• Welcome back Guest!

    MARSH is a private reefing group. Comments and suggestions are encouraged, but please keep them positive and constructive. Negative threads, posts, or attacks will be removed from view and reviewed by the staff. Continually disruptive, argumentative, or flagrant rule breakers may be suspended or banned.

kgk's Waterbox 75.2 (1 Viewer)

Users who are viewing this thread

OP
OP
kgk

kgk

Guest
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
699
Reaction score
54
Location
The Woodlands, TX
3D printed filter cup. Two of these replaced the two filter socks in my WB sump. These allow me to run filter floss which is easy to change; I despise washing socks. I can also run media (carbon/gfo) in media bags in these cups, instead of resorting to reactors...


 
OP
OP
kgk

kgk

Guest
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
699
Reaction score
54
Location
The Woodlands, TX
... and the flight has been delayed to nearly midnight now. Thanks Thunderstorm! Stuff has been sitting on a ramp in Tampa since 2:45 PM. Hope it all makes it ok. :(
 
OP
OP
kgk

kgk

Guest
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
699
Reaction score
54
Location
The Woodlands, TX
3:30AM and all the stuff is in the tank. I know there's at least one really big gorilla crab in there; saw him duck out from under a rock to claim a snail for his own. Not sure if he's brand new, or if he's been in there the entire time. He'll have to go, though.

First impressions are OK. Rock is dense and the shapes aren't the best - lot of squarish pieces. Lots of sponges and tunicates, TONS of macro, and very little coral. No really cool stuff included with the critters shipment. Kind of let down, if you want the truth ... was hoping for some of the cool stuff Dennis got. My package was quite a bit smaller than his, though.

I caught a "bad" isopod last night, too, so I'm going to be on the critter pest hunt for a while, while it gets settled in...
 
OP
OP
kgk

kgk

Guest
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
699
Reaction score
54
Location
The Woodlands, TX
While it's on my mind, I did the 45 gallon package. The first shipment was $90, and the second was $100, so all in was about $750. $545 plus $190, if I remember right...
 

RR-MAN

Supporting Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2003
Messages
5,690
Reaction score
1,222
Location
Pearland
The macro could become annoying...I wonder how you gonna get rid of it? Even if you chop it -it will regrow.

Geez that's a lot of money for what they ship.
 

Dainese954

Guest
Joined
Apr 29, 2013
Messages
51
Reaction score
23
The macro could become annoying...I wonder how you gonna get rid of it? Even if you chop it -it will regrow.

Geez that's a lot of money for what they ship.

Yellow tang?

Yea it sure is
 
OP
OP
kgk

kgk

Guest
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
699
Reaction score
54
Location
The Woodlands, TX
The macro could become annoying...I wonder how you gonna get rid of it? Even if you chop it -it will regrow.

Geez that's a lot of money for what they ship.

Tomini Tang & it'll eventually die back, or not. I think it looks pretty cool as it is, to be honest. I probably won't add anything but fish, and maybe a Euphyllia of some sort, for quite a while. We'll see. First I have to take care of the Great Critter Hunt, before I do much of anything else.

I've got to be honest, I wasn't all that impressed with their customer service. I never dealt with the main guy, just some lady named Debbie. Her communication wasn't very good - I was always chasing her, and getting very short emails in return. I wanted the stuff air shipped to IAH, but there were 1000000 excuses for why it needed to go to HOU. Well, that's 100 miles round trip for me, and it was a total pain in the *********. First shipment was many hours late and I wasted a day waiting on it. Second shipment was many hours late & I stayed up all night dealing with it. I guess I should have just been more firm about wanting it to go to IAH - clearly a couple extra hours in the boxes don't matter - all my boxes sat in the warehouse + planes for well over 12 hours, anyway.

Would I do it again? I'm not sure. I do like the live rock and I'm OK with the critters, you can deal with that but you can't magically make sponges, worms, and all the other critters just appear. And that's what I really wanted.
 
