Fluval Evo 13.5 Owners Thread

[mipster]

Joining the club! I just got my hands on a used Evo 13.5. I previously had a 29 gallon bowfront reef that I had converted from a freshwater system that had all the equipment stuffed in the display tank. I had to take down my old tank when I moved from Ottawa to Toronto ON, Canada and said I would set something up when I was able to move to a larger apartment. Well isolation coupled with the reality of the Toronto real estate market have made me throw that thinking out!

 

I just finished scraping the honeycomb off the display area edges as I am not a fan and it was already roughed up from the previous owner and working at getting as much of the superglue off the back wall as I could (previous owner had glued frags or rocks I think). 

 

I've got the Intank basket for chamber one (one of the local reef shops stocks them so that's pretty awesome for Toronto reefers) which will have floss, chemipure blue and purigen I think but I don't have to worry about that until I cycle through. For lighting, I want to see if I can make my old Maxspect Razor 120W unit work. I always liked the look of the light but it has been in storage for a while now and is older tech. We'll have to see how she goes, if I can even mount it over the tank in a way that doesn't look terrible.

 

My goal (other then to have a healthy ecosystem) is to have a sleek, well thought out, organized system. I want to keep cables and lines together and clean looking. 

 

I'm going to start with dry rock and live sand and I think I'm going to give the Red Sea Reef Mature Starter Kit a try. Have anyone given this cycling system a try? One thing I'm not sure about is I'm going to go skimmerless but the instructions specifically say to run a skimmer using this program. I have my old Tunze 9004 so I could toss it in the display while cycling but I'd really rather avoid the hassle and just try to sell the 9004 to get a little extra funds for more fun things lol

 

I'll get a build journal going once I have more then an empty tank to journal about! This is going to be fun!

 

 

[a_pmech84]

13 hours ago, lachies said:

Starting to get a bit of cyano going hope it burns itself of sooner rather than later

If you can do it, I would chemi clean it now before it expands. I just had to do it in mine. It's my experience the longer it stays the harder it is to get rid of. 

[lachies]

On 4/21/2020 at 4:02 AM, a_pmech84 said:

If you can do it, I would chemi clean it now before it expands. I just had to do it in mine. It's my experience the longer it stays the harder it is to get rid of. 

Yeah good call I used a product called cyano solution smashed it in two days not a bit left I never would have got rid of it otherwise 👍

[mipster]

Here we go! Started my journal. I would love some scape feedback!

 

 

[AquaVaj]

Here's mine.

 

[chvvkumar]

First post here, I have been tinkering with my Evo and I think I found a good way to improve the skimmer intake. If you turn around the skimmer plastic so that it mounts from within the first chamber, it provides a much better flow pattern for filter floss to catch particles. With stock setup, water sticks to the back wall and slides down the back wall in the first chamber.

 

This way the skimmer creates a ledge from where water can directly fall onto the filter floss below. I stuffed more floss just above where the water fall converges to reduce splashing noise.

 

Another benefit is this allows me to route my Koralia Nano's cable straight out of the tank. Instead of having to go around the skimmer.

 

 

[Guits]

After a hiatus from reef keeping due to personal reasons, I started a new tank last August. It's almost exclusive LPS. I thought it looked particularly nice this afternoon (excuse the algae on the glass - I didn't want to disturb the corals since they were so nicely expanded). It's meant to be viewed from 2 sides, but this front view is what I focus on the most. I hope you enjoy!

[mipster]

2 minutes ago, Guits said:

After a hiatus from reef keeping due to personal reasons, I started a new tank last August. It's almost exclusive LPS. I thought it looked particularly nice this afternoon (excuse the algae on the glass - I didn't want to disturb the corals since they were so nicely expanded). It's meant to be viewed from 2 sides, but this front view is what I focus on the most. I hope you enjoy!

 

Looks lovely! I love LPS, they are some of the most interesting coral in my opinion. I can't wait for my tank to cycle and mature. The wait is agonizing lol

[Garf]

@chvvkumar - I had mine the same way. I had to modify my intank media basket a bit get the level where i needed it, you could also trim those tabs a bit to get it, but i worried about ruining it. 

 

 

[Crys]

what kind of media are you using?

[chvvkumar]

I made this egg crate cover today for my Fluval Evo. Costs about $20 ($25 if you want it in black with plastidip). I plan on wrapping it with a finer mesh if needed later.

