Evo 13.5 Build Journey

[Harrynice]

Build journey part 1: setup and cycling

Hi all. I just joined R2R having been lurking for a while (some really great info and advice here), and decided to post my build thread.

I got the tank in early December 2021 as a family Christmas present (read: me doing all the work, my wife and daughters enjoying looking at it), and have been able to cycle it and get it up and running with fish, inverts, soft corals and a couple of LPS with the advice and guidance of my LFS.

I have also (being an impatient and spendaholic hobbyist) been through a bit of an upgrade process, largely following information on this forum.

So, I thought I would post my journey so far both in the hope that it might be useful/interesting to people here, and also to have a document for myself.

So, I shall start by listing my starting equipment, and then do a bit of a journal of progress up to now - I hope you will enjoy!

Starting Equipment
Fluval Evo 52l/13.5gl aquarium kit
Fluval Sea PS2 Mini Protein Skimmer
EHEIM thermopreset 50 heater
Sicce Voyager Nano wavemeker
Inkbird IBS-TH1 plus aquarium thermometer
Quarried aquarium rock
Aquaforest salt
RODI water
Gravel substrate
Red Sea Marine Care Test Kit
2 small pieces of live rock from my LFS

We got the tank in the 2nd week of December, having wanted one for a little while, and decided to get it as a shared Xmas present. We were initially going to go tropical (I had a tropical tank for quite a few years when I was younger), but I had always wanted a marine tank.

I was completely unaware that nano tanks existed - what I remembered of marine aquarium keeping (from more than 30 years ago when I had a tropical tank) was hugely expensive custom tanks with sump systems, and strange old men discussing how to make chemicals for their tanks out of household products and generally pioneering the hobby.

When I discovered I could get a nano tank, I thought great! A marine tank for less money! (oh how wrong I was... ).

We had stumbled across my LFS recently and Jamie (the chap who runs the place) was incredibly helpful and informative and didn't try to push a sale on us, so we decided to get everything through him and take his advice on the build - something I have done ever since.

So, to end off this overly long first post, I shall attach a couple of pictures of the tank from early setup/cycling (a period of about 3 weeks)

 

[Harrynice]

Build journey part 2: cleanup crew

To cycle my tank I simply put in the 2 pieces of live rock I got from my LFS and dropped in 3 crushed up Hikari algae wafers.

That was it - I tested the water pretty much daily from about day 4, and by day 21 my water parameters and algae growth etc were fine for the introduction of my clean up crew (actually, without really trying, I have pretty much maintained the same parameters since then, with only a couple of changes in nitrate levels).

Over the next couple of weeks, I introduced:
2 skunk cleaner shrimp
1 strawberry conch
1 banded trochus snail
1 turbo snail
1 astraea snail
6 scarlet Hermit crabs
1 blue tuxedo sea urchin
3 nassarius snails

All of which settled in quite quickly. I continue to be amazed at the amount of character added by some of my inverts; the 2 cleaner shrimp were pretty shy at first, but soon came out of their shells (badum-tish) and add so much fun to the tank - they will jump up and start cleaning my hand whenever I put it in the tank, and it is brilliant watching them try to develop relationships with my fish! . One of them has a bit of an antagonistic streak towards my corals, and will sometimes play with them by tapping them with feet or whiskers to make them close up!

I am also weirdly fond of my sea urchin, despite the fact that it is just a spiky wandering eating ball; I love the way it picks things up from around the tank and tries to use them for camouflage. This has included substrate, snails, hermit crabs and (annoyingly) a couple of pink rhodactis it has managed to dislodge from their bases...

During this time, I had been looking through various online sources to see what was best for the tank, and acquired the following upgrades:

D-Flow Designs Chamber 2 media basket:
Wasn't a fan of the filth sponge that came with the tank, so swapped it out. Went for the D-Flow as it was a 3rd of the price of the intank version (which no one had in stock in the UK anyway). I currently have a bag full of Marine Pure Biofilter Media Gems underneath the basket, with the original fluval biofilter ceramic things and some Seachem Matrix in the lower chamber, followed by chemipure blue in the middle chamber, and finally a Juwel biocarb filter pad and some intank bonded filter floss in the top.

D-Flow Designs lid spacers: to aid air circulation

D-D H2Ocean Compact ATO:
For top-ups now that I had increased evaporation - seems to work quite well

Marine Colour ATO reservoir:
Got from Amazon, and probably not the best choice in hindsight, but with a small modification (drilling some draining holes in the lid) it does the job.

