mdpitts
Active Member
I loved seeing your tank progress as you added more to it. Also, I needed to hear about the stock light. I’ve been wondering what to do - is it fine do I need to upgrade… I’ve got a new lid coming that has a place for the stock light because i just can’t stand the lid on these tanks. Thanks for taking the time to post this.Hello all, I'm new to the forums and thought that it might be fun to document the maturation and progress of my new 13.5 Evo.
This is my second saltwater tank, and my who knows how many fish tank in general. I was a big freshwater hobbyist before my husband convinced me to start a small saltwater tank and bribed me with the purchase of the tank itself on a BlackFriday deal a year ago. Safe to say, I'm hooked. I went through the normal ups and downs of a first tank, but I'm a researching fanatic, so my website history was filled with an endless array of how to's, size recommendations for critters, compatibility etc. The first tank came under the only real problem to hit it, a massive algae growth spike several months ago, and after testing, adjusting, and scratching my head, turns out my LFS was selling me ''RO/DI' water with a TDS of 200+, That tank is still a loving work in progress, but the clowns, royal gramma, CUC and small selection of corals are all doing just fine.
On to the new though! I cut back on my number of overall tanks in the house in order to purchase an evo 13.5 AOI system after many indecisive days of reading reviews and debating how large or small I wanted to go. I enjoy small tanks, and even the first marine cube is only 15 gallons. Even as I'm sitting here writing this, I'm looking at the 3 gallon desktop planted freshwater tank next to my computer and considering if I want to transform it into a pico reef tank, but that's another story. I bought the tank, spent hours leveling it and checking for leaks, and then began my new adventure.
I purchased a small RODI filter for myself after the above incident at the LFS, and have been mixing my own water ever since, so I used dead sand and dry rock with a bottle of bacterial starter to get the tank started initially. Good old day one cloudy water.
I didn't go tall with the hardscape, as I wanted to leave plenty of space for upwards growth. I knew I wanted this to be a tank full of Hammer corals, so I designed the rockwork to allow them a perch along the taller left portion that would ideally keep sweepers from hitting anything on the lower right side. There are a few small caves, created specifically for the Blood fire shrimp I knew I was going to get, angled towards the front to encourage him to hang out where I could see. I also left open sand and lots of lower, flat space, for the rock flower anemones I also intended to put into this tank as well as any future islands. So much pre-planning. At this point, I had a single bright red goniopora frag that I knew I wanted to put in this tank - as this tank would be full of color, movement and a higher price point. After some dithering and research, I decided to try and let the frag live in the tank pre-cycle, as I'd had an aptasia scare in the other tank and didn't want to risk transfer. That frag alone resided in the tank for the first week while I checked the shifting measurements and dropped in a large tiger nassarius snail when the ammonia dropped to help keep the cycle going as I began to feed it.
When I started to see the first signs of algae a couple of weeks in and the cycle had fully completed, I invested in a small CUC - 3 Astrea/turbo snails, 3 blue legged hermit crabs, 3 additional and much tinier nassarius snails. We have life! I also seeded the tank with coralline algae via the nearly covered shell seen in the below picture.
And then the time came, to begin my fish adventure. I knew I wanted these to be a pair of clownfish that really caught my attention and held it. I shopped locally, then turned my efforts to online listings and found my beauty pair.
I had a CUC, I had my fish, now it was time to start adding color. I started with a set of six rock flower anemones. The tank at this point has been stable for a month, set up for two, and all of my research has lead to the belief that rock flowers aren't as sensitive as other anemones, so I got click happy.
A random pack served me well. They're happy as little clams and love chowing down on mysis. This order also included what should be a photosynthetic purple ribbon gorgonian. After then, more orders, to include several zoas, several hammers, as well as moving a bright, lovely ricordea florida mushroom and red/green blastomussa from the other tank.
Let's talk about upgrades for a moment. This is stock lighting + a blue/white controllable 8 inch LED bar suctioned to the underside of the lid. It's really been doing well. The InTank media box for chamber 1 was a must have - I run it for the moment with a first layer of sponge to do some simple large particle removal that I rinse out every handful of days, and some filter media below. I don't yet have a need for anything more, parameters have been really stable. The Sicce Voyager nano 1000 and an upgraded filter pump plus random flow generator nozzle provide more than enough flow, and I had to do a lot of tweaking in position to get a flow that didn't overwhelm everything. The only automation on this tank is the on/off of the additional light I added, which serves to wake everything up before I turn on more lights.
Lid/light upgrades may come later, but I wanted to see what can be accomplished with stock lighting + a little more. The added bar drops some much-needed blue into the stock whites, I'm considering getting a larger/brighter one, as it's been really effective so far. I've noticeable growth in my zoas and the goniopora is encrusting and growing new heads. Spots of coralline algae are peppered all over the rockwork. I only scrape the front and side glass to make sure there's two sides worth of algae to help feed the snails, do small intermittent water changes, and clean the sponge periodically, especially after a feeding if I saw a lot of food getting sucked into the overflow. I just picked up some reefroids to feed the goniopora and make sure it stays healthy, and I have the system set up in a way that I can turn off everything except the extra light bar with a switch on my surge protector.
That covers everything up until now. I got in the last of the zoas I ordered yesterday but I'm treating them for aptasia in a separated tank so they haven't been placed. Some radioactive dragon eyes, fire and ice, and whammin watermelon to offset all of the reds and oranges in the tank right now. I want to just stuff the thing full, but I'm going to restrain myself and let the tank continue to settle and mature for a bit, see how the lights work out for the LPS in there now. I'd love thoughts on my progress/process so far. Thanks for reading, I'll update as things progress/change.
