New to saltwater tank, starting with Fluval Evo 13.5. Thoughts on this setup?

[islandstonashville]

I’m new to saltwater tank, I’ll be starting with Fluval Evo 13.5 running on these upgrades. Thoughts? What else do I need?
Lights - AI Prime 16HD
Pump - Sicce 1.0 Pump
Wavemaker - Hygger Mini 1600gph
Heater - Hygger 100w Titanium Heater
inTank media baskets
VCA Random flow generator.
ATO?

Thoughts? Recommendations? What else do I need? Thanks

 

[dhanking]

For the ATO of a small tank like that I reccomend the auto aqua smart ATO

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Nanos aren't too complicated and a real joy!
Not too much equipment required...

 

[tydeck]

What you listed are all great upgrades. Run it with the intank baskets and the RFG for awhile. Let the tank mature for a few months.
Then the AI Prime.

Of course. I upgraded the baskets, lights, pumps already. The bug has bitten me again. Lol

I love my hygger 1600gph wave maker. Well worth the $70.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Considered adding live rock??

 

[doubleshot00]

If you haven’t bought the baskets yet check out your options on Etsy or Ebay. Im sure intank are nice but so many other options to choose from.

I have a green killing machine in chamber one spilling over to chamber 2 where i have marine pure balls. I jam filter floss in the top of both chambers to catch stuff.

Also got a DD Jumpguard as a top.

I run the stock pump as I don’t see a reason to upgrade until it dies. The Jabao slw5 does a great job pushing water around.

This is in my wife office. Her tank but you know its mine

 

[rmorris_14]

That’s a lot of flow with those upgrades.. what is your plan for coral? If it is softies or LPS I feel like the upgraded pump and that wavemaker will be a bit much.

 

[Buckster]

I have a 32 biocube that was to be a qt. I didn't even care about it and the tank is thriving. The 180 that I've spent more time on hasn't developed as quick. Patience and listen to the advice but your gut may work best.

 

[doubleshot00]

That’s a lot of flow with those upgrades.. what is your plan for coral? If it is softies or LPS I feel like the upgraded pump and that wavemaker will be a bit much.

This. For reference i have my slw5 on the minimum setting. Thats why i state the stock pump works just fine.

 

[BigDangler]

That’s a lot of flow with those upgrades.. what is your plan for coral? If it is softies or LPS I feel like the upgraded pump and that wavemaker will be a bit much.

was gonna say the same thing.. you'd have both of those pumps dialed down to the lowest settings and still have a real huge decent amount of flow... but I also have that 70$ hygger and it works great in my 24g on the second to lowest setting... any higher blows the sand all over the place and digs holes

 

[islandstonashville]

For the ATO of a small tank like that I reccomend the auto aqua smart ATO

Yeah. I was looking at quite a few of them. That’s why I asked for any recommendations.

What you listed are all great upgrades. Run it with the intank baskets and the RFG for awhile. Let the tank mature for a few months.
Then the AI Prime.

Of course. I upgraded the baskets, lights, pumps already. The bug has bitten me again. Lol

I love my hygger 1600gph wave maker. Well worth the $70.

That’s what I’m planning to do. I’ll upgrade to AI Prime as soon as the tank is mature enough. I have read that the stock lighting is good until I’m ready to place corals.

 

[islandstonashville]

If you haven’t bought the baskets yet check out your options on Etsy or Ebay. Im sure intank are nice but so many other options to choose from.

I have a green killing machine in chamber one spilling over to chamber 2 where i have marine pure balls. I jam filter floss in the top of both chambers to catch stuff.

Also got a DD Jumpguard as a top.

I run the stock pump as I don’t see a reason to upgrade until it dies. The Jabao slw5 does a great job pushing water around.

This is in my wife office. Her tank but you know its mine

Looks nice bro. I have found a used chamber 2 of the intank. As far as the etsy/ebay chamber goes, not sure if they’re reef safe. Thanks for the input. I’m learning a lot from this group.

 

[islandstonashville]

That’s a lot of flow with those upgrades.. what is your plan for coral? If it is softies or LPS I feel like the upgraded pump and that wavemaker will be a bit much.

I’m still planning and reading on which corals to get.

 

[islandstonashville]

I have a 32 biocube that was to be a qt. I didn't even care about it and the tank is thriving. The 180 that I've spent more time on hasn't developed as quick. Patience and listen to the advice but your gut may work best.

