If you're really set on a specific tank size, you can always have one built by either Glass Cages or Planet Aquariums. Both have great reputations.
Isn't that a lot more work?
- Thread starter Dustin07
- Start date
Dang that sucks to see! Did everything perish or got stuff in a holding tank?
my step daughter was able to save all the fish except the coral beauty angel, which I suspect is hidden in a live rock (now dead rock) in a five gallon bucket on my porch because it never made it into her bucket of survivors and it's nowhere else to be found... one chromis died as well. the LFS sold the biscuit star fish, orchid dottyback, one chromis.
she moved the pearl jawfish and one chromis along with a couple frags into my 4g nano with the clown goby. I was able to get my hippo tang, 3 of my 4 cardinals, my mated clownfish, wrasse, and another chromis back from the LFS in a hospital tank now while I figure out life (hopefully this week).
all my zoas that I didn't already have frags saved in my 4g, my torches, my GSP that was over 12" x 12", pavona, monti, both my BTAs (the mother, and the split clone) etc are all gone. She took the pagoda cup to the LFS and by the time I got there it was BAD. like 2/3 browned over. I brought it home to see if I can save it and it has already started opening back up a little. I'll probably frag it into 3 pcs to see if I can save it. I had that pagoda cup HAPPY! but yea generally speaking about a 95% loss overall.
here's how much growth I had on my pagoda cup:
Sorry for the losses. Glad some was saved! The pagoda I would imagine should color back up.
So did the LFS not hold the stuff that survived and just sold it? If so that seems pretty crappy to me.
So did the LFS not hold the stuff that survived and just sold it? If so that seems pretty crappy to me.
They sold some, and held some... the pagoda cup is NOT in good shape.... but we'll see. I have everything that survived basically in hospital tank now. I have a local who is going to come buy my tank, stand, and sump off me and I'll keep my lights, skimmer, reactor, reefmat, etc.
Right now I'm about 99% sold on a Waterbox 110. I have looked at many different options (so many that I almost wanted to give up on reefing entirely, just too much information this week) and the waterbox 110 has a really good dimensional setup for our living room. it's about 2" narrower so it will be closer to the wall (ideal) with only losing about 5 gallons of total system water.
The sump isn't setup perfectly, but I can modify it to accomodate my reefmat, or I can get another brand of fleece roller if I choose not to run socks.. so I'm about 99% sure that yes it will be the WB110 next. Custom solutions cost about double, and everything else in this field either had dimensional issues that I couldn't really accomodate, were too small or too big, or had crazy difficult plumbing/sump setups for me to accomodate. this tank is the right size for us, I think. and I'm not finding an "I hate waterbox" groups, like I do find for redsea, lol.
what I really want to do is go on a spending binge, upgrade my rock, my control panel/center, and lights. But I'm going to work on the mechanical aspects that are harder to change later, first. Such as tank, sump, etc. and rocks. I need to learn how to modify rock. I know you need to be specific about what kind of mortar / adhesive you use when making custom scape, but I don't know anything beyond that. I already have some aquascape ideas in my head.
I can’t say I’ve seen any complaints about Waterbox leaks.
For aquascaping, Tidal Gardens has a great video on what they do that a lot of people seem to follow:
For aquascaping, Tidal Gardens has a great video on what they do that a lot of people seem to follow:
everyone seems to really love their waterbox setups, but today I came across like 3 or 4 separate posts between FB and R2R on complaints about the stand being a little wobbly. My redsea was built like a brick outhouse, aside from the leak. so now I'm sorta back to the drawing board. People are hating on the all in ones, but I struggle to see why an AIO is worse than re-engineering it all from scratch anyways. this project might take me longer than 1-2 weeks to decide and order. If I can get up the LFS 35 minutes north of my house this weekend I'm going to look at his Mariner 100 he has for sale (brand new). black tank, sump, and I believe eurobraced. They're my least favorite on appearance, but seem to be really well built.
the waterbox 110 has the perfect dimensions, but if I go that route, I may need to get a stand made, IDK.
oh man I hate to air dirty laundry on the internet, but I'm feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. was just talking to my wife and I realized how much I really loved that tank that I knew (and everyone warned me against) was a bad idea. Every one of these other tank options, whether AIO or not, has just a tiny difference and at the end of the day I just wish I had my old tank functional and set up. I have a lot of information overload this week from the dozen different tanks/manufacturers I've been researching, looking for my "forever" tank.
Its really a live and learn moment. Or maybe not if I don't make better decisions. I knew the risk when I picked up the redsea, thinking "na, not me" but criminy.... 2 weeks later and it still feels like a death in the family!
sorta funny but I think you're the 4th person to say that today, I wonder the same thing! I am going to try to go look at the Mariner 100 my LFS has for sale this weekend. just one more setup to at least touch and see in person....
Its really a live and learn moment. Or maybe not if I don't make better decisions. I knew the risk when I picked up the redsea, thinking "na, not me" but criminy.... 2 weeks later and it still feels like a death in the family!
sorta funny but I think you're the 4th person to say that today, I wonder the same thing! I am going to try to go look at the Mariner 100 my LFS has for sale this weekend. just one more setup to at least touch and see in person....
Oh, and don't beat yourself up. We've all made mistakes.
Prior to moving to our current house, I had a 200 gallon. With the move, the plan was for a larger tank. But, I wanted to get everything transferred to the new house as fast as possible so, I set up a 300 gallon stock tank and moved all my livestock into there. On Father's day, I didn't check on the stock tank all day until late at night. Well, something tripped a circuit at some point. It was without power long enough that the water was cold and cloudy from so many things dying. I filled a 30 gallon trashcan with SPS skeletons. Now, I check on the tank every morning, a couple times in the evenings and on weekends, throughout the day.
