Opotter’s Fluval Evo

[Opotter]

So hello folks!  This is my first reef system and first nano.  I’ve kept freshwater and brackish puffers for many years.  I tore down my last 200 gallon tank after my last fahaka puffer passed away and decided to keep something smaller and more manageable.

 

 I’ve been meaning to start a journal for this tank for the better part of almost a year now (when I first set it up).  I kept wanting to wait until I felt like I had something to show, but almost a year later of browsing behind the scenes on this forum and I realized that is a moving target that I may never feel like I have obtained. Ironically, I chose now when my tank is having an ugly phase, but I digress, we shall get there in the next post or two. So here goes:

 

Tank was started up in Dec 2017.  Fluval Evo 13.5

 

Equiptment and Mods:

- Heater- Cobalt neotherm

- Lights- still Evo stock with a ramp timer pro (8 hours with 30 min ramp and 2 hours moon).  Upgrade coming soon (Black Friday sales)- planning to grab a AI Prime HD

- Pump- sicce synchra silent 1.0

- Circulation- hydro koralia 240

- Filtration- inTank media basket in 1st and 2nd with floss/chemipure/purigen 

- Closed off the small hole at bottom of back wall leading to chamber 2 with a small piece of plastic cut from a Tupperware lid plus glue and silicone

- Smart Micro ATO- not on tank yet because of a valuable lesson I learned about back suction and placement in tank.  Waiting on my new ClearView custom acrylic lid to arrive! And then we will try that again.

 

 

Livestock (I should really be further along here), but I’ve been obsessed with catching every last bad hitchiker and learning to keep the water chemistry before adding.  I’m a bit (huge understatement) of a perfectionist (also why I’ve been timid about starting a journal- until I realized that by that standard, I wouldn’t be starting one until the tank was a decade old probably) and I also really don’t like killing things.

 

- Tampa Bay Saltwater Liverock: Richard was amazing and I have loved every minute of this rock!  So many cool critters, but I get why it’s not for everyone.  For me, couldn’t have imagined a more fun experience with a nicer guy to work with.

- various snails, some hitchiker and some added by me from reefcleaners (Ceriths, dwarfs Ceriths, narssius, astrea, nerites, chestnut turban, limpets)

- peppermint shrimp (Bob)

- 8 to 10 or so blue leg and hitchhiker hermits (I know, I know.. but they entertain me)

- A literal army of porcelain crabs of various colors (red, purplish, and blue-greenish) no idea how many.  They came with rock and have thrived.

- a battalion of micro brittlestars- things are everywhere

- One very large rock flower anemone that came with my rock.  His name is Hannibal and he is probably 7inches now (from 2-3 when I got him).  Probably my favorite thing in tank.  He spits food at me when he doesn’t like it.  He really likes shrimp.  Glad he hasn’t snacked on my peppermint shrimp that likes to dance with death and steal his food when I spot feed.

- Several cup corals that hitchiked in my rock

- many barnacles, a few tunicates and bivalves that survived my first year as a reefer.  I have one sponge that survived (the ugliest one-  isn’t how that always goes)

- Pistol Pete: no idea what the hell he is because in a year I’ve only seen his shadow through a hole in my rock work.  Can sure hear his butt though.

- various bristleworms, largest is about 6to8 inches now.  He stays in the sand and hasn’t disturbed my life or the other creatures yet.  He grosses me out but we have ageed to live in harmony for now as long as he continues to clean my sand and only comes out when I don’t have to look at him.

- small Eunice type worm: rehomed.  I will add a photo in upcoming post

- 2 large black spiny urchins that stayed in tank until they got too big and then were  rehomed.  One tiny one remains in tank because he just showed up (not kidding) 2 weeks ago.  He is the size of an eraser and I haven’t added anything new, so I have no idea how small he was when I got the rock.

 

 

RIP (and not sorry for a second despite my disdain for killing stuff): roughly a dozen gorilla and various rock crabs plus a grayish colored bastard that was mean as a damn snake.  You are all the reasons why I don’t have coral yet! Also various predatory whelks.

 

Photos up next 🙂

[Opotter]

Some initial photos (and I apologize now.. I am bad at aquarium photography) of my TBS live rock

 

 

Initial photo right after first shipment of rock arrived (“the package” from TBS).  I laid it out across bottom so I could see where all the critters were.

 

Adjusted the rock a little about a week later (so I could live with it for a month while my tank cycled before second half of rock arrived).

