowly and water redistributes to the sump.

To determine your water level, put just enough water in so that with the pump on and all the equipment in your pump can circulate water. You will likely hear gurgling/splashing because there is not enough water. Slowly add water until the noise stops. You shouldn't hear any water noise. The amount of water you need will depend on the flow of your pump. Bigger pump needs slightly more water since it can pump out more and the water level coming in needs to be higher to compensate.

I keep my water level really high, what I am most concerned about is evaporation. So if I leave for like 3 days i'm worried my tank will evaporate and the pump will not have enough water. Has anyone had this issue? My water evaporates pretty fast because I keep it at 79 and there is a lot of movement.

Ghost25 · Mar 17, 2021

I'm not sure what you mean by "really high" there really isn't a huge range possible. With my upgraded pump my water level sits about 1.5cm below the rim, with the stock pump it's maybe 3cm below the rim. You should definitely get an ATO, I can't say how much will evaporate in your system in 3 days.

An ATO will keep your salinity stable with almost no effort except changing the reservoir occasionally.

Oldreefer44 · Mar 17, 2021

Recommend researching auto top offs and how they work. May not have the ability to set one up but at least it will give you ideas as to how it works. Very important to continuously replace evaporated water to keep salinity stable

Pistondog · Mar 17, 2021

Tunze 3152, $99 will fit in the return section, above the pump

Dunc · Mar 17, 2021

I have an 11 gallon ATO reservoir and I put water in it every other day. It amazes me how much water evaporates.

Marylynn11 · Mar 17, 2021

Ghost25 said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "really high" there really isn't a huge range possible. With my upgraded pump my water level sits about 1.5cm below the rim, with the stock pump it's maybe 3cm below the rim. You should definitely get an ATO, I can't say how much will evaporate in your system in 3 days.

An ATO will keep your salinity stable with almost no effort except changing the reservoir occasionally.

Hi!
I’m unable to do an ATO atleast at the moment planning on adding one within the next 3 months. By really high I just mean essentially at the rim.

Dunc · Mar 17, 2021

Marylynn11 said:
Hi!
I’m unable to do an ATO atleast at the moment planning on adding one within the next 3 months. By really high I just mean essentially at the rim.

I wonder if you put an acrylic lid on the tank if it would muffle some of the noise.

Marylynn11 · Mar 17, 2021

Dunc said:
I wonder if you put an acrylic lid on the tank if it would muffle some of the noise.

Hi, there’s no noise I’m worried about. My tank is silent. Not sure what your talking about.

Ghost25 · Mar 18, 2021

If you're worried about evaporation and you don't want to buy an ATO your options are pretty much:

1. Get a lid.
2. Manually top off frequently.

I didn't get a lid because I prefer the clean rimless and lidless look, so I got an ATO. That means I can't have some fish like firefish which are notorious jumpers but that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make.