Anemone printing $! (Different tank) dandelion's Fluval 13.5

[dandelion]

FTS 11-06-2017

 

FTS 03-19-2017 (RIP)

 

FTS 03-06-2017

 

Back in November last year Dr Foster and Smith was having a great cyber Monday deal going on. I could not resist the temptation and ordered this new tank along with an upgraded pump, a heater, and a nano skimmer. The tank didn't arrive until December. I used dry rocks in a bucket of saltwater with a heater and a couple of powerheads. Took mroe than 3 months to cycle for some reasons.

 

So finally yesterday I put everything together and got the tank WET! I'm planning on transferring most of my SPS and LPS here. The original 6.25 will be repurpsed into a zoa garden.

 

Tank: Fluval Evo 13.5

Heater: Hydor Theo 100W

Return pump: Hydor Centrifugal 300

Powerheads: 2 x Hydor Koralia Nano 425

Skimmer: AquaticLife 115 with silencing mod

Controller: ReefKeeper Lite SL2 with temperature and conductivity probe

Fuge light: JBJ Nano Glo

ATO: DIY with 2 x float switches, 12V relay, and TOM aqualifter

Media rack: DIY with egg crates, 2nd chamber

Media: Filter floss, Seachem Matrix carbon, Phosguard, Purigen, (May add some Seachem Matrix Bio Media to increase my biofiltration)

Light: AI Prime, will move from the 6.25 Pico when I move lifestock over

Rocks: BRS reefsaver rocks

 

Designing the rockscape:

 

Rocks cycling. Do not cover the bucket. I think that prevented bacteria from populating the rocks and contributed to a 3-month long cycle:

 

Painting the bottom black. This will be a bare bottom tank:

 

Media Rack in second chamber. Sanded to create smooth edges and tight fit:

 

2nd and 3rd chambers. Media rack in 2nd. Return pump, heater, probes, and ATO in 3rd:

 

Plugging the hole to the sump area. Cut out a piece of black plastic from a carry-out lunchbox. Glue-guned to the false wall because I didn't want to wait for silicone to cure. Water still leaks through slowly but the purpose was to keep colonista snails from going to the back chambers:

 

Skimmer sitting snuggly in the 1st chamber:

 

Planned fuge in the bottom of the first chamber under the skimmer:

 

Heater magnetically mounted (I hate suction cups!):

 

Wave maker pointed ateach other to create turbulent flow:

 

Rocks and water in! I was going to drill the rocks for easy frag "insertion" but my drill bits refused to create any holes. Ending up sticking magnets onto the rock. Problem was I forgot to check polarity of the magnets before putting them on, so if I glue frags onto magnets I may not be able to move them to another spot that I like. I'll see if I can buy some steel screw nuts and waterproof them by sandwiching them with putty and then stick frags on top.

 

Left side (main view):

 

Front side:

 

Right side:

 

Rocks are fully cycled, but are left in air for maybe 10 to 15 minutes at a time when I was sticking magnets onto them. I kept putting them back in water from time to time to keep them wet so I do not expect much bacteria die off. They were also triple rinsed to ensure no nitrate-rich post cycle water will go into the tank.

[ninjamyst]

dayum, you went all out.  great stuff here.  i may have to steal a couple of ideas....

[Weetabix7]

Oooh, this is so exciting!!!

It's nice to see another bare bottom tank, I always feel like I'm the only one, lol. 

Then I saw those magnets all over the rocks and I was like, "Whaaaaat???". 

It's a neat idea, will be interesting to see how it works out as you start attaching frags with/to the magnets. 

[dandelion]

26 minutes ago, Weetabix7 said:

Oooh, this is so exciting!!!

It's nice to see another bare bottom tank, I always feel like I'm the only one, lol. 

Then I saw those magnets all over the rocks and I was like, "Whaaaaat???". 

It's a neat idea, will be interesting to see how it works out as you start attaching frags with/to the magnets. 

I know they are eyesores. But I wanted to experiment being able to move frags around easily without having to glue them often. 

[beardtamer]

whoa, you're evo is on another level compared to mine. I'm definitely going to be following what you do from here.

[Minmay]

Beautiful!! I love it!!

[beardtamer]

Say, I just realized you have the Prime as your light.  Have you come up with a control setting that you like? I'd be interested to see what you think will work best for this tank since I'm just now playing with it for the first time.

 

[dandelion]

47 minutes ago, beardtamer said:

Say, I just realized you have the Prime as your light.  Have you come up with a control setting that you like? I'd be interested to see what you think will work best for this tank since I'm just now playing with it for the first time.