 

 

Just some initial up close shots of my live rock when it arrived.

 

 

Little gray bastard before he grew into a mean 3inch terror that would not come peacefully.  He was eventually skewered.  I celebrated.  Sorry not sorry!

 

 

This was the moment of realization that I had WAY TOO much live rock and it was spread out WAY too close to the glass.  It wasn’t usually this dirty, but it was impossible to keep the tank clean and I was always moving stuff to clean the glass.  This photo was after I had neglected it for a bit because it was so darn hard to clean.    I ended up tossing out a couple of realy nice pieces of rock (which I was reluctant to do and why it took me so long to decide it had to go) to make things more consolidated.  After several months of rearranging, I spotted this guy.  In the last set of rock removal and rearrangement, I caught and rehomed him:

 

Current photos up next 😉

 

 

[Opotter]

 

So now, this is where we are now.  Still not happy with exactly how the rock looks.  That top piece that pokes up top (rock looks like a dog shape) needs to come down a little and I would like to turn that piece on the far right in front with the donut hole in the middle 90 degrees.  But I need Hannibal (Rock Flower Nem) to cooperate and move his foot first.  Debating if I still need to get rid of more rock.  

 

My stock light is dying slowly, so I have green coraline that is overtaking my pretty pink/purple/and red coraline.  So my rocks look green and terrible (why did I start this in an ugly phase again?).   At any rate, new custom acrylic top on the way.  Ordering new light in next couple weeks (AI prime).  Hoping it will look much better with new lighting and my coraline will bounce back (die green die).

 

And then.. freaking finally it’s time to add some corals!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Roachant]

Your light is dying? I’m worried as I just bought this kit last month and I won’t be able to upgrade the stock light for a while. Nice tank by the way, lots of life to look at and explore!

[Opotter]

It isn’t where I want it yet, but Ive been moving at a snails pace with this thing.

 

But yes, light is dying.  It’s been slowly loosing its power.  It’s been running daily for 8 hours a day with a 30 min ramp up and down and then 3% for 2 hours (which turns on mostly the blues with the current ramp timer pro).  I’ve been noticing it isn’t as bright as it used to be and then in the last week it’s gottten really noticeable to the eye.  That and the greeen coraline that has suddenly taken off.. which apparently out competes the pink/purples at lower light spectrums (I had to ask someone about the annoying green on my rocks.. trying to figure out what would eat it that I didn’t have..and got that nugget of info). So yeah, light didn’t last as long as I had hoped!

 

You are gonna love the tank though!  It’s perfect size and really easy to make modifications over time.  Can’t beat the price for the quality!  And honestly I’ve really enjoyed tinkering with it to make modifications to make it better.  The forums on here are fantastic to get ideas on what to change.

[Roachant]

If the tank is less than a year old and you have the proof of purchase they will replace the light. You could resell it if you already bought the ai prime 😀.

[Opotter]

Ah.. yeah I could do that.  Sounds like more work than I care to do though.  The light probably won’t get much return value if I try to sell it (if they gave me a new light).. and I wanted to upgrade anyway.    It perfect timing for the holiday sales 🙂

[fulltang]

I'm setting up practically the same tank as you, which is my first salt water tank as well. I'm waffling hard on ordering live rock from TBS or using dry rock!

 

How much rock did you order, and if you think it was too much, how much do you wish you would have ordered? I definitely don't want to overload the tank, and I think 20lbs will definitely be too much in the evo. I don't plan on ordering the package as I live a good distance away from the airport, so I'll likely order the rock, sand, and then a CUC from reefsavers.

 

Also if you don't mind, can you describe your experience after you initially got the rock and the days that followed? I'm curious how many water changes you had to do, and what percentage?

 

The amount of life in your tank is a thing of beauty, I love it.

[Opotter]

My experience with TBS was wonderful!   I really love the rock he sent.  Loads of interesting shapes and life.  I ordered “the package.”  If I had it to do over, I would definitely make some modifications to it though.   You really only need about 1/2 to 3/4 (depending on how much rock you want) of what he sends.  His formula is on his website for how he calculates the package.  I ended up throwing some out eventually because my tank had so much that cleaning was too hard.  Also... he will send 1 serpent star (mine was very large) and 2 cucumbers.  My Evo was far too small for these creatures and they had to go to the LFS to avoid starving.  I would ask him not to send those.  In terms of the water changes, he will send very specific instructions on what to do and what parameters to keep after you get the first half of the delivery.  I followed his instructions and all was well!   The rock is so fresh, I really had minimal die off and the cycle was pretty fast.