 

Parts List:

• Home Depot egg crate diffuser - $14

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Plaskolite-4-ft-x-2-ft-Suspended-Egg-Crate-Light-Ceiling-Panel-1199233A/202025149

• Clear Aquarium cover clips 6mm - $6.50

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BXN784N/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

• Plastidip - $6

https://www.amazon.com/Performix-11203-Multi-Purpose-Coating-Aerosol/dp/B0006SU3QW

 

 

[KoRoVa-_-]

I just started an Evo 13.5 and it's cycled but after seeing other people's tanks I think I used too much rock in mine 😞

 

Do you think this is too much? About 18lbs

[Garf]

@KoRoVa-_- - ya, a bit much. I'd take it down to 12 or 15 max. If it was live rock that has good stuff on it, you may want to keep it in there while you cycle and remove it later, let it stew a bit and add it's biodiversity to the tank.   Try and keep the most porous rocks, it will help pod populations. 

 

 

[Blklexus74]

5 week update

 

 

[mipster]

Evo owners running an AI prime, what are you settings? Mixed reef settings preferred! Thanks!

[Proxo]

2 minutes ago, mipster said:

Evo owners running an AI prime, what are you settings? Mixed reef settings preferred! Thanks!

When i had an evo I ran the david saxby from their website - but if i went back i'd reduce most of the settings a lot.
Better to have low light and increase slowly than high light and decrease as corals can adjust better that way around (So i'm told :D).

[Rastareefer]

7 month update 👌

 

Tank is finally free of the uglies and since I started dosing strontium and iodine/iodates my colours have gone wild. Growth has really picked up too!

[mipster]

Hey all, for those of you running an extra wavemaker in your evo, what are your favourite pumps? I want a low profile wavemaker that you can direct the flow in a particular direction. I had originally hoped I could get away with just an upgraded return and the RFG on the return outlets but when I feed the tank, I can see that just isn't going to cut it once I add SPS (eventually, not there yet but I'm a planner! lol).

 

Let me know what you have and love! Looking for a nice balance between price and performance.

[Nagham]

Fluval Evo folks, what is your livestock like?

I have... 

Fish: 1 baby Clown, a blue neon goby, and a tiny green banded goby.

Cleaners: I also have 4 nassarius snails and 3 small corals heads.

 

I would like to add a six line wrasse, but worried about overloading the tank. I would also like to add a shrimp and hermit crab, but none available now due to shipment issues related to COVID19. 

 

Will this be manageable with weekly water changes?

Also how long do I wait between adding new fish?

[mipster]

5 minutes ago, Nagham said:

Fish: 1 baby Clown, a blue neon goby, and a tiny green banded goby.

I'm going to have a very similar stock. I currently have 1 blue neon goby and 1 Royal Gramma and as a final fish, I'll be adding a clown in a couple weeks once my other two fish settle in more. Don't forget, your fish are going to grow larger then the size you bought them and 6 lines from what I've read can be very territorial and aggressive in small tanks (no personal experience on this one as I've never had a 6 line however so hopefully others can chime in here). Personally I wouldn't go over 3 fish even if my filtration could handle it.

 

With the shrimp, just be aware they like to steal food out of corals' mouths and hermits can nip at corals but they are still great members of a cleaning crew, you just need to be aware that it's a possibility and get them out of there if it becomes a problem.

[afcajax73]

Morning all! sorry I've not been active for a while. Things have been a bit crazy work wise since all this COVID stuff kicked off... My tank is doing well.. I used to do a weekly water change of around 10%, but since lockdown approx 11 weeks ago, I've done 1x 15% change at around 4 weeks, and the tank has never looked better, I'm actually doing minimal maintenance, just topping off and pulling a bit of algae where I see it. All of my green algae has gone, and I'm just left with a little of a red variety. 

 

hope everyone is well and coping alright! 

[MarineFisher]

How many fish can this tank hold?

[MarineFisher]

Hey guys new was just curious of the bioload for the evo 13.5? i read 4 is this true? sorry for the double post

[afcajax73]

15 hours ago, MarineFisher said:

Hey guys new was just curious of the bioload for the evo 13.5? i read 4 is this true? sorry for the double post

I personally have 2x clowns and a royal gramma... a lot don't go beyond 2x fish, most seem to go for 3x. I think 4x would be pushing it, but it depends what you get I suppose

 

[Rastareefer]

On 6/8/2020 at 4:46 PM, mipster said:

Hey all, for those of you running an extra wavemaker in your evo, what are your favourite pumps? I want a low profile wavemaker that you can direct the flow in a particular direction. I had originally hoped I could get away with just an upgraded return and the RFG on the return outlets but when I feed the tank, I can see that just isn't going to cut it once I add SPS (eventually, not there yet but I'm a planner! lol).

 

Let me know what you have and love! Looking for a nice balance between price and performance.

I use an aqamai KPS wavemaker that does nicely for me but not cheap, I was considering adding a second wavemaker to get flow to some tricky spots and I’d settled on a jebao SLW-10 but couldn’t find any for sale that weren’t from dodgy Chinese suppliers so I’ve put it on hold.

 

Great pump though if you can get it! Cheap and really broad flow. 👌