My First Reef Tank- Fluval Evo 13.5

[einstein0123]

My nano reef has been running for about two months now. This is my first tank. 

 

 Hardware: 

• Fluval Evo 13.5 tank
• Fluval Sea ps-2 skimmer 
• Chemipure Elite carbon filter (Swapped with stock carbon filtration media)
• 2 150w heaters- one set at 78 degrees and one at 76 for backup 
• Stock lighting
• Thermometer 
• Ammonia Alert Device 

 

In the Tank/ Livestock

• 12 pounds of live rock
• 20 pounds of live sand
• 2 Clownfish
• 1 Mandarin Dragonette (I know, I'll explain)
• 1 Cleaner Shrimp 
• 2 Astrea snails 
• 2 Mexican Turbo snails 
• 4 Nassarius Snails 
• 1 Marbled Hammer Coral
• 1 Goniopora 
• 1 Plate coral 
• 2 Zoanthid frags 
• 1 Palythoa frag 
• 1 Finger leather frag 
• GSP on the Black plastic Wall
• I do not own an RODI unit and get it from my LFS

 

Parameters

• Salinity- 1.025-1.026
• Ph- 8.0
• Nitrates- 7 ppm 
• Ammonia- near 0 (getting better test kit)
• Nitrites- near 0 (getting better test kit)
• Temperature remains consistently at 78 degrees 
• ( I do not currently have any form of testing for Alk, Calcium, or Phosphates and plan to order them very soon)

 

Now as far as I am aware I have only done three major noob things. The day I bought my tank from my LFS I bought 10 gallons of cycled water from one of the tanks in the store, which I am now aware is a huge no-no in the reef world. Knock-on-wood I haven't had any major problems with this other than a brown algae bloom on the substrate for the first month of the tank running. I managed to fix this my getting a timer for my lights (they run 10 hrs a day) and getting a skimmer/replacing the filtration media that came with the tank for Chemipure Elite. The other major noob thing I am aware of was my impulse buying of a Mandarin Dragonette after my tank had been running with my clowns for two weeks. After much research after the fact,  I am well aware of how hard it is to keep a Mandarin, especially in such a small tank. I have subsequently been seeding my tank with a bottle of copepods every two weeks since I got him, and plan on purchasing a Finnex HOB fuge in the coming weeks to keep a more steady population of pods for my Mandarin to be as healthy as possible. And lastly as I'm sure you are aware I have moved way too fast in terms of adding livestock to my tank. 

 

As far as maintenance goes, I feed frozen brine shrimp every other day (and so far haven't seen any indicators of overfeeding). I have seen my Mandarin eat some frozen brine, but even so I would like for him to have as close of a diverse range of food sources as he would have in the wild to keep him healthy. I feed my corals once a week with the recommended amount of Red Sea Reef Energy (I do not target feed, I just dose the entire tank). I check Salinity and ph every other day, everything has remained consistent so far. I test for ammonia, Nitrates and Nitrites with an API test kit once a week. My Nitrates were a little high (12ish ppm) and went down to about 7 ppm since adding the skimmer and the Chemipure. I have had a relatively inconsistent water change schedule until very recently. I didn't do any water changes the first month my tank was running. Then with the algae bloom I did two 15% water changes a week apart, and now plan on doing 15% every other week to remain consistent moving forward. 

 

As far as future upgrades go, like I said previously I am planning on buying a Finnex HOB fuge and adding clean Chaeto and Pods/Phyto. I will also upgrade the lighting, and I would love to hear some recommendations from others that have done the same. The only other thing I am looking to upgrade are my testing methods, I am thinking Hannah Checkers for Phosphate, and Alkalinity, and Salifert for Everything else (thanks to everyone of these forums that has recommended these to me) I am not planning on adding more fish due to my concern for the Mandarin, but I will definitely be slowly adding more corals and inverts after a few months of the tank settling in as is. 

 

Am I on the right track so far? If there's anything you think I have missed and should be doing please let me know. I am really enjoying the hobby and how supportive everyone else in the hobby is, especially in the forums. 

 

Edit: Per recommendation from other reefers on this forum I have decided to shut off my skimmer to prevent stripping all nutrients from my tank

 

[einstein0123]

Update 3/28/20 - POD TANK

 

Tank has been doing great, my frags are starting to grow and all my fish appear to be alive and well. I have kept my skimmer off per recommendations, The only repercussion seems to be the regrowth of the cyano I had on the substrate prior to adding the skimmer, just not nearly as severe. I built a "pod tank" to culture copepods out of a plastic jar. I cut a hole in the lid for airline tubing and one for air exchange. I also built a diy pod hotel out of a corrugated sign I got from my local hardware store. The idea is to eventually have 3 seperate pod hotels and every couple of weeks empty one of the hotels into my display tank to keep the pod supply up for my mandarin. I am ordering Phyto from algae barn tonight to keep these little pods fed. Only other things I need for this little pod project are a small LED and some velcro to mount the pod hotels to the sides of the jar. 

 

I am leaving the tank alone for now, just feeding, checking levels, topping off and doing a water change every couple of weeks. Looking forward to seeing how great everything I already have in the tank will look once it grows some more.