 

The light I still on my 6.25 because I haven't transferred my corals over yet. I may wait one to two weeks before doing that just to make sure my bacteria didn't die off and stuff. But FYI I was setting each channel manually until I got tired and only set different intensity and color temperature at different time points.

[dandelion]

First skimmate collection today.

 

And it's pink.

 

[WRX]

Are those magnets coated?  If not, won't they rust?

[lkoechle]

1 hour ago, dandelion said:

First skimmate collection today.

 

And it's pink.

...do you know why it's pink?

 

[dandelion]

2 hours ago, WRX said:

Are those magnets coated?  If not, won't they rust?

These are ceramic magnets. Not as strong as neodymium but they won't rust. I've had a couple in a different tank for over a year to mount my ATO and it's still working great. 

 

1 hour ago, lkoechle said:

...do you know why it's pink?

 

I have no idea....

[lkoechle]

Go home skimmer, you're drunk.

[beardtamer]

On March 8, 2017 at 6:18 PM, dandelion said:

The light I still on my 6.25 because I haven't transferred my corals over yet. I may wait one to two weeks before doing that just to make sure my bacteria didn't die off and stuff. But FYI I was setting each channel manually until I got tired and only set different intensity and color temperature at different time points.

If you're interested, I found this lighting profile to be pretty top notch, you can upload it directly to your prime settings control panel thingy.  I toned it down and brought up the whites just a touch.  I'm pretty happy with it.  It was posted by somebody else around here.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4n5ieew42vu6z6h/CHEFFY.aip?dl=0

[dandelion]

16 hours ago, beardtamer said:

If you're interested, I found this lighting profile to be pretty top notch, you can upload it directly to your prime settings control panel thingy.  I toned it down and brought up the whites just a touch.  I'm pretty happy with it.  It was posted by somebody else around here.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4n5ieew42vu6z6h/CHEFFY.aip?dl=0

Thanks! I'll definitely try it when I move my light over. Right now it's still just pulling skimmate out.

[titos]

Following along, I'm really interested on how this tank will grow with time. I like how you cove that hole with the plastic. Do you see a difference in the chambers with water? I wanted to do the same but I forgot to do it. Maybe I'll do it in my upcoming big water change. By the way it looks great

[dandelion]

6 hours ago, titos said:

Following along, I'm really interested on how this tank will grow with time. I like how you cove that hole with the plastic. Do you see a difference in the chambers with water? I wanted to do the same but I forgot to do it. Maybe I'll do it in my upcoming big water change. By the way it looks great

Thanks! It took me a while to find the right material to cover the hole subtly. I didn't notice any change in water levels in the back chambers. Even if there were it would've been masked by my ATO.

[dandelion]

Took me an entire day to move my corals to here and deep clean the old tank. Anyways, here're some updates!

 

 

One of my Setosa frag really doesn't seem to appreciate the move. It's kind of half-bleached now. Other than that everything seems to be adjusting fine. I think they care more about the light than anything else. Since I moved the AI Prime from the old tank to this, only change would be light penetration. I will increase light intensity slowly over the next month.

 

I also got too lazy to stick them on magnets/steel. I will do that when I have time later... Hopefully they won't have fused with the rocks yet.

[Droy008]

looking good!

[Weetabix7]

It's a LOT of work doing that, isn't it?

 

I'm excited to see how things look once they start settling in and growing.

[dandelion]

3 hours ago, Weetabix7 said:

It's a LOT of work doing that, isn't it?

 

I'm excited to see how things look once they start settling in and growing.

Omg I thought it would take me an afternoon. It took me till well past midnight!

[Weetabix7]

It always happens that way with me too. 

[Aquacrazed]

Great setup! I'm curious why you used a Hydor Centrifugal 300, I don't think it would have much more flow than the stock pump since this would do at best 200gph in this tank. Is it because of the size (is it smaller than the stock pump?)?

[fishfreak0114]

Neat tank!  I like the magnets.

[dandelion]

20 hours ago, Aquacrazed said:

Great setup! I'm curious why you used a Hydor Centrifugal 300, I don't think it would have much more flow than the stock pump since this would do at best 200gph in this tank. Is it because of the size (is it smaller than the stock pump?)?

Yes it is a lot smaller. When I tested in the sink the hydor put out significantly stronger flow than the stock pump. That said I didn't test it with the elbow and the nozzles on. Anyhow, it serves it's purpose and I added my two old hydor koralia to help with flow.