That’s my purpose with this tank to, build my patience. LOL but coming from a car hobby, the mod bug in me is itching.

 

[islandstonashville]

Considered adding live rock??

Absolutely.

 

[jfoahs04]

Looks nice bro. I have found a used chamber 2 of the intank. As far as the etsy/ebay chamber goes, not sure if they’re reef safe. Thanks for the input. I’m learning a lot from this group.

I'm using this one for Chamber One, it's reef safe and it works exceptionally well. I actually had an InTank basket in there before, but I didn't like it. I could never get the flow through the overflow dialed in how I like it. The guy who makes them runs an EVO and uses them in his own tanks. I personally don't use a chamber 2 basket - just a couple of pieces of rubble in there.

There were some good points about flow up above. I don't think you need both the upgrade return pump and the wavemaker unless you're planning on growing SPS. I have SPS in my EVO and I just upgraded to the SICCE 1.0 and I also have the Nero 3 running at about 50% max (just under 1300 gph at peak). It's a lot of flow. Not too much for the sticks, but if you're just doing softies and and LPS, it's definitely overkill. You could always skip the wavemaker to start. If you just end up doing an upgraded return pump, consider some random flow generators (RFG) to randomize the water movement.

 

[islandstonashville]

I love the inputs in here. So moving forward. I’ll go slow on the upgrades. While doing the cycle, I’ll just start with the media baskets, sicce pump and RFG. Then once I added the corals, I’ll go add the AI prime and wavemaker.

As for the heater, what did you go with? Should I still get an inkbird?

 

[jfoahs04]

I love the inputs in here. So moving forward. I’ll go slow on the upgrades. While doing the cycle, I’ll just start with the media baskets, sicce pump and RFG. Then once I added the corals, I’ll go add the AI prime and wavemaker.

As for the heater, what did you go with? Should I still get an inkbird?

So here’s my probably unpopular take on heaters. I don’t think you need an Inkbird on this tank. Don’t get me wrong, I love Inkbird and I’ve used Inkbird in larger tanks. But on my EVO with its tiny rear chambers and all sorts of stuff in them, I instead use two cheap, small 25 watt heaters. My reasoning is that it’s too easy for one or both probes to be inadvertently knocked out or slip above the waterline and cause a misread.

The 25 watt heaters are strong enough together to maintain 78 degrees. If one fails on, it’s not strong enough to cause the temp to rise too quickly. If it fails off, the second heater will keep the temp from dropping too quickly. So there’s a margin for error on either end.

You could use the inkbird with dual heaters for redundancy, but I don’t. And again, I think my opinion is probably an unpopular one, so take it with a grain of salt. But that’s what I do.

 

[rmorris_14]

So here’s my probably unpopular take on heaters. I don’t think you need an Inkbird on this tank. Don’t get me wrong, I love Inkbird and I’ve used Inkbird in larger tanks. But on my EVO with its tiny rear chambers and all sorts of stuff in them, I instead use two cheap, small 25 watt heaters. My reasoning is that it’s too easy for one or both probes to be inadvertently knocked out or slip above the waterline and cause a misread.

The 25 watt heaters are strong enough together to maintain 78 degrees. If one fails on, it’s not strong enough to cause the temp to rise too quickly. If it fails off, the second heater will keep the temp from dropping too quickly. So there’s a margin for error on either end.

You could use the inkbird with dual heaters for redundancy, but I don’t. And again, I think my opinion is probably an unpopular one, so take it with a grain of salt. But that’s what I do.

I don't use an inkbird on my Evo either. Although I use a 50 Watt Eheim heater. So if mine malfunctioned, it could probably cause some issues. I just hope that doesn't happen and will deal with it if it does.

However, I don't have a lot of expensive livestock or coral in that tank. I use a inkbird on my biocube though.

I like your suggestion of using 2 smaller ones if you aren't going to use the inkbird. If you are going to use one properly sized and have livestock that be hurt the wallet, if the worst happened. I would recommend getting something as a fail safe......

 

[islandstonashville]

Lil Update.

So finally got most of my stuff. Sucks Amazon stole/mishandled my cabinet for this tank. Started planning on how my rock goes. Got 2 box of Caribsea LifeRock 10lbs.

Still waiting on my heater and pump. I went ahead with Cobalt Neotherm Pro 75w heater and Sicce 1.0 pump. Can’t wait to start cycling the tank this weekend.