Fluval Evo 13.5 Reef Venture ~ Now With Fish

[Cameron6796]

After having lurked on several forums for over five years I finally got an amazing deal on a tank I should have bit the bullet on a long time ago. The plan is to have a pretty simple fish only tank at first until I upgrade the lights. Eventually I know I’m going to get coral. I’m not expecting a ton of attention here this is mostly so I can document the progress as the tank matures.

 

Tank: Fluval Evo 13.5

Filter: inTank Media Basket

filter floss

Purigen

 

Stock Pump 

Powerhead

Sicce Nano voyager 1000

 

Lighting: Stock, planning AI prime upgrade

 

STOCK

CUC:

3 Blue Leg Hermit Crabs

2 Cerith Snails

 

Fish:

2 Occelaris Clowns

 

Coral:

 

Other Inverts:

 

March 8, 2021:

The coral plans are mostly going to be softies and LPS once I’m ready for coral. I love euphylia and the movement they bring so the smaller island will likely be dedicated to them.

 

Cheers and Happy Reefing!

[debbeach13]

Welcome back. 

[Cameron6796]

13 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Welcome back. 

Thanks! I forget when I even joined but it used to be my version of video games when I was younger to come on here and sift through everyone’s builds, ask questions etc. Glad to be back and will hopefully be active once or twice a week. 
 

On another note tonight I changed the scape and added water. 

 

[Cameron6796]

So nothing really new, been dosing Stability every day since I have no live rock in the tank. I’ve noticed that I’ve barely gotten the tiniest little ammonia spike and I’m adding a little bit of food every other day. I am not worried though it’s only been 4 days since waters been in.

My next challenge is finding a light and a mesh top for the tank. Who knew that the mesh tops that are available would cost as much as what I paid for the tank used lol. I paid $90 CAD for the tank used. A family had been using it for a betta fish for a few months and sold it to me because it was too much flow for the betta so I got a steal. Looking at some of the mesh tops and they come out to more than what I paid for the tank.

I’m pretty dead set however on getting an AI Prime light. I considered the kessil A80 tuna because I have the FW version over my planted Fluval edge. But I think it just won’t be enough for what I eventually want to do with the tank and I’d rather future proof than need to keep buying upgrades and sell my old equipment for a loss.
Additionally, I am a huge fan of travelling so the more equipment I can buy that I can program and have it be automated the more piece of mind I’ll have if I am on vacation etc. Plus I’ll have a ton of time to test the equipments features and reliability before I’m travelling since that’s not really going to happen any time soon: thus me having more trust that the products will actually work the way I program them.

I’ll leave you all with this, if you compare to what I already have posted everything looks pretty much exactly the same minus a temperature probe I have just dangling in there. 

[Ratvan]

Do you leave that probe in the aquarium all the time? It doesnt look like the saltwater suitable version to me, you can order a replacement probe (silicone) or seal and recalibrate that one as i believe its stainless steel

[Cameron6796]

On 3/15/2021 at 5:35 AM, Ratvan said:

Do you leave that probe in the aquarium all the time? It doesnt look like the saltwater suitable version to me, you can order a replacement probe (silicone) or seal and recalibrate that one as i believe its stainless steel

Good point thank you. It never even crossed my mind. I’ve already ordered a replacement and I’m exchanging this one for it. 

[Ratvan]

4 minutes ago, Cameron6796 said:

Good point thank you. It never even crossed my mind. I’ve already ordered a replacement and I’m exchanging this one for it. 

No worries I didn't think about it on mine either until I noticed it rusting in the tank

[Cameron6796]

On 3/16/2021 at 6:02 PM, Ratvan said:

No worries I didn't think about it on mine either until I noticed it rusting in the tank

Glad you mentioned it before that happened, also the replacement is essentially the same product but comes with a plastic probe and a suction cup so I am able to make it more discreet. 
 

you probably just saved me weeks of “why is everything in my tank angry” because I planned on moving the probe out of site. So thank you. 
 

anyways besides that I haven’t seen much of a cycle I’ve been dosing bacteria now daily and also fish food but I’ve maybe seen the tiniest ammonia spike and no nitrite or nitrate. It’s tempting to add fish. But I think I’m going to wait until Friday for sure and go off of my water tests. 
 

could be possible I need better test kits too. I am using the Fluval ones and I’m sure they are fine but fine isn’t the theme I want for this tank they were just super on sale in my area. I want to do things right but I’ve not been focusing on the hobby for a while. I used to know all the brands etc and be obsessed with the forums. 
 

it’s just crazy how I randomly found this tank for sale one night and picked it up the next day and said I was gonna “slowly assemble the necessary parts” then three days later it had water in it. 

[Cameron6796]

Update:

I added two small clownfish today. I went to a tiny fish store today because the two big chain stores in my area were so lined up. I got two “Regular” ocellaris and found them mixed among hundreds of designer clowns. Probably over paid slightly but they are a tiny shop and been around since 2007. I must say the one has a weird white bar deformity on its face that makes its stripes not super uniform so I think it’s unique. Super friendly staff and all their clowns are from premium aquatics in Florida so I'm not mad about it. They took me and showed me their quarantine systems too cuz I was one of two other customers and it was near close. They had a coral tank but no prices so I have a feeling I should be able to get some weird corals for really cheap.

 

 

EDIT: How did I forget pictures 

[Cameron6796]

So update things haven’t really changed much. Tanks doing well I had an ugly phase but it lasted maybe two days as I had clean up crew in there already and they took care of things. This I assume was brought on because I added a gobstopper Zoa and green ricordia so lights were on daily. Additionally added a fire fish four days ago and the clowns seemed to not even care about him... but this morning I woke up to the fire fish dead on the sand bed no indication of why.

Clowns seem fine but I’m gonna pay extra close attention in case the fire fish brought in disease. Bought a purple Rhodactis shroom as well at the same time as the fire fish. I’m really bummed about the fire fish honestly... it’s probably the fish I have wanted most, more than clowns. 

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Cameron6796