David’s Evo 13.5 build

[dbrown2120]

Hey everyone, here goes!

Fluval 13.5
Siice 1.0
Fluval PS2 Skimmer
Stock light and hood.
100w heater (aqueon I think? Already had it in the FW stuff.)

Plans are to get the media basket upgrade, ATO and the random flow heads for the pump but that’s pretty much it. I’ve seen a lot of peoples threads on these, most change the hood and light it seems but those who didn’t still have nice looking tanks so for now it stays.

Tanks been going almost 3 weeks, kicked it off with some marine food and Dr.Tims.
Salinity has been stable at 1.025 after tinkering initially. Every 2-3 days it takes 1/3cup FW.
Once ammonia was consistently 0 for days I tossed a blue leg hermit in there thinking he would snack on the pellets I was ghost feeding. I also got another piece of live rock from LFS as the initial few pieces had significant die off of the bristle worms so I thought maybe my bacteria died off and i wanted to get good diversity in my tank. To my surprise this new piece of rock came with man surprises. Some kind of crab appeared in the middle of the night, I haven’t ID him yet, he is sandy colored, spoon claws, roughly the size of a nickle? He’s also beat up and missing legs. There’s also a snail that’s appeared, he has a long stalk like eye and striped shell. I’m pretty sure I spotted a pod but the video sucks and it’s hard to see. Also got lots of new worms with the new rock. This was added 3 days ago.
I think I want to do a clown and a big center piece anemone but I’m still researching and deciding

Having tons of fun, learning a lot. I’m sure I’ll get my bumps and bruises but so far fingers crossed everything has went pretty smooth. Looking forward to everyone’s advice and feedback!

my Hermit is hiding I can barely see his shell poking out, the snail is pictured with random crab

 

[SlasherZ]

Awesome stuff man! It's gonna be fun.

I've got an Evo as well and the only thing I've changed is the media basket, so far so good. I do notice some of my palys at the bottom of the tank are starting to reach, but as long as you're placing in the top 60% softies/lps should be fine with the stock light.

Crab looks like an emerald crab to me, but it's kinda hard to tell from the picture.

Snail is definitely a Bumblebee Snail... Pretty much the SW equivalent of assassin snails. So keep in mind when adding other snails he'll likely eat them.

 

[SlasherZ]

Also had some min max carpet nems in there for a while before they moved to my big tank, and they got plenty of light even at the bottom of the tank.

Something else to keep in mind, if you get your clown as a small juvenile make sure to keep an eye out because I've had small fish slip into the back section through the overflow grate and that little failsafe hole in the middle of the backplate. I remedied that by covering them with a patch of sponge.

 

[dbrown2120]

Emerald was the closest I found as well but I couldn’t really find many brownish tan ones. I’ll try and get a better picture when he ventures out again. Thanks for the heads up on the snail! I’ll have to read up on them! That’s good to hear the stock light works for you as well I really wanted to maintain the stock hood and keep that clean look. Do you have any additional flow? Not sure if I should add another power head or not. Also do you run a skimmer? This seems to be another debated topic. I’ve really not even began to research corals as I’m focusing on getting everything else right first but that’s super good info on what you’re actually growing in there I appreciate it!

 

[SlasherZ]

I honestly haven't needed any more flow than the stock return gives me, it's primarily a macro algae tank that I was prepping for seahorses. I have seen a lot of people going with the aqamai KPS though for additional flow. I'd say to play around with the return until you have no dead spots and adjust accordingly as you add nems/corals. For fish only with one nem I think the return will be plenty good enough tbh.

I do run a skimmer, the same fluval ps2 that you've got. I can't be arsed to fine tune it constantly for the changing water levels though, so I have it tuned for when the tank is filled to max and get maybe two full cups of skimmate throughout the week. Kind of works as a warning to top it off for me, if I see it's not making anything I know it needs water. it's not a bad skimmer but with a tank that small it's almost unnecessary if you're doing frequent water changes. Before I put the skimmer in I was changing the water 20% every week, now with the skimmer running I change maybe 10-15% every two weeks. I do have a lot of macro algae in there though, which I use as my main nutrient export method.

 

[dbrown2120]

That’s good news, upgrading to the 1.0 bumped me from 150ish to 240ishGPH so that makes me feel better that you have succeeded with less. I am still tinkering with flow, I have one agitating the surface but to be honest it’s only because everyone else is lol idk what it actually does. Oxygenation??

Man I LOVE the seahorse idea I was strongly considering it but thought it would be too much for my first tank. Haha that’s funny about your system with your skimmer if it works, it works! So far mines been fairly trouble free! My thought was if I keep my bio load to light/moderate levels that with the skimmer I also could get away with smaller water changes but we will see!

