Fluval Evo 13.5 First Nano......

[GOBRAVES]

Decided to go ahead and do a filter mod for the second chamber while the cycle is going.  

 

[Christopher Marks]

Great progress so far @GOBRAVES! I like the unboxing and setup video with the kids, how fun to share the hobby with them! ☺️

[GOBRAVES]

Day 9 update:

 

Ammonia is up to 1 ppm

 

nitrites finally starting to show up!  .25 ppm

 

nitrates are up to 10, though.  My understanding is that I’m pretty much gonna need the nitrates to be zero if I want happy corals?  Is this correct?

[Frag Factory]

Nitrates under 5ppm are ideal but you do need some nitrate to help SPS corals colour up so absolute 0 is not the aim here.

 

I personally wouldn't worry about nitrates as long as it's under 30ppm for most beginner corals. If you do a 100% water change when the cycle is done you will be fine. The anaerobic bacteria will take a while to populate your tank, after 1-2 months (post cycle) you will see nitrates start to drop on their own. 

 

 

[GOBRAVES]

11 minutes ago, Frag Factory said:

Nitrates under 5ppm are ideal but you do need some nitrate to help SPS corals colour up so absolute 0 is not the aim here.

 

I personally wouldn't worry about nitrates as long as it's under 30ppm for most beginner corals. If you do a 100% water change when the cycle is done you will be fine. The anaerobic bacteria will take a while to populate your tank, after 1-2 months (post cycle) you will see nitrates start to drop on their own. 

 

 

Thanks!  Appreciate it.  So a full 100% water change once cycle is done?  Seems like a lot but I’m def not the expert here haha

[Frag Factory]

It will drop your nitrates for you, my cycle left me with nitrates over 50+ppm (maxed out my RS rest kit) which feeds algea and is less than ideal for inverts. It's normal for nitrates to go up.

 

You have to think about algea which is the next step in a tanks life. Algea needs light, phosphate and nitrate. If you get rid of one you get rid of algea. Right now you have no light, so you will have no algea. Once you turn on the light you will have an algea boom.

 

Getting rid of nitrate and phosphate released from rock will help a lot in that battle.

[GOBRAVES]

Day 12 update:

 

Ammonia is down slightly to .25 ppm since the nitrite spike 

 

nitrites up to 1 ppm

 

nitrates holding around 10 ppm

 

Things seem to be moving along slowly but surely.  One thing I’m not digging so much is the super fine sand.  I thought it looked a little more coarse in the bag, but nope, it’s as fine as it gets.  I was planning on upgrading the stock pump to add a little more flow, but it’s already been a challenge keeping the sand from blowing all over the rocks with just the stock pump and cheap extra power head I added........ 

 

 

[medinar83]

Nice! check out mine when you get a chance, awesome lil tank! 

[GOBRAVES]

3 1/2 week update:

 

The cycle seemed to be pretty much complete roughly a week ago.  Ammonia and nitrite were 0 and nitrates were 5.  I was planning on waiting another couple weeks before introducing any livestock but the kids talked me into getting a couple fish while at the lfs for RODI water.  I let them pick out 2 damsels, Lucy and Freddie.  Guy at the store said I could trade them in later if I wanted so I figured why not.  A significant diatom blooom appeared a few days later so I got a couple turbo and astrea snails.  They’ve done a pretty good job of feasting on the algae as you can see from the pics.  The rocks were completely brown and the turbos went to work right away and had them cleaned off within a day.

 

Only weird thing at this point is that ammonia has appeared again at .25 ppm.  No nitrites.  I’ve been dosing prime and have done a water change since.  The fish and snails don’t seem to be stressed......

 

oh also, I removed half of the super fine sand and added dry crushed aragonite.  I did rinse the dry stuff thoroughly but a couple days later is when the ammonia showed up again.  Not sure if that had anything to do with it....

[GOBRAVES]

3 MONTH-UPDATE:

 

My tank has been cycled for a couple months now.  I’ve been doing 5 gallon water changes weekly for the most part. Water chemistry has been good.  Tested nitrate, phosphate and Ph this evening:

 

Nitrates: 0

Phosphates: 0

Ph: 8.4

 

current livestock:

 

1 blue damsel

1 watchman goby

1 cleaner shrimp

2 emerald crabs

4 astraea snails

1 turbo snail

 

I’ve had one turbo snail die inexplicably, and a yellow tail damsel died after getting “pop eye”.  Asssuming it was from an injury.  

