Bloo's 13.5 Nano Reef

[Blooish]

Hello everyone!

My name is Angel and I started my first saltwater tank about 12 years ago. 6 or so years ago I completely dropped out of the hobby after a tank crash due to a heater breaking and I just never started my tank back up after giving everything that was still alive away.

Fast forward to 6 weeks ago I took my girlfriend into a LFS and to my surprise she wanted to buy the entire store. I had always planned to get into the hobby again but didn't expect the support or drive from her to do so. To be fair she is the most supportive person I have ever been with and always pushes me to do the things I love so I guess I should have expected it.

6 weeks later (Today) he have the start of a little mixed reef and I figured I would bring anyone who is interested along for the journey.

●Current tank specs:
●Fluval 13.5 Evo Reef
●Sicce syncra 1.0 return pump
●Jebao SW-2 (soon to be upgraded to something I can get some longevity out of)
●Eheim Jager TruTemp 100w (Also soon to be upgraded for better control)
●AI Prime 16HD Reef
●Reef Breeders Prism ATO
●MarinePure Media Gems
● Marco Rock
●Aragalive sand

Livestock:
●2 clowns
●Royal Gramma
● Few random snails and hermits

I plan to keep filtration super simple filter floss for now and carbon once I have enough corals to warrant broadcast feeding the tank. Will also be doing 5 gallon water change once a week.

The attached photos are over the last month day 1 through today. Tank has had water in it for roughly 30 days.

Day 1

Day 10. Cycle complete, clowns added and rescued a Duncan from a tank with no lights.

Day 15 my girlfriend and her daughter brought home a frospawn, entrusting Monti, some tiny Zoas and a riccordia Florida.

Day 25 Royal Gramma came home and so did the start of our euphyllia garden. Gold branching hammer and a couple wall hammers.



Will do my best to post weekly updates and as livestock is added.

 

[Peace River]

#WelcometoR2R and congratulations on the new adventure!!!

 

[Reef'n'Queef]

Nice! I also have the fluval 13.5 for about 6 months now the stock light is junk I switched to the 15"fluval sea Bluetooth just for the consistency with light schedule here's what we have so far.

 

[MNFish]

I love watching Evo's come together, so I can steal ideas for mine.
Looks like a great start!

 

[Blooish]

#WelcometoR2R and congratulations on the new adventure!!!

Thank you for the warm welcome!!

 

[Blooish]

Nice! I also have the fluval 13.5 for about 6 months now the stock light is junk I switched to the 15"fluval sea Bluetooth just for the consistency with light schedule here's what we have so far.

Love the rock work and I couldn't agree with you more on the stock light. I had the upgraded light ordered before water even touched the tank haha.

 

[Blooish]

I love watching Evo's come together, so I can steal ideas for mine.
Looks like a great start!

Thank you. I didn't realize how much I missed the hobby and the Evo is such a fun start back into it. I plan to buy a bunch of Marco Rock and smash it all up to really go crazy with the rock work once it's a few months old and im running out of room.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Congrats! Great looking evo! I have the tank and love it!

 

[Blooish]

Congrats! Great looking evo! I have the tank and love it!

Thank you! Post a picture, I'd love to see yours!

 

[Sharkbait19]

Thank you! Post a picture, I'd love to see yours!

Recent pic from a few weeks ago:

 

[Blooish]

Recent pic from a few weeks ago:

Beautiful. I love the pastels of the softie tank!

 

[Reef'n'Queef]

Love the rock work and I couldn't agree with you more on the stock light. I had the upgraded light ordered before water even touched the tank haha.

Thank you! Yours looks great! Keep it up ! Can't wait to see the progress!!!!

 

[Blooish]

Sad day today and a rookie mistake I knew I shouldn't have made. I always quarantine fish having worked in a shop for a couple years and decided to not since I was setting up such a small tank and it was only a few fish... excuses I will never use again. It wasn't a cost thing but an excited thing and by doing so we lost 2 fish this morning to velvet. Seems the royal gramma came in with it. He and one of the clowns did not make it. The second clown has it but is a lone ranger. Will be setting up a hospital/qt tank tomorrow. Sad update but a great learning experience for me and my girl.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Sad day today and a rookie mistake I knew I shouldn't have made. I always quarantine fish having worked in a shop for a couple years and decided to not since I was setting up such a small tank and it was only a few fish... excuses I will never use again. It wasn't a cost thing but an excited thing and by doing so we lost 2 fish this morning to velvet. Seems the royal gramma came in with it. He and one of the clowns did not make it. The second clown has it but is a lone ranger. Will be setting up a hospital/qt tank tomorrow. Sad update but a great learning experience for me and my girl.

Sorry to hear.
Learned that one the hard way too, but as you mentioned, the best learning experiences come from mistakes.

 

[Blooish]

Sorry to hear.
Learned that one the hard way too, but as you mentioned, the best learning experiences come from mistakes.

Thank you. Its especially rough when I know better and the kids come home to missing fish. Moving forward It will not be a mistake made again.

 

[Blooish]

New addition of some Blaso Welsi. Probably about 40 heads in total at a steal of a price.

 

[Blooish]

Just a small update. QT tank will be coming soon as we have lost all our fish to ich/velvet. So no fish for a couple months in the display but the corals are doing fantastic. Finally dialed in some decent mag and alk parameters and started doing much smaller water changes. Nothing seemed to care about where my levels were but that purple wall hammer was just not happy. He still is not 100% extended however looks so much better with smaller water changes. Also have removed all filtration outside of some filter floss for bigger particles.

On a side note had a huge bloom of pods to the point my water was almost cloudy from how many were swimming around. The happy phases of a new tank!!

Anyways here's a full tank shot and a blasto shot. The colony opened up to the size of a softball.

 

[Blooish]

Added a small torch, Duncan, some shooms and Zoas.

 

[Blooish]

New toy

 

[Blooish]

Newest update! Added some more rock and Corals. Moved some stuff around and really happy with how it's coming together.