Aqueon Evolve 8 softies tank

[manwe]

So i finally got around to giving this tank a try. Follow along if you are interested.

 

I had the Aqueon Evolve 8 sitting on my dresser out of it's box for over a month. I ordered the 17 lb nano package of live rock from gulf coast live rock on Monday and it was sitting in my living room on Wednesday. So here goes nothing:

 

Day 1:

 

I swung by the LFS to pick up some live sand, heater, hydrometer, test kits, thermometer, powerhead, and saltwater on my way home from work Wednesday evening. After I got home I eagerly filled the tank about half way with saltwater, pour in the live sand, dropped in the live rock (17 lbs was too much, but I managed to squeeze it all in), filled the tank the rest of the way, and started getting the heater, etc. setup.

 

11 year old daughter walks in, "What is all this water over here?"

 

"F*ck!" ok, daughter was right there so I managed to keep it to "FUDGE!"

 

Tank leaks. I should have water tested it before. That's what I get for being lazy. I run through the house grabbing a towel, a five gallon bucket, and a siphon hose. I throw the towel at my confused daughter and tell her to try to stop the water and then frantically get a siphon going to get the saltwater out of the tank and into the bucket. I grab all the rock out and put it in the bucket and eventually the crisis is dealt with but now I've got a bucket full of live rock and a wet floor. I clean everything up and throw the powerhead in the bucket. I also notice the other thing I forgot. Power strip. The one outlet in the wall won't cut it for lights, pump, heater, extra power head, and the other things that were already plugged into it. Crap. Oh well, unplugged what was there and plug in the powerhead. Wife didn't really need TV in the bedroom anyway.

 

I decide that the live sand it a casualty and dump it out. Clean up the tank and contemplate my options. I threw out the packaging for the take over a month ago (of course) so I have my doubts that the store will give me a refund. Maybe an exchange. I decide to deal with it the next day and call it a night.

[manwe]

Day 2:

 

On my way home from work, I decide to bite the bullet and buy another Aqueon Evolve 8 from a different location of the chain store where I bought the first tank that is on my way home because I want to get the "stinky bucket" (as my wife and daughter call it) off of my bedroom floor. I swing into the store and grab a new tank and a bag of "dead" sand. The only live sand they have is a bag that is way more than I need so I decide to just go with the "dead" stuff. I can always add some live sand later I guess.

 

I get home and promptly take the tank out of the box and water test it. No leaks. Cool. I pour in the "dead" sand, then add the saltwater and live rock immediately after. So far so good. I start to plug in the pump for the tank and remember what I forgot. power strip. D*mn. Oh well, wife didn't need a TV in the bedroom or internet in the house (router). So the pump and lights get plugged in. I know I don't need the lights, but I wanted to watch the tank clear. Still so far so good.

 

Wife walks in, "If you are going to use some of that live rock as rubble, shouldn't you break it up now rather than later so you don't get more die off when you do that?"

 

She has a point.

 

Ok, grab a hammer and a couple of pieces of live rock that are my least favorites. I go outside and break them up into small half dollar sized chunks and drop them into the "filter" side of the built in back compartment of the tank. I'm not using the supplied filter at all. My plan is to go as natural with the filtration as possible.

 

I start cleaning up and have a genius idea. I now have one leaky tank with no packaging and one non-leaky tank with empty packaging and a receipt from today. Light Bulb!. I re-package the old leaky tank into the new tank's packaging and plan to return it the next day. It's all the same chain of stores so it should make no difference. Win-win.

 

So ends day 2. I took a picture of the tank right after setup with plans to take another when it cleared up, but I fell asleep before it did. I attached the first pic though.

 

Today I plan to get a power strip , see how the powerhead fits (I think it's too big), and do some research on lights. I'm not sure if I need to upgrade them or not, but I have a while to decide.

[Saltwaternewbie12]

I just picked up one of these today, so I'm following!! I had tried a biorb, but it didn't go as planned and was a nightmare, so I moved all the sand, water, rocks, and CUC over....hoping for no or a very small cycle....

[manwe]

Day 3:

 

I zipped home after work after a long day. It was good to be home and focus on the tank for a while, bad because I forgot the freakin power strip again. I must have some weird mental block. I also managed to squeeze in the powerhead pointing along the back wall of the tank behind the live rock. Seems like a good spot except it's kind of blowing my sand out of the back corner a little bit. I think I can solve that by a little more repositioning.

 

I also noticed a few hitichhikers: Something that looks like a clam, a small yellowish looking shrimp, a couple of cucumbers I think. I have no idea if they are good or bad, but my guess is they probably won't survive the cycle anyway.

 

 

I did a little searching around for information on the lights and i found this:

 

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=171680

 

It has a lot of information (most of which I don't really understand), but I think the gist is that I can probably do softies using the stock light. I think I'm going to give that a shot and see how it goes. I will need some kind of additional small light for the fuge in the back though. Still looking around for the best answer for that.

 

The tank has cleared up nicely for the most part. I'll post an updated picture when I get a chance. I did my first tests and they were what you would expect:

 

Ammonia was off the scale, nitrites and nitrates were 0.

 

I didn't really do anything else over the weekend except go to the beach and get a sunburn.

 

Next steps:

Finalizing my aquascaping, watching hitchhikers to see if anything survives, oh and buying a powerhead(I even almost forgot it in the list).

[manwe]

Here's a pic from this morning.

[manwe]

Day 6/7:

 

Not much to update. I did finally manage to remember to get a power strip. So there's that. Ammonia still spiking. Just lots of spectacular nothing at the moment. I'd share another picture but it would look surprisingly similar to the last one. I am considering doing a water change soon.