[Opotter]

Time to update this thing.  Made some changes and made some progress 🙂 since last post.

 

1.  Changed out the stock lighting for an AI prime

2.  Reworked the rock scape while I was messing with the lights.  Finally to a place where I am happy with it.  There are some lower spots in the back for some bigger growing items like leathers.  It’s taller in the front with a pretty neat shape and lots of ledges for corals.  There is some shading due to the scape, but it can be dealt with.  I am only planning on keeping softies/LPS so shouldn’t be a big deal.

3.  Changed out the hydor koralia pump for an Aquamai KPS (which I love!)

4.  Evicted the peppermint shrimp- he decided to chew on the side of my rockflower nem and ate some tentacles off.  Bad choice.  That was a fun (sarcasm) 3 day hunt and partial tear down of the tank.

5.  Added first corals from WWC.  Super positive experience with them!  Truly amazing folks.

        -neon green long polyp toad

        - 5th element blasto

        - rainbow Ricordea x 3

        -neon Duncan

 

Everyhing has been in the tank for several weeks now.  Looks happy so far. Duncan has a tiny new head sprouting.

 

Current issues- Dealing with a small outbreak of branching hydroids.. aggressively as I have heard the horror stories mixed with a few stories of they will come and go.  The population I have seems to want to spread fast so better safe than sorry.  Took the rock they were on out and scrubbed the hell out of it, rinsed it off with fresh salt water and put it back.  They popped back out 2 days later.  I then broke out my glue and epoxy and went to work.  Seems to have worked.. knock on wood.  Cutting way back on feeding the new coral.. thinking I may have over did it with the Reef Roids and caused the issue.  

 

Photo dump-  haven’t quite worked out the filters to take away blues yet, they are better with a little photoshop and colors are fairly close, but stil looks too blue/purple.  May have to buy one of those clip on filters for my phone cam.  

 

Also so ignore my rookie looking purple turds!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[WV Reefer]

6 minutes ago, Opotter said:

Time to update this thing.  Made some changes and made some progress 🙂 since last post.

 

1.  Changed out the stock lighting for an AI prime

2.  Reworked the rock scape while I was messing with the lights.  Finally to a place where I am happy with it.  There are some lower spots in the back for some bigger growing items like leathers.  It’s taller in the front with a pretty neat shape and lots of ledges for corals.  There is some shading due to the scape, but it can be dealt with.  I am only planning on keeping softies/LPS so shouldn’t be a big deal.

3.  Changed out the hydor koralia pump for an Aquamai KPS (which I love!)

4.  Evicted the peppermint shrimp- he decided to chew on the side of my rockflower nem and ate some tentacles off.  Bad choice.  That was a fun (sarcasm) 3 day hunt and partial tear down of the tank.

5.  Added first corals from WWC.  Super positive experience with them!  Truly amazing folks.

        -neon green long polyp toad

        - 5th element blasto

        - rainbow Ricordea x 3

        -neon Duncan

 

Everyhing has been in the tank for several weeks now.  Looks happy so far. Duncan has a tiny new head sprouting.

 

Current issues- Dealing with a small outbreak of branching hydroids.. aggressively as I have heard the horror stories mixed with a few stories of they will come and go.  The population I have seems to want to spread fast so better safe than sorry.  Took the rock they were on out and scrubbed the hell out of it, Rinsed it off with fresh salt water and out it back.  They popped back out 2 days later.  I then broke out my glue and epoxy and went to work.  Seems to have worked.. knock on wood.  Cutting way back on feeding the new coral.. thinking I may have over did it with the Reef Roids and caused the issue.  

 

Photo dump-  haven’t quite worked out the filters to take away blues yet, they are better with a little photoshop and colors are fairly close, but stil looks too blue/purple.  May have to buy one of those clip on filters for my phone cam.  

 

Also so ignore my rookie looking purple turds!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things are looking good 😊

 

 

and yes the hydroids are a “food” issue.....quit feeding them and they’ll die off. I have them off and on in my tanks. I just pluck out the ones that are bothering coral and wait for the rest to die. 

[ninjamyst]

nice ricordeas!  mind if i ask how much they were per frag?

[Opotter]

They are the rainbow Ricordea from WWC.  I think they were 39-49 per frag.  Christmas gift card.. it’s like spending Monopoly money.  Throw it in the cart and don’t care 🙂