 

Although water parameters have have been great, I’ve been dealing with diatom blooms almost constantly.  I’m mostly writing it off as just a “new tank phase” thing, but yeah I’m getting tired of constantly trying to clean up all the brown stuff lol.  I’m going to wait at least another month before I start adding corals.  Hopefully the diatom issue sorts itself out between now and then.

 

Im still planning to add a pistol shrimp to accompany the goby and maybe a clown pair if I decide to trade in the damsel.  Honestly, I know damsels are basically the gold fish of the marine world, but I like the little guy.  Super bright color and very active.  Hasn’t been aggressive at all.  The goby definitely seems to be the boss of the tank right now.

 

[ninjamyst]

Are you still using RODI for your water change?  Make sure you vacuum the sandbed a little during water change and vacuum the back chambers too.  If you don't already have a TDS meter, you can get one on Amazon for pretty cheap to test your LFS's RODI to make sure they are giving you 0 TDS water.  

[Daniel91]

What color is that Goby? He looks great!

[MrObscura]

Definitly get a tds meter if using lfs water, I've gotten 100tds water twice now. 

 

Your tank should be more than ready for corals if you'd like to add some now, rather than wait.  It might even help with the algae, giving it something to compete with for nutrients. Since they're probably not actually at zero, just being consumed before you can test. 

 

And once corals are added I'd try to keep no3 between 5-10 personally. 

[GOBRAVES]

53 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

Are you still using RODI for your water change?  Make sure you vacuum the sandbed a little during water change and vacuum the back chambers too.  If you don't already have a TDS meter, you can get one on Amazon for pretty cheap to test your LFS's RODI to make sure they are giving you 0 TDS water.  

Yeah the lfs has a good RODI system IMO.  He tested it for me the first time I got water and it was zero.  I do need to pick up a TDS meter to make sure things haven’t changed.  And yeah I vacuum the sand bed first and foremost every water change and so far the brown stuff is back by the next day.  It’s frustrating 

[GOBRAVES]

52 minutes ago, Daniel91 said:

What color is that Goby? He looks great!

I got it at my local Petco.  It’s got a lot of personality for sure.  It’s body looks grayish blue with bright blue spots.

[GOBRAVES]

44 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

Definitly get a tds meter if using lfs water, I've gotten 100tds water twice now. 

 

Your tank should be more than ready for corals if you'd like to add some now, rather than wait.  It might even help with the algae, giving it something to compete with for nutrients. Since they're probably not actually at zero, just being consumed before you can test. 

 

And once corals are added I'd try to keep no3 between 5-10 personally. 

Yeah I was kinda surprised that the nitrates are still reading zero.  I feel like there’s a decent bio load in the tank at this point.

 

Also, I do have experience with FOLR tanks but I’m pretty much clueless when it comes to corals.  That’s part of the reason I haven’t added any yet. I just don’t really know where to start and don’t want to needlessly kill something.

[MrObscura]

What are you interested in? Softies, Lps, mixed? Anything particular catch your eye. 

 

Oh, and dont trust that you lfs water will be at 0tds. Mine usually is as well, except when it tests 100. Lol

[GOBRAVES]

6 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

What are you interested in? Softies, Lps, mixed? Anything particular catch your eye. 

 

Oh, and dont trust that you lfs water will be at 0tds. Mine usually is as well, except when it tests 100. Lol

I guess that’s my problem.  I don’t really have any real experience with corals.  I had a Kenya tree and some zoas that hitchhiked in on some live rock in my last tank.  But they didn’t really do much because I had some basic PC lighting.  

[MrObscura]

Well, I'd decide what kind of reef you want to run, research, and go from there. 

 

If you just want just softies the stock light and flow should be fine, but for Lps and/or sps you'll likely need to upgrade both. Some Lps will probably do fine though. 

[GOBRAVES]

8 hours ago, MrObscura said:

Well, I'd decide what kind of reef you want to run, research, and go from there. 

 

If you just want just softies the stock light and flow should be fine, but for Lps and/or sps you'll likely need to upgrade both. Some Lps will probably do fine though. 

I'm planning on upgrading the stock lighting the way this guy did.  My only concern is the water temp.  It already gets up to 80 degrees with just the stock lighting, so I'm sure it will be worse if 4 more light strips are added.  I keep one of the power heads pointed up so it keeps the water suface agitated hoping that will help some, but yeah, I'm going to have to decide how I'm going to keep the water temps stable if I'm going to stick with the stock hood.  I know there are several mods out there for this.  Just need to decide which one I want to try.