Last edited:
OP
OP
kgk

kgk

Guest
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
699
Reaction score
54
Location
The Woodlands, TX
Now that the huge PITA of dealing with air freight at Hobby is behind me by a bit, I have to say, I'm really enjoying the rock. I know I have one decent sized Gorilla crab to catch, but there is SO MUCH cool stuff in this tank already. I used standard sand - didn't have him ship me sand - and it's already FULL of red worms and bugs. They're everywhere. The entire tank is FULL of life. Hermits, anemones, filter feeders, several porcelain crabs that I spotted tonight, macro, corals, sponges, brittle stars, tunicates, pods, worms... It's almost a shame to stack the rocks, because I'm sure I'm squashing something cool!

My son and I have spent the last couple late evenings with a pen light doing a scavenger hunt. I'm going to catch this gorilla crab somehow, add some fish & see how the tank matures over time! I don't really feel the need to go all nuts on coral, even though I'm sure I'll add different pieces as other stuff dies back.

I'd like to go all Caribbean with fish, but there's only 1 Tang option & I don't want to keep the Atlantic Blue Tang in a 2' tank... so I'll probably do a Tomini Tang. Probably add a Cherub Angel even though everyone thinks it's a bad idea; I just love that fish. Maybe a Royal Gramma, as they're Caribbean, and a pair of Clowns, and that's about it.

Assuming I do those 5, any thoughts on order to add them would be appreciated. I'm thinking about adding the Tang first to see if he eats the macro in there, but I've always added them last in the past... hmmm.
 

steveb

Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Board Member
Build Thread Contributor
Joined
Jun 24, 2009
Messages
11,953
Reaction score
2,856
Location
Spring
I love true live rock. I'm contemplating trying to get 20lbs of small pieces that I can fit into my existing structure.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kgk
OP
OP
kgk

kgk

Guest
Joined
Jan 11, 2010
Messages
699
Reaction score
54
Location
The Woodlands, TX
So the tank ran with just the rock & what came in on it all through May, June, July, and August. I caught ~15 gorilla crabs. They're destructive, terrible animals. I still love the rock, but you will have to deal with hitchhikers. Also, basically all of the macro that came in is gone. All the caulerpa, all the red algae, all of it. It got eaten by the non-gorilla crab population, mostly. There is one crab in particular that I watched eat nearly all of the Caulerpa in a week's time. Most of the obvious sponges & tunicates are gone as well, but the filter feeder worms are all doing great. The cup corals are thriving; there are quite a few spread among the rocks. I grew two urchins from babies to golf balls - they're going to a new home soon. The yellow ball sponge is holding on, but doesn't look great honestly. There are several porcelain crabs that you only see at night, and at least one pistol shrimp that I hear occasionally in the dark but have yet to see. Both of the sea cucumbers have disappeared, as has the large serpent star I got - pretty sure they all fell victims to the gorilla crabs. Overall, I really enjoy the rock - minus the gorilla crabs.

So I added my first fish & coral to the tank this weekend. I pickeed up a Tomini Tang and a pair of Picasso clown from Dennis @ FJW. Then I got a green slimer acro, some blue acro, an orange digi, an octospawn, and some rad zoa's from our man Reeftopia. His place is like a candy store! I still need to mount the coral, but it's all doing OK where I have it hanging out for now.

The fish are settling in & eating fine so far. The Tang is the first one that hasn't gone for Nori on a clip as soon as I put it in - time will tell if that's a trend, or if he just hasn't figured it out yet.

Sorry for the bad pic. It was a quick phone snap when I was feeding the fish this evening.

 

frankc

Supporting Member
Member Spotlight Contest Winner
Build Thread Contributor
Joined
Jun 11, 2012
Messages
1,350
Reaction score
1,322
Location
The Woodlands
Sounds like quite an adventure with the live rock and all its hitchhikers. I'm glad most of them have been good. That's interesting about the Tomini tang - mine also does not go for Nori on a clip, and I've had him for several months.
 
Top