 

[SlasherZ]

Yep! Surface agitation is primarily for oxygenation. Can also help preventing any kind of film over top of the water; however, if you're running a skimmer that should provide plenty of oxygenation so feel free to point your returns wherever if you want more flow elsewhere!

Yeah, I've tabled the seahorse idea for now... It's a lot more than I'm able to handle for a while, in time and attention.

 

[dbrown2120]

Oh jeez how did I not think of that? The skimmer is basically a bubble machine ‍ yeah I want to move the nozzles then because I have a few dead spots where the little pellets I’ve been ghost feeding hang out. I tried to position the live rocks so I had room all around the edges to clean easily but that last piece I put in on the right is touching glass so if I can blow it away from there I’ll be good! Work is crazy so I won’t be doing much during the week but this weekend I wanna check out some new LFS maybe I’ll get a CUC to help as well.

I tried getting a better picture of the crab but he’s a hider.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Hey everyone, here goes!

Fluval 13.5
Siice 1.0
Fluval PS2 Skimmer
Stock light and hood.
100w heater (aqueon I think? Already had it in the FW stuff.)

Plans are to get the media basket upgrade, ATO and the random flow heads for the pump but that’s pretty much it. I’ve seen a lot of peoples threads on these, most change the hood and light it seems but those who didn’t still have nice looking tanks so for now it stays.

Tanks been going almost 3 weeks, kicked it off with some marine food and Dr.Tims.
Salinity has been stable at 1.025 after tinkering initially. Every 2-3 days it takes 1/3cup FW.
Once ammonia was consistently 0 for days I tossed a blue leg hermit in there thinking he would snack on the pellets I was ghost feeding. I also got another piece of live rock from LFS as the initial few pieces had significant die off of the bristle worms so I thought maybe my bacteria died off and i wanted to get good diversity in my tank. To my surprise this new piece of rock came with man surprises. Some kind of crab appeared in the middle of the night, I haven’t ID him yet, he is sandy colored, spoon claws, roughly the size of a nickle? He’s also beat up and missing legs. There’s also a snail that’s appeared, he has a long stalk like eye and striped shell. I’m pretty sure I spotted a pod but the video sucks and it’s hard to see. Also got lots of new worms with the new rock. This was added 3 days ago.
I think I want to do a clown and a big center piece anemone but I’m still researching and deciding

Having tons of fun, learning a lot. I’m sure I’ll get my bumps and bruises but so far fingers crossed everything has went pretty smooth. Looking forward to everyone’s advice and feedback!

my Hermit is hiding I can barely see his shell poking out, the snail is pictured with random crab

Nice looking aquascape!

 

[dbrown2120]

Nice looking aquascape!

Thanks! I didn’t plan far enough ahead though, I think the center rock is to close to the top for a nice nem but maybe I’m wrong? After awhile it would almost be out of the water?

 

[SlasherZ]

Yeah, 90% sure that crab is an emerald. I've got a couple that are a brownish green as well.

A cleaner shrimp would do great with the clowns and anemone as part of cuc, either a blood or Skunk Cleaner. My personal fave member of my cuc is a tiger conch, but you'll wanna wait a while till your tank is further established for them. They are great sand sifters though!

If you buy your nem small you won't have to worry about it breaking the surface of the water for quite a long time, and honestly even once it gets huge it still won't be much of an issue I don't think.

Also... Remember that you can place the anemone but that doesn't mean they'll stay there long tentacle Anemones usually do best placed in the sand bed and don't move TOO much. My min maxi carpets don't move at all. But my rose bubble tips like to walk all over there place, as do my Haitian pink tips/ condys.

 

[dbrown2120]

Yeah, 90% sure that crab is an emerald. I've got a couple that are a brownish green as well.

A cleaner shrimp would do great with the clowns and anemone as part of cuc, either a blood or Skunk Cleaner. My personal fave member of my cuc is a tiger conch, but you'll wanna wait a while till your tank is further established for them. They are great sand sifters though!

If you buy your nem small you won't have to worry about it breaking the surface of the water for quite a long time, and honestly even once it gets huge it still won't be much of an issue I don't think.

Also... Remember that you can place the anemone but that doesn't mean they'll stay there long tentacle Anemones usually do best placed in the sand bed and don't move TOO much. My min maxi carpets don't move at all. But my rose bubble tips like to walk all over there place, as do my Haitian pink tips/ condys.

