Maggie's 13.5 Reef

[Mhamilton0911]

Hello my fishy friends! I'm hopping on the fluval evo 13.5 bandwagon and setting up my new tank!



Yep, it's basic, yep it's empty, but it's mine!! So this will replace a 7g hex column tank that I have, it was acrylic and my lovely urchin nibbled all over each side. Love the urchin, not a fan of acrylic though.

I set this up temporarily on my kitchen counter, just to basically get the jist of it's workings before I loaded it up with rock and sand and critters. The heater I thought was good turns out it's not heating at all, light on but no heat. So my first hurdle begins.

To be Continued.....

 

[Mhamilton0911]

When I filled this yesterday, I carefully measured with a gallon pitcher, but only got 11 gallons in? You can count the lines from the bubbles like tree rings so I know I didn't mis-count.

So the heater is the first hurdle to jump. I had a couple heaters lying around from my "Betta fish tank in every room" days, but most are too small and the one I picked isn't actually heating, despite the light indicator. The current 7g does have a heater mounted in the canister filter, it's the Oase heated filter model, and I 'think' it came with a suction cup mount as well so I'll go see if I can find the mount and use that. The filter was rated up to 20g so the heater should be perfect for this size tank.

But coffee first.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

So heater in tank is heating, apparently. I cranked it all the way up last night and this morning it's a toasty 84, so it's heating. I turned it down to hopefully the correct temp so I'll monitor the science and see if it's where it needs to be.

I did not have a bracket for the other heater like I thought I did, so if this heater isn't right then I'll have to venture into town.

And speaking of heaters, the instructions say to place heater with the return pump? Is that where are the kids these days are placing the heaters? In my other tank the return section gets pretty low so I wouldn't dare have the heater there, but in this fluval it seems like the return stays full?

 

[Mhamilton0911]

New heater perfect at 78 where I set it, I'll likely take it down just a little to 76.

Got it set up in place and some extra 5lbs of dried sand I had on the shelf.

Mixing water and I'll ready myself for actual things tomorrow.

 

[fishguy242]

Hi, here at the beginning...

 

[Subliminal]

I have my heater in the middle.
Chamber 1 is intank basket with chemipure blue and filter floss. 2 is heater. 3 is return pump. So far so good!

good luck. It’s a fun little tank.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Hi, here at the beginning...

 

[Mhamilton0911]

I have my heater in the middle.
Chamber 1 is intank basket with chemipure blue and filter floss. 2 is heater. 3 is return pump. So far so good!

good luck. It’s a fun little tank.

That sounds like a solid plan. I do remember seeing those in tank baskets now that you mention that. Also, do you have that lower hole plugged?

 

[Subliminal]

That sounds like a solid plan. I do remember seeing those in tank baskets now that you mention that. Also, do you have that lower hole plugged?

Yes. Forgot about that!

 

[rmorris_14]

So heater in tank is heating, apparently. I cranked it all the way up last night and this morning it's a toasty 84, so it's heating. I turned it down to hopefully the correct temp so I'll monitor the science and see if it's where it needs to be.

I did not have a bracket for the other heater like I thought I did, so if this heater isn't right then I'll have to venture into town.

And speaking of heaters, the instructions say to place heater with the return pump? Is that where are the kids these days are placing the heaters? In my other tank the return section gets pretty low so I wouldn't dare have the heater there, but in this fluval it seems like the return stays full?

My heater is in the first intake chamber. I wouldn’t do it in the return in case your water level gets too low

 

[rmorris_14]

Also, hi! Following

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Lol, that leg at the end, I just keep watching they loop

 

[Subliminal]

How are you planning on cycling the tank? With some live rock? Dr. Tim's?

I am just starting a second tank where I plan to use Dr. Tim's and his recommendation:

1. No lights at the beginning
2. Temperature during cycle @ 84-85
3. Salinity low
4. Only dose ammonia when ammonia totally disappears.

Edit: Nevermind, see you're transferring stuff...I guess the question still remains if you're going to cycle at all or just add the stuff.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

The rock structure I have in the smaller tank I'm breaking down is sufficient I believe to skip the cycle, and the canister I had been using only has rock in it that was seeded from my bigger tank so I think rock-wise I should be ok. But the sand should be rinsed I'm sure, so hopefully that doesn't throw a wrench in my plan.

The 7g tank that's getting broken down had been running since last August I bet it's enough time to be good to go.

This acrylic tank that I'm taking down though has a good amount of Coraline algae on the corners so I'm going to try to scrape it off before it dries and use those scrapings to seed the new 13.5. I was shocked to see such good growth so soon on the little tank so hopefully the new one grows it fast as well.

I only have api for ammonia and we all know how iffy those can be but I'll likely test just to be sure I didn't stir up too many nasties with the sand transfer. I really love the sand type and I can't find anymore local so it'll have to be ordered if I wanted to go new.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

So my slothy self drug my feet and took forever to get this transfer started, but it happened.

So the tentacle looking rock structure in the column tank just looks like a turd in the Evo. But I'm going with it. I'll likely add more later but it's ok for now.


I lost my neon goby for a while yesterday during the transfer, all I did was remove the rock and place in the Evo, man I was looking everywhere. Turns out the little bugger tucked in the rock somewhere and was already in the Evo. Which sucks since the temp was off about 10 degrees, and the water was 100% new and he had ZERO acclimation. But after I finally got the clowns and cuc added the little goby came out to check them out so he seems fine.

Little blue goby is by the rock under the clowns in this picture.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Added a watchman goby and shrimp pair and also a mini carpet and sexy shrimp. I just placed the carpet down and the sexy shrimp was already on it. Neat.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Morning check was good, yellow watchman and pistol found each other and are living under the largest part of the rock. For such a tiny pistol shrimp it did loads of excavation for just one night.

And the mini carpet found a happy spot and it's flat and pretty looking with it's sexy shrimp dancing on top. Further reading tells me they like groups so I'll be off to the lfs for the 4th straight day this week. They had 3 or 4 more shrimps so I'll grab them. Mine misses his friends. Probably. And because I like buying $20 tiny pinky nail sized shrimp. Apparently.

 

[Subliminal]

That's awesome. I've been wondering why my little sexy shrimp always hangs out by the BTA. He hasn't gone in it...which is good, but he's never far.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

They definitely have an alliance with anenomes. Pretty neat to watch.

LFS had 2 more that I could find in their tank, so they've reunited. I'll see if I can get better shots with my rebel instead of my crummy phone.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

So the 2 sexy shrimp I added have not found the first yet, it's not a big tank, how long does it take??

Plus, wow, I'm really disappointed in the flow of the stock pump. You can really see it when feeding, the food doesn't even get sucked into the overflow it's so weak. So I ordered a Sicce pump, should be here next week. I still haven't decided which chamber I want to go with for a media basket, I'll wait until the pump is here and go from there.