[ninjamyst]

a clip on fan will easily drop 1-2 degrees for such a small tank

[Daniel91]

32 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

a clip on fan will easily drop 1-2 degrees for such a small tank

+1

I live in SoCal and can control temperatures around 80 with a clip on fan. If I didn’t run this, my tank will easily get 85/86 during the summer.

[MrObscura]

3 hours ago, GOBRAVES said:

I'm planning on upgrading the stock lighting the way this guy did.  My only concern is the water temp.  It already gets up to 80 degrees with just the stock lighting, so I'm sure it will be worse if 4 more light strips are added.  I keep one of the power heads pointed up so it keeps the water suface agitated hoping that will help some, but yeah, I'm going to have to decide how I'm going to keep the water temps stable if I'm going to stick with the stock hood.  I know there are several mods out there for this.  Just need to decide which one I want to try.

That guys davincis are patterned almost identical to mine. Lol

[GOBRAVES]

Well, I finally grabbed several corals from the LFS.  Getting them placed was kind of a cluster since I hadn't done it before and my super glue gel bottle ended up being empty so I had to use regular super glue.  Not sure if the thin stuff cured before I could get it on the rock or what, but it took forever to get them to stick.

 

Sorry no pics this post but I'm gonna try to get a few tonight if everything opens up.

 

Corals bought:

 

2 green mushrooms

 

a toadstool mushroom

 

a plug of zoas

 

A Kenyan tree which came free with the two mushrooms.

 

So after getting everything placed, I noticed the Zoas started opening up after a half hour or so.  Cool!  I thought.  I looked again about 20 min later and noticed the zoaz had fallen off the rock into the sand.  One of my emerald crabs was close to the spot where the zoas were.  Weird, I thought.  So I reglued the zoas back to the rock and went to bed. 

 

Got up in the morning and the zoas were gone again.  This time they were on the other side of the rock in the sand  and I thought they looked smaller.  I was fiddling around trying to reach them when I knocked them into the emerald crab and the little jerk grabbed the zoas and started munching away.  I'm guessing the crab is the reason they kept getting knocked off the rock.  Anybody want an asshole emerald crab??

[GOBRAVES]

4 month update:

 

Well, my water parameters have been reading perfect since the cycle ended.  Amonnia, Nitrites, and Natrates are all at zero.  I'm still constantly battling algae, though, along with some blue cyano I think.  My phosphates have always read zero when I test.  I'm running phosgaurd and chemipure elite at the moment, along with some ceramic bio rings and some floss that I change every other day or so.  I do 5 gallon water changes once per week.  Using instant ocean reef crystals and keeping salinity at 1.026

 

I did buy a TDS meter to test the LFS water I've been using.  It usually reads 2-3 ppm.  That seems reasonable to me, but I'm no expert.......

 

Calcium is 450

 

PH is 8.4

 

The pics I'm attaching were taken right after a good cleaning which I'm having to do at least once if not twice a week to keep the algea at bay.  I do have several snails and crabs, but they aren't able to keep up.  I've been running my lights 7-8 hours/day.

 

Also, I had a severe idiot moment on my part and almost destroyed the whole thing.  I was standing next to the tank cutting open a stiff plastic package with a big chef knife.  I had to use a lot of force and when the knife finally cut through the package, the momentum made me whack the corner of the tank with the knife putting a small crack in the glass.  It didn't leak more than a drop or so every hour and some salt creep, so I just covered the crack with some clear silicone and it seems to be doing the job for now.  Fingers crossed the crack doesn't keep expanding.  I've attached a pic.  The crack is approx. an inch long.

 

So my corals so far:

 

a plug with several small flat mushrooms

 

a toadstool mushroom of some sort.  The LFS guy didn't know the name of it.  Can anyone tell me exactly what it is?

 

Pulsing Xenia

 

Kenyan Tree

 

I had a small plug of zoas, but my emerald crab ate them.  I saw the jerk do it.

 

Other livestock:

 

Blue Damsel

 

Watchman Goby

 

Pistol Shrimp

 

Cleaner shrimp

 

Several snails and crabs

 

I was hoping the Pistol and goby would partner up, but so far they are staying on completely opposite ends of the tank.  You can hear the pistol shrimp snap at anything that gets close to his burrow, including the goby.