Do you think the emerald is sick or not adjusting to my tank because when I discovered him he was on the top of the rock and he is surely 100% sandy tan, I’m going to test the water again in a minute

 

[dbrown2120]

Yeah, 90% sure that crab is an emerald. I've got a couple that are a brownish green as well.

A cleaner shrimp would do great with the clowns and anemone as part of cuc, either a blood or Skunk Cleaner. My personal fave member of my cuc is a tiger conch, but you'll wanna wait a while till your tank is further established for them. They are great sand sifters though!

If you buy your nem small you won't have to worry about it breaking the surface of the water for quite a long time, and honestly even once it gets huge it still won't be much of an issue I don't think.

Also... Remember that you can place the anemone but that doesn't mean they'll stay there long tentacle Anemones usually do best placed in the sand bed and don't move TOO much. My min maxi carpets don't move at all. But my rose bubble tips like to walk all over there place, as do my Haitian pink tips/ condys.

I’m going to research those shrimp too thank you!

 

[SlasherZ]

Do you think the emerald is sick or not adjusting to my tank because when I discovered him he was on the top of the rock and he is surely 100% sandy tan, I’m going to test the water again in a minute

It might be close to molting! That can make it's shell look somewhat different. They also sometimes grow algea on their shells and it can be brownish. Of course it could also not be an emerald crab!

Generally as long as the crab doesn't have pointed claws though it's okay to keep around.

 

[dbrown2120]

So I came upstairs about 20 min ago and the crab was out, got some good video. Then 15 min later he is tipped over apparently dead. I’m not sure why? This morning the tank was the most alive it’s been I had amphipods running all over, the snail and hermit were cruising around, even the worms were exploring around. I’ll test water in the morning, hoping I don’t lose anything else

 

[SlasherZ]

Sorry for your loss! Are you sure it's a dead crab and not a molt? Their shells are fairly sturdy even after shedding them and have almost fooled me a couple times.

Glad the rest of the tank is doing well though!

 

[dbrown2120]

Sorry for the lack of updates, work is crazy. I tested water after crab dying, no ammonia, 5-10 nitrate. he was pretty beat up with all the missing legs so I guess not surprising. The snail and hermit are all still just fine!

First water change was a DISASTER!!! I bought a new 2g bucket to use solely for the purpose of water changes, but I couldn’t get the salt right for some reason. I accidentally raised my tank to 1.0028. So naturally I was panicking, but I decided the only way to lower it was to add some FW. This instantly made some brown algae appear on the glass, but mostly affected the dead coral/live rock in the middle and turned the top of it brown. I was convinced I killed my tank but I got my salinity back at 1.0025 where’s it’s been and prayed lol. Everything was fine, snail and hermit didn’t seem too perturbed by it. Still lots of worms and pods. So I waited a few more days, tested water again, and this past weekend I checked out a LFS that a few members recommended and came home with 2 ocellaris clowns! They seem to be doing fine, eating and swimming normally etc. they are very small, but one is much smaller than the other, I read this would help them get along. The very small one though, had some fun damage when I got it and I can’t tell If it’s getting better or worse after 2 days. I also am unsure if I’m feeding too much, it’s such a small tank and I don’t really have an adequate CUC yet (Need suggestions) so I don’t want to cause a big swing. The small one is so small even the mini pellets are too big, so I have to kind of crush them a little, they like the frozen reef cubes as well. I’m trying to post photos but my phone is fighting me currently

 

[dbrown2120]

 

[SlasherZ]

Exciting!

Yeah, always best to double check salinity when you mix new water before you dump it in.

It's hard to tell how a fin is healing sometimes on smaller fish, but a few more days to a week should have it looking better!

As for feeding, it's easy to overfeed. I'm pretty sure we're all guilty of it every once in a while. For the frozen cubes I'd probably only feed that tank half a cube at most. If you're not already, put a bit of saltwater and the cube in a little container and microwave or just let it sit until it's thawed then use a pipette/baster to distribute the food. Makes it a lot easier to control how much goes in and you can watch and see how much is actually getting eaten.

 

[dbrown2120]

Yes it is tiny so it is difficult but it’s a happy little thing it seems. What are things to look for that would mean something is going poorly/wrong?

That’s what I couldn’t understand, I did check the salinity. The only thing I can think of is the salt hadn’t dissolved all the way? Or I made some error with the refractometer. Either way big learning moment! Latest excitement- old heater took a crap. On the way out it messed up my outlets that i just replaced ‍ GFCI going in (Should have been done first) Lots of learning

Good advice on the baster! Because they are kind of bad at finding good haha. I did only give a half cube the first time, and a quarter each time after. The box says to keep it frozen but I don’t see why because they don’t eat it until it thaws in tank anyways