Eheim CompactOn 1000 pump:
I wanted improved (and adjustable) throughput over the stock Fluval pump that came with the kit, and this has worked out perfectly

Various aquarium tools and accessories, including:
Eheim grabbing tool (brilliant)
A cheapo water change syphon with primer pump (does the job)
Some aquarium tweezers (great)
Fluval razor magnet cleaner (pretty good)
D-D cleaning tool thing (meh - I mainly use the magnet tool)
An electronic aquarium vacuum thing (an experiment, but ultimately a total waste of time and money)
Disposable plastic syringes from 1 - 500ml (absolutely brilliantly useful)
Hanna Instruments Alkalinity and Nitrate testers - awesome; it was becoming a PITA to do the whole slew of Red Sea tests, and I am a bit sceptical about the accuracy of something that relies upon eyesight and colour matching. I plan to eventually upgrade to all-digital water testing eventually.

Attached pictures show some of the cleanup crew...

 

[Harrynice]

Build journey part 3: fishies and softies and elpee-esses

Now that my cleanup chaps were established, it was time for some fish and corals.

I want to have a happy, healthy and thriving habitat that is as nice for the inhabitants as possible whilst essentially being a prison cell, so my plan is for a maximum of 6 fish. This is on the high side for a nano, but I can pretty much guarantee that my over-enthusiastic hobbyism will see me having upgraded to a bigger tank before the end of the year...

Now, my preference for fish tends more towards character than looks, so for starters I was keen to get a Bicolour Blenny. My wife and daughters both wanted Clownfish (I mean they are beautiful, but SO mainstream - ugh!), and I also particularly liked a little Randall's Prawn Goby I saw in my LFS.

However, I actually started with corals, which I wasn't even really aware of before starting. My aquarium chap Jamie said when I started "you will start by coming in looking for fish, and end up just wanting new corals ".

"Rubbish!" I thought.

He was right.

My first two were a zoanthid and 2 little pink rhodactis sharing a base. I settled them on the substrate and then tried to go about using aquarium putty to attach them to my rocks.

This was not a success - I should have practiced a bit with the putty (and strongly advise anyone to do the same), as my initial experiments left bits of cured putty all over the place, and over judicious placement led to my snapping the zoanthid base and detaching both of the bloody rhodactis, the smallest of which got lost in the water flow and has never been seen again .

However, after thinking I had killed them all, the zoanthid bounced right back (and is now thriving and growing), and I managed to reattach the rhodactis using a little basket I made out of a plastic sauce container full of substrate (it has now been detached again by my sea urchin and is back in the basket).

I followed this up with a green star polyp, a white spot star polyp, and a pink toadstool leather (managed to attach these a bit better), along with the Randall's Prawn Goby mentioned earlier. He/she has been extremely shy since introducing, posting up in a small cave at the back of my tank, but is now starting to venture forth a bit more and has made friends with a porcelain crab I got last weekend).

Then it was time for the Bicolour Blenny (Lynyrd Blynyrd) 2 Clowns (Fred and Ginger) and a pink porcelain crab (Crabulon).

I then got a few LPS - a branching hammerhead, a pair of blue mushrooms (rhodactis maybe?) a gold tipped elegance and what I think is a micromussa (I forgot the name and keep forgetting to ask what it is). and this is where I am now!

During this time, I also got the following tank upgrades:

AI Prime 16hd light: wanted a more natural lighting set that could be programmed for maximum benefits for aquarium life and also follow a day/night cycle. I am currently experimenting with presets and using the Saxby schedule.

D-D jump guard pro: was getting sick of the tank lid, and needed to remove it for my new light and this seemed like the best option. Have since built and installed it and all is well. I have ordered a sheet of perspex which I will either use to put over the jumpguard to prevent my cats from jumping/falling into the tank (they use it like an interactive TV), or to make my own custom lid.

Aquamai KPS wavemaker: I wasn't happy with the Sicce nano just constantly blasting out at the same rate, and wanted something small and programmable so I could have different types and strengths of flow throughout the day and night. Despite some initial fiddles with the app, I have now got it up and running well using my own set.

Copepod culture kit: I know, this isn't part of the tank build, but I considered it a useful addition as it allows me to grow my own live food and opens up the possibility of getting more difficult fish down the line (like a Mandarin or Scooter Blenny). I had been occasionally adding pods from reefphyto and decided it would be better in the long run to have my own means of production .

That's pretty much it for now and brings us to the present. I shall add some pictures (apologies for poor quality) and will do another update when some more progress has been made.