Prior to moving to our current house, I had a 200 gallon. With the move, the plan was for a larger tank. But, I wanted to get everything transferred to the new house as fast as possible so, I set up a 300 gallon stock tank and moved all my livestock into there. On Father's day, I didn't check on the stock tank all day until late at night. Well, something tripped a circuit at some point. It was without power long enough that the water was cold and cloudy from so many things dying. I filled a 30 gallon trashcan with SPS skeletons. Now, I check on the tank every morning, a couple times in the evenings and on weekends, throughout the day.
Vinny Kreyling
Premium Member
Griss,
I think you need a camera, unless you like climbing the stairs.
I think you need a camera, unless you like climbing the stairs.
So this weekend we drove up north to visit the LFS (I say "L", we use the term "L", but this one is about 45 minutes away making it one of the closest outside of petco, lol). He and I had been talking about our tank crash. He's generally a big RedSea fan and a distributor but he is also a huge fan of the mariner by eshopps. The eshopps stand is very robust. He even let me take a couple panels home to set up in the living room so we could decide if we would use the white stand (he had a Mariner 100 in stock with white stand). I knew we would want black but my wife toted the white panels home to give it a thorough review.
The Mariner 100 has very thick glass, almost .75" at 5/8". the display volume is a tiny bit BIGGER than my old 425xl at 100 gallons + about 33gallons of useable sump. the width and height dims are about the same, but the length is about 1" longer. This tank has a reinforced bottom (it's impressive, I'll be sure to show when I get it set up. Full specs are here if anyone is interested: Mariner Series | ESHOPPS
I don't see any great pics of the sump on their website, but its big, looks quite a bit more spacious than the sump on my 425, but I still have the extra storage locker built into the cabinet which is pretty important to me for organizing. I also like having the power/control box a little more isolated from the water so I know nothing can "fall in" to the sump.
So long story short, we ordered a Mariner 100 with black stand, it will be shipped straight to my house within about 10 days.... then we start all over.
The Mariner 100 has very thick glass, almost .75" at 5/8". the display volume is a tiny bit BIGGER than my old 425xl at 100 gallons + about 33gallons of useable sump. the width and height dims are about the same, but the length is about 1" longer. This tank has a reinforced bottom (it's impressive, I'll be sure to show when I get it set up. Full specs are here if anyone is interested: Mariner Series | ESHOPPS
I don't see any great pics of the sump on their website, but its big, looks quite a bit more spacious than the sump on my 425, but I still have the extra storage locker built into the cabinet which is pretty important to me for organizing. I also like having the power/control box a little more isolated from the water so I know nothing can "fall in" to the sump.
So long story short, we ordered a Mariner 100 with black stand, it will be shipped straight to my house within about 10 days.... then we start all over.
This is a picture of the same size Waterbox, the more I dug in, the more I decided it wasn't for me, largely because of the stand but also with the Mariner I have local support. Still, I really like the aquascape on this demo they have. My wife likes the scape to be a little less perfect so we'll figure it out, but I'll probably order some Marco reef cement (unless one of you recommends something else!) so we can start designing the next scape.
upside to losing everything is that we can start over and I don't have to worry about how to place rocks that are completely covered in corals... blank canvas, fresh start... silver linings...
man that's heart breaking! I keep reminding myself of the many dozens of people over the years that have experienced this in the various groups that I've been in. It's a live and learn thing I guess, and catastrophes happen... My stress level is much lower now that we have decided on a tank and have solid footing to move forward. But I still have to figure out how to get rid of my old one! I had a buyer lined up this weekend for $350 but he bailed last minute.
upside to losing everything is that we can start over and I don't have to worry about how to place rocks that are completely covered in corals... blank canvas, fresh start... silver linings...
man that's heart breaking! I keep reminding myself of the many dozens of people over the years that have experienced this in the various groups that I've been in. It's a live and learn thing I guess, and catastrophes happen... My stress level is much lower now that we have decided on a tank and have solid footing to move forward. But I still have to figure out how to get rid of my old one! I had a buyer lined up this weekend for $350 but he bailed last minute.
Wow, that shows how long I've been out of the tank shopping game. I didn't know eShopps made glass tanks. I will say, I've used their other products over the years and have always been really happy with them. I've been using an old eShopps cone skimmer for close to or over 20 years. The only issue I've had with it is cracking the collection cups (I dropped it) but I was able to glue it back together and replacing the pump.
now that we can focus on rock scape, I am thinking of getting a bucket of the e marco 400 reef cement to start modifying my existing rocks. I'm curious to see if anyone has any recommendations for or against that before I place my order. This is the picture I meant to post yesterday of the waterbox I was looking at, namely because I really like the rock work in this tank! (my wife says it's "too" perfect, though).
whelp, I ordered the e marco 400 after reading some reviews and watching a few videos. Ordered a new ATO as well. as much as I want to ban redsea from my house, the truth of the matter is it sure is convenient having all your devices on one app.......... so admittedly I ordered the redseas ATO. The LFS who sold me the Mariner is throwing in a reservoir which retails for $250 but fits the cabinet perfectly. $250 is a crazy price to me for an acrylic box, but at free, and custom fit for my stand.... I'll take it.
been researching floating reefs a bit, acrylic etc. I'm not sure if I'll be able to incorporate it, but might give it the ol' college try-
been researching floating reefs a bit, acrylic etc. I'm not sure if I'll be able to incorporate it, but might give it the ol' college try-
