Unveiling Maxspect Q Box. First Impressions.

by Richard Back 

Maxspect has let out a blip middle of this year (Check Reefbuilders' May article) that they were working on all-in-one box that will help you acclimate your new fish, a frag rack and magnifying glass to observe your animals with more precision.  (Fish disease, coral close ups for possible parasites or just to stalk your favorite fish that likes to hide!)   Since May, we haven't heard anything about it.

Until now that is. 

There are 2 of these unit right now in the States and this is the second unit of the two. It came in unmarked box and honestly I wouldn't have noticed that it's from Maxspect if there wasn't maxspect protector pouch for the magnifying glass. I'm sure that it will be switched to fancy, graphically enticing box that we all come to expect from top brand like maxspect.  Overall, every part felt very solid and well constructed. All the inserts and grooves fit/flushed in perfectly and everything was well routed all around. 

What I really like about this is that you can use any of these pieces as stand alone units. 

1. Magnifying board, just mount the magnet on the opposite sides of the glass and you are set. (You can also use this as a glass cleaner) 
2. Frag rack comes with acrylic screws for you to tighten unto your tank.
3. Acclimation chamber, which can be divided into 2 section if you have 2 same type of fish that you want to introduce together can be used by itself as well. 

One thing I realized and I liked is that the frag plug is made with a locking groove so that it won't fall out of the rack when you have a giant snail or a urchin that  likes to bulldoze through everything. 

Couple of concerns that I had was that  

1. Frag rack, it didn't have  standard frag plug size. It's much smaller.   
2. Since we had to go through maxspect/coralvue directly for the plugs, would prices be more expensive or hard to get? 

I spoke to David D'Aquin, owner of Coralvue about these concerns and he has told me that  
"Prices on these acrylic plugs should be comparable if not cheaper then standard generic frag plugs and we would be having these plugs in large amounts". 

Also we talked about how it is a good idea to do a fresh mount whenever you get a  new frag from anywhere to reduce the chance of bringing in any unwanted pests into our aquarium. (We shall dub this as the Paletta way) 

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Fully assembled as all in one unit if you choose to run it as all in one. 

Price on this unit will $100 or less, which is a bargain considering how much acclimation boxes usually costs or how much magnifying glasses for our tanks usually costs.  These should be available on the last Q1 of 2017 and if you are in market for one (Let's face it. We all like to buy alot of fish), be sure to keep an eye out for this unit!