Elise_
Well-Known Member
I am a little late to start my build thread for this tank, but would love to share my tank as I go through the trials and tribulations of learning with my first reef tank.
On April 12th I purchased my Fluval 13.5 in the Petco tank sale and started my reef journey!
Tank was set up with just stock equipment and light.
Caribsea fine sand
Live rock from a LFS
A couple of weeks later I added my first tank inhabitants.
2 x Clowns
3 x assorted zoa's from the LFS
March 8th: Starting to see some algae building up on the sand. Added another 2 corals:
Florida Riccordia
Purple Frogspawn
June 1: Frogspawn not doing well. Green algae improving with continued brown algae on the sanded.
June 3: I made my first upgrade decision for the tank and purchased the Fluval Marine 3.0 light to allow me to keep the tank lid (also have limited overhead space where the tank is positioned on my kitchen counter.
Also picked up the Sine SOW-3 wave pump. Much too powerful but seems to be working ok on the lowest setting.
Frogspawn still looking a bit sad - Was not testing for all parameters and think I may have not been adequately supplementing for this.
Also picked up an awesome Orange Yuma.
Sorry for the long break between updates - I tried to learn from some of my early mistakes and just try and leave things alone to mature and settle.
October 11: Magnesium tested low at 1200, slowly starting to increase.
Added Chemipure blue
Additions to the tank:
Green Frammer? - sold as hammer but seems more like a frogspawn.
Superman Rhodactis
Bizzaro cyphastrea
GSP
My orange yuma decided to detach from its frag plug where it was and float over to the main rock work **eek** however it seems happy in its new position, maybe the flow at the end of the tank was too high.
October 22: Replaced the sponge filter with the Intank 1st chamber. Filled with the original ceramic media + added Marine Pure Gems. Same chemipure bag and added filter floss at the top of the chamber. Heater moved into chamber 2.
New purchases yet to install (just arrived in the mail!)
1/2 inch random flow generator - have to just work out how to get this one off, might have done it up too tight!
Vivosun 210GPH pump. Concerned this may be too much with the wavemaker/powerhead in this small tank but wanted to increase the filtration. Thinking I might need to downgrade the wave maker to something smaller or just see if the tank is ok with the pump alone.
Other exciting updates!!
I am picking up some more live rock and some coral frags from Cali Kid Corals tomorrow and then have a small haul of frags coming from Living Reef Orlando on Tuesday.
Definitely went overboard with the coral sales so hope I have my tank in a position to handle keeping as many as I can alive!
Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I very much appreciate any tips or advise you have. I have been keeping freshwater tanks for many years from Betta's to a Discus tank and many mixed and planted tropical tanks. I have always been in awe of marine tanks and I am so excited to finally get to experience how awesome this hobby is!
On April 12th I purchased my Fluval 13.5 in the Petco tank sale and started my reef journey!
Tank was set up with just stock equipment and light.
Caribsea fine sand
Live rock from a LFS
A couple of weeks later I added my first tank inhabitants.
2 x Clowns
3 x assorted zoa's from the LFS
March 8th: Starting to see some algae building up on the sand. Added another 2 corals:
Florida Riccordia
Purple Frogspawn
June 1: Frogspawn not doing well. Green algae improving with continued brown algae on the sanded.
June 3: I made my first upgrade decision for the tank and purchased the Fluval Marine 3.0 light to allow me to keep the tank lid (also have limited overhead space where the tank is positioned on my kitchen counter.
Also picked up the Sine SOW-3 wave pump. Much too powerful but seems to be working ok on the lowest setting.
Frogspawn still looking a bit sad - Was not testing for all parameters and think I may have not been adequately supplementing for this.
Also picked up an awesome Orange Yuma.
Sorry for the long break between updates - I tried to learn from some of my early mistakes and just try and leave things alone to mature and settle.
October 11: Magnesium tested low at 1200, slowly starting to increase.
Added Chemipure blue
Additions to the tank:
Green Frammer? - sold as hammer but seems more like a frogspawn.
Superman Rhodactis
Bizzaro cyphastrea
GSP
My orange yuma decided to detach from its frag plug where it was and float over to the main rock work **eek** however it seems happy in its new position, maybe the flow at the end of the tank was too high.
October 22: Replaced the sponge filter with the Intank 1st chamber. Filled with the original ceramic media + added Marine Pure Gems. Same chemipure bag and added filter floss at the top of the chamber. Heater moved into chamber 2.
New purchases yet to install (just arrived in the mail!)
1/2 inch random flow generator - have to just work out how to get this one off, might have done it up too tight!
Vivosun 210GPH pump. Concerned this may be too much with the wavemaker/powerhead in this small tank but wanted to increase the filtration. Thinking I might need to downgrade the wave maker to something smaller or just see if the tank is ok with the pump alone.
Other exciting updates!!
I am picking up some more live rock and some coral frags from Cali Kid Corals tomorrow and then have a small haul of frags coming from Living Reef Orlando on Tuesday.
Definitely went overboard with the coral sales so hope I have my tank in a position to handle keeping as many as I can alive!
Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I very much appreciate any tips or advise you have. I have been keeping freshwater tanks for many years from Betta's to a Discus tank and many mixed and planted tropical tanks. I have always been in awe of marine tanks and I am so excited to finally get to experience how awesome this hobby is!