[Saltwaternewbie12]

Did you decide if you will be replacing the lights? Since I basically moved everything from a cycled tank to this one I never really had a new cycle....I have added some brown palys and so far they are doing good under the stock led light.....mine is fully stocked (probably overstocked) and has a small clown, grey clown goby, coral banded shrimp, 2 pink margarita snails, and 5 tiny blue leg hermits.....I'm hoping to add maybe a few mushrooms, and some Xenia in the next week or so.....I'll let you know how it does under the lights.....here is a pic of my tank tonight....

 

And I'm not sure why it is upside down.......

[manwe]

Since I'm just planning some softies (mostly zoanthids I think), I'm going to give the stock lights a shot. I'm still looking around for a good lighting option for the fuge in the back if the tank though. I'll probably just find some little clip on for that.

 

 

I'm still in the middle of a huge ammonia spike so far. I topped off the water last night because my salinity was starting to creep up. Amazingly the hitchhiker clam still seems to be alive so far.

[Saltwaternewbie12]

Do You use the clear top? I don't have much evap issues, but I keep the top on.....

[manwe]

I have been using the top. Mostly because I have a pain in the a$$ cat that tries to drink out of the tank if I don't.

[manwe]

Day 10? (number increasingly made up since I'm not really counting anymore):

 

So I notice my salinity creeping up and took the lazy way out by grabbing some carbon filtered water I had in the kitchen and used it to do a small top off. As always, shortcuts result in pain. I pretty much immediately got an algae bloom. Ammonia was still testing high, but I had nitrites and nitrates showing up now. So I did a big water change (40% maybe) with pre-made saltwater from the LFS. That seemed to calm things down. I did another round of tests after the water change and the ammonia level was much lower. Not surprising but we'll see how much damage was done by my lazy topoff. I'm running the tank with the lights off for the last 24 hours or so to see if the algae will die down some.

 

On the bright side I guess, my clam is still alive and kicking. I also noticed a really small snail make an appearance for the first time. So more wait and see, but stuff is happening which is good because stuff is more fun to watch than no stuff.

[Saltwaternewbie12]

I wish I had some hitchhikers.....I have seen NOTHING!! I used rock from my other biorb project, and some from my dad, but have seen nothing.....not even pods..... The palys seemed to be closing up a good bit, so I moved them to the bottom....they look awesome now....i guess they didnt like the stock light too much....planning to add some mushrooms, pulsing zenia, and zoas this weekend.....

[Nanoboss4]

Pics when you add them please:)

[manwe]

Day >= 16

 

Just got back from a cruise to the Bahamas that was very needed. I checked the parameters and I was at:

 

0.5 ammonia

0 nitrites

0 nitrates

 

The ammonia is a little confusing to me, but since the nitrites and nitrates are back at 0 I decided to take the plunge and add an emerald crab and two zebra snails to work on the algae. We'll see how they do. I need to pick up some Ph, Alkalinity, and Calc tests today. I like the LFS that I've been using. They are located right on my drive home from work so that works out well for me too. They seems to have a lot of nano friendly stuff.

[manwe]

A pic of the tank as of today and a hitchiker I am still trying to identify.

 

 

[manwe]

So after googling around some more I think I've identified my hitch hiker as Phyllangia Americana. Since the rock was aquacultured from the gulf then that makes total sense. Sounds like they are ok, so cool.

[manwe]

So the wife had a great idea (she has an annoying way of doing that). I had not returned the old tank with the leak yet since my kids threw the box and receipt away . So she says, "can't you just use the light from the old tank on that one?".

 

"Brilliant!"

 

So I grabbed the the light from the first tank and added it to this one. Double the light. yeah, I way over paid since I paid for the tank twice, but at least I get some value out of it. Check it out.

[Saltwaternewbie12]

I was thinking of doing the same thing if I can find another light set....

[GHill762]

I've been toying with the idea of a soft coral evolve tank, especially since I have a spare LED light I won and it's just collecting dust.. looking good!

 

I think you're right on the ID, I was going to say ball anemone, but it looks like it has a skeleton..

[manwe]

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend buying two tanks to get the two light sets, but since I am already eating the cost of the first tank it worked out ok for me. I think that will probably be more than enough light for what I want to do (famous last words). I might use the first leaky tank as a terrarium for a couple of hermit crabs in the kids room or something. I also noticed that I have a couple of aptasia hitchikers too. I'll need to deal with that at some point.

[Saltwaternewbie12]

Yea that's what I was thinking.....I. May go with the beamworks reef bright led.....it seems to be a favorite to a lot of people I have talked to.....I'm just kinda afraid of them because I'm not sure of how led wattage works.....

[manwe]

Did you read this?

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/186982-ultimate-led-guide/

 

I'll admit I didn't retain a lot of it, but it seems to be pretty comprehensive.

[Saltwaternewbie12]

I haven't, but I'll need to I guess!!

[manwe]

Day whatever:

 

Things are holding pretty steady. I still see traces of ammonia, but no nitrites or nitrates. I'm starting to think it might be the API test not being very accurate or something. Anyway, Emerald crab and both snails are still chugging along (see picture) and have removed the majority of the algae now. I'm considering dropping a peppermint shrimp in to see if it will deal with my aptasia, but I'm not sure if it's a little too soon for that. I bought Ph, Calcium, and Phosphates tests but haven't used them yet.

 

I'm starting to cave a little because the kids really want a fish. I'd prefer to stick with inverts only personally. I'm thinking about a small Goby sometime down the road though to keep them happy. Blue or Yellow Neon maybe.

 

 

[dtitus1]

You're fine adding a few different kinds of small fish in there as long as you keep up on water changes you don't just have to stick with the super tiny gobies I personally think a Tailspot blenny would look good in there with your rocks.