Living Room - Waterbox Infinia 165

[mpoletiek]

Hi there,

Little bit about my tank, pics to follow.

Filled with rock, sand, & water on 7/4/2022

Waterbox Infinia 165
Apex w/ FMM, ATO, Cor20, Trident
2 vortex mp40's
2 AI Hydra 32s
UPS for Apex & Internet
Echotech battery backup for the vortex's

Current Stocking:
2 emerald crabs,
2 clowns
1 6 striped wrasse

Everything is going smoothly, will turn on lights soon.

 

[Zach B]

Sounds like a nice setup! Awaiting pics Best of luck!

 

[mpoletiek]

Some pics!

 

[mpoletiek]

Wow I need to do some cable management

 

[AydenLincoln]

I love my Waterbox and I hope you will too!

 

[mpoletiek]

I love it so far.

This is my first saltwater tank so I'm very grateful I decided to go with a waterbox. I also considered a redsea, but just loved the infinia.

I used to spend a lot of time being resourceful and building my own stuff with the freshwater tanks, but with all the unknowns going into saltwater, having a system ready to go eased a lot of stress.

Funny story. Waterbox initially shipped the cabinet without a lot of protection for the sump inside. Out here every road is bumpy and the sump arrived cracked. Waterbox offered me a Cube 10 as an apology since the model was on backorder at the time.

30 days later the new sump arrived, but I wasn't home to inspect the package. It looked alright though, but seemed to be quite larger for just the sump. Opening it up I noticed they just shipped me a whole new cabinet package complete with the misc parts and the sump.

Ironically the sump was cracked again, even with all the extra packaging they added. They actually overkilled the packaging for securing the sump in the cabinet. Waterbox refunded the sump and told me to keep the cabinet (which is serving great as storage and an extra surface in the garage right now).

I considered getting a trigger sump, but noticed that the only piece cracked in the new sump was the only good piece on the old sump (I kept it just in case) so my girlfriend and I decided to try to rebuild it. It's not the prettiest, but it's not ugly and it holds water where it's supposed to.

Waiting for the new sump I upgraded the pump on the Cube 10 (quieter) and turned it into a planted freshwater tank. Thats working great, but since I have a ridiculous watermixing station now (2 100g containers) I'll probably convert that one to saltwater.

Also picked up a 20 long to act as a quarantine tank while I find new homes for the freshwater fish. I picked up some yellow tail damsels the other day and a flame hawkfish who are all quarantining together now.

 

[mpoletiek]

On 7/4 I added 1 cube of food and some Fritz 9 bacteria.

7/17/2022 - Added 2 clown fish, 2 emerald crabs and some more bacteria.

8/1 - registering the slightest bit of ammonia
8/2 - ammonia gone, haven't seen it since
8/8 - added 6 line wrasse

Today (8/9) I finally saw a change in Nitrates

Current plan is to add some copepods, plankton, and bottled coralline algae this weekend and turn the lights on low.

Once I see the coralline begin to grow I was thinking about adding some test corals.

 

[mpoletiek]

Currently strategizing my maintenance. Honestly, I haven't done a single significant water change yet. I've done small ones here and there to play with adjusting salinity, but the nitrate trend is so low and slow right now (finally beginning to register after a month+ of feeding) I haven't really considered it.

More exploring a dosing strategy for what might end up being a heavily stocked tank. I loved to have my freshwater tanks bursting with plants that I had to trim back regularly. I even had freshwater refugium and got to the point where I only needed to do a water change on my 50g once or twice a month.

I'd like to try to reduce that even more if possible by dosing and keeping a good refugium.

I've been using Seachem Reef Builder and Calcium Builder to get levels to where I think I want them (typical 8-12dkh, ~400ppm Ca), and have been successful maintaining for 2 weeks with Kalk.

Everything is manual though and so I let it slip one week and had to use the Seachem products to bring the levels back up safely.

Now I'm wondering what other trace elements I might be low enough on that I might struggle with coralline. Iodine?

Waterchange is a cheap solution, but not when it comes to time and labor. It's not that bad. I have a good pump and a long hose from my mixing station in the garage, but it's ridiculously hot out here and chilling my stored saltwater mix isn't really an option. On average I pull 90F saltwater from my mixing station so I've been doing 5/10 gallons at a time using buckets and letting them sit and cool in the house. I've also learned that around 85F I can drip the new water and not impact the temp of the tank.

So I'm thinking I'll do my best to try to get away without doing regular waterchanges, but I'm a little concerned about emergencies.

I don't really have a good way to cool massive amounts of saltwater fast enough.

 

[ABQ_CHRIS]

Wish I had an answer for your hot water, but I am interested to hear what solution you end up with.

 

[mpoletiek]

Pic of the mixing station.

 

[mpoletiek]

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: ~3ppm

This is typically when I would do a large water change on a freshwater tank and start stocking. Plants have been added at this point, but are still getting settled in the substrate.

I'm at a loss for how I would change 40-50g when my source is sitting around 90F.

Im thinking I should load up the refuge with macro algae and turn those lights on at night and get to work on the coralline. (bottled)

 

[mpoletiek]

Adding copepods and coralline tonight. Turning on the main tank lights today too.

 

[mpoletiek]

First day with main tank lights on.

Using BRS recommendations for 2 AI Hydra 32s for a 48x24 120g tank.

 

[mpoletiek]

Okay. So to cool the water for a water change I'm going 5get a brute trashcan and fill it up, storing inside near the tank and drop a heater in it and let it cool in the AC.

I owe the girlfriend for this solution. This will work great because I can cool the water in the AC below 78F, drop the heater in and do the water change on my own time.

 

[mpoletiek]

Quick update.

Diatoms in full bloom.

Added 1 yellow watchman goby, 4 margarita snails, and 2 emerald crabs.

Snails are getting after the diatoms slowly but surely.

Added 8 jars of copepods from algaebarn and some chaeto to the sump.

Apex salinity probe broke when attempting to calibrate it. Successfully re-calibrated pH probe.

Got a TM Hydrometer incoming, hopefully that makes testing salinity a better experience.

Not super keen on the filter socks. They work. When I had them out for a day when adding copepods a film and foam began to develop on the surface of the sump water. Putting the socks back in removed the surface scum. However I have to replace them all the time!

Not super excited about adding a skimmer. Would love to get the copepod population sustainable. Feeding live phytoplankton daily.

 

[mpoletiek]

Oh, also started dosing 2 part using seachem reef builder and seachem calcium.

Love the dos/trident setup, but we'll see how stable it actually keeps the tank.

Targeting 9dkh Alk and 440 Cal.

 

[mpoletiek]

Green algae starting to come in

 

[mpoletiek]

Diatoms dieing off

 

[mpoletiek]

Green and yellow colors coming in on the rocks.

Also just caught my pair of emerald crabs mating.

 

[mpoletiek]

Noticed my ORP dropping rapidly the other day. After some investigation I found that it was correlated with PH.

I remember dosing kalk in the past (running 2 part now) and seeing something similar. I wonder if this is typical.