First Saltwater Tank - Fluval Flex 15

[Chisavage]

Converted a Fluval Flex 15 to saltwater. Upgraded the return pump with a Sicce 1.0, kraken reef lid, and AI prime (pennywise deadlights 10HR 71%). Intank chamber shelves with filter floss and maxspect bioballs, along with an Inkbird controller with neotherm heater. Added an Tunze nano ato to maintain salinity which helped a lot. Learning a ton and having fun. Stocking is a clown pair, tailspot blenny, and neon cleaner goby. Various snails for cleanup crew. Snagged some cool zoas during the WWC & R2R auction. Here’s the tank 8 months in!

 

[MoshJosh]

Looking awesome!

 

[Nano_Man]

Very nice

 

[Chisavage]

Small update, LFS had this black widow anemone for 60 bucks so I picked it up when I was only there for reagent. Found itself a spot around 195 PAR. Shadow is from me trying to get a decent picture.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Small update, LFS had this black widow anemone for 60 bucks so I picked it up when I was only there for reagent. Found itself a spot around 195 PAR. Shadow is from me trying to get a decent picture.

Nice looking anemone!

 

[Ozz]

Converted a Fluval Flex 15 to saltwater. Upgraded the return pump with a Sicce 1.0, kraken reef lid, and AI prime (pennywise deadlights 10HR 71%). Intank chamber shelves with filter floss and maxspect bioballs, along with an Inkbird controller with neotherm heater. Added an Tunze nano ato to maintain salinity which helped a lot. Learning a ton and having fun. Stocking is a clown pair, tailspot blenny, and neon cleaner goby. Various snails for cleanup crew. Snagged some cool zoas during the WWC & R2R auction. Here’s the tank 8 months in!

hello, would you be able to post how your back filter compartments are set up? I have the same tank and have been cycling for bout 3 weeks now and want to set up the filtration

 

[Ozz]

Converted a Fluval Flex 15 to saltwater. Upgraded the return pump with a Sicce 1.0, kraken reef lid, and AI prime (pennywise deadlights 10HR 71%). Intank chamber shelves with filter floss and maxspect bioballs, along with an Inkbird controller with neotherm heater. Added an Tunze nano ato to maintain salinity which helped a lot. Learning a ton and having fun. Stocking is a clown pair, tailspot blenny, and neon cleaner goby. Various snails for cleanup crew. Snagged some cool zoas during the WWC & R2R auction. Here’s the tank 8 months in!

hello, would you be able to post how your back filter compartments are set up? I have the same tank and have been cycling for bout 3 weeks now and want to set up the filtration.

 

[Chisavage]

hello, would you be able to post how your back filter compartments are set up? I have the same tank and have been cycling for bout 3 weeks now and want to set up the filtration.

Yes of course. If you are looking at the tank from the front and going left to right the chambers are as follows: Intank chamber 1 media basket. On the first shelf I have the white and blue filter floss cut to size. Also Intank has a part that clips to the bottom water intake grates that blocks it off so all the water is forced to the top. In the other part of that basket I have biomedia (maxspect nanotech bio spheres). In the middle chamber of the tank I have the intank chamber 2 media basket. On the top shelf I have 3 nano size chemi-pure blue packets. Starting to debate if I even need them really, I change them once a month. In the rest of the basket I have Tampa Bay Saltwater live rubble rock. I ordered the 5lb Rubble Rox treasure chest. It was mostly small enough pieces to fill that middle chamber (golfball-ish sized) plus there was a decent amount of baseball sized rocks I used around my scape. I wanted the biodiversity look of different critters that will come with that rock though. It’s a gamble of good and bad. The final pump chamber I have the sicce return pump I added as an upgrade. Sorry for the rambling information and feel free to ask me anything.

 

[ihatetomatoclowns]

Yes of course. If you are looking at the tank from the front and going left to right the chambers are as follows: Intank chamber 1 media basket. On the first shelf I have the white and blue filter floss cut to size. Also Intank has a part that clips to the bottom water intake grates that blocks it off so all the water is forced to the top. In the other part of that basket I have biomedia (maxspect nanotech bio spheres). In the middle chamber of the tank I have the intank chamber 2 media basket. On the top shelf I have 3 nano size chemi-pure blue packets. Starting to debate if I even need them really, I change them once a month. In the rest of the basket I have Tampa Bay Saltwater live rubble rock. I ordered the 5lb Rubble Rox treasure chest. It was mostly small enough pieces to fill that middle chamber (golfball-ish sized) plus there was a decent amount of baseball sized rocks I used around my scape. I wanted the biodiversity look of different critters that will come with that rock though. It’s a gamble of good and bad. The final pump chamber I have the sicce return pump I added as an upgrade. Sorry for the rambling information and feel free to ask me anything.

I'm starting a fluval flex 15 in about a month, I love your tank.

 

[Chisavage]

Here is a top down view I took last night after a water change. Some decent growth for 2 months since that last picture. Having some bubble algae issues due to phosphates being high (0.26). I was doing water changes every 24 hours for a few days and now I’m at 0.15 but my nitrates tanked to 1.9 from 10 so I think I’m going to go a different route to get the phosphate down. Also switched from an auto feeder to feeding small amounts by hand to see if that is the issue. Just taking it slow, the zoas don’t seem to mind but I just added a hammer recently and I don’t want it to go downhill.

 

[Chisavage]

 

[Chisavage]

Running into a bubble algae problem but tank doin pretty good!