First reef tank!

Tme12 · Jun 23, 2020

Hello everyone! I finally decided to post a thread about my nano tank. I'm new to reefing, but have been keeping freshwater systems for over 20 years. As you know, the pandemic has led to many people quarantining themselves at home (including myself) and with that extra time I decided I'd finally play my hand at starting a reef tank. I purchased a Fluval Evo 13.5 gallon and intended to spend no more than $500 on this build; but boy did I blow that budget out of the water.

Equipment:

Fluval Evo 13.5g tank w/ stock pump
AI Prime 16HD
XP Aqua Duetto ATO
Aqamai KPS
Cobalt neotherm 50w
AquaFX Barracuda 4 stage RO/DI
No lid as of yet (I'm too lazy to build it)
inTank media basket with filter floss, marinepure spheres, and chemipure elite (I have GFO, purigen, and other chemical media I plan to use if my phosphates and nitrates get out of hand)
12lbs dry rock (a bit much)

I set up the tank and cycled for 3 weeks in early April using Dr Tim's Ammonium Chloride and Instant Ocean's Biospira. First day I added approximately 2ppm worth of ammonia and it hit 0 within the next day; never had a nitrite reading. I felt comfortable adding livestock in after I saw that my ammonia and nitrite were both reading 0 and I got a reading of 20ppm nitrate. Did a 50% WC and got 2 clowns and then a week later got a pack of zoas from WWC. Everything was doing fine after 2 weeks; no ammonia/nitrite spike, no signs of stress, and all the zoas were open, so I decided to get another zoa pack from WWC. This is when I realized that I might be hooked on zoas

. I added a CUC and cleaner shrimp a few days later, and after another few days got more zoas. Fast forward a few more weeks to the present nd I now have 4 acans, and 24 zoas with plans to buy a bigger tank in the not too distant future

. Hope to get some pictures in soon, but as of now everything is on a frag rack til they get a little bigger and I can decide where to place them.

Params:
Tested with API
Ammonia/Nitrite: 0
Phophate: >0.1

Tested with Salifert
Ca: 425
Mg: 1320
Alk: 9

Currently battling some GHA on the plugs using vibrant, cleaning, and weekly 50% WC.

Tme12 · Jun 23, 2020

Here's a couple pics; first is of rock scape before livestock.

BighohoReef · Jun 23, 2020

You're hooked! You're off to a great start... Just remember to take it slow and research, research, research. I started with that evo 13.5 and loved it. Learned a lot of hard lessons with the small water column, just remember the littlest of changes can have an impact that space. I'd also slow down on the 50% weekly water changes 20% is probably good enough, you might take out too much of the good bacteria.

Also do you do coral dips? with Coral RX, it'll save you from some pests? I normally do the dip and take a toothbrush to the frag plugs to remove as much of the extras as possible. Zoas can hide pests in big colonies though I don't think you have much to worry about with your current frags.

Welcome to the hobby! Look forward to seeing where your adventure takes you!

Tme12 · Jun 23, 2020

BighohoReef said:
You're hooked! You're off to a great start... Just remember to take it slow and research, research, research. I started with that evo 13.5 and loved it. Learned a lot of hard lessons with the small water column, just remember the littlest of changes can have an impact that space. I'd also slow down on the 50% weekly water changes 20% is probably good enough, you might take out too much of the good bacteria.

Also do you do coral dips? with Coral RX, it'll save you from some pests? I normally do the dip and take a toothbrush to the frag plugs to remove as much of the extras as possible. Zoas can hide pests in big colonies though I don't think you have much to worry about with your current frags.

Welcome to the hobby! Look forward to seeing where your adventure takes you!

Thank you for the advice! Yes I did dip; originally with seachem's iodine based dip and then recently got myself Coral RX. I researched for months on end before trying to dive into reefkeeping because it seemed a lot more difficult than maintaining freshwater systems. I usually scrape the surface of the plugs, but that's algae for you; it always finds a way

.

Tme12 · Jun 25, 2020

Here's an updated picture of the tank.

Tme12 · Jun 25, 2020

lights are currently running wwc lighting spectrum/schedule for hydra 26s for their 100 gallon tank. I saw BRS did a video on the ideal lighting settings for the prime 16HD, but this one is close enough to that and looks better to the eye.

WIReefer · Jun 25, 2020

Looking great and welcome! Made me think of myself with the budget when I started! Ha

muzikalmatt · Jun 25, 2020

Nice! Looks like you have some beautiful corals already and the makings of a great zoa garden.

Careful with the vibrant and 50% water changes though. You don't want to bottom out your nutrients (0 nitrates 0 phosphates) as that can lead to dinos which is way worse than GHA.

Tme12 · Jul 14, 2020

Update on algae:

So the past few weeks I've had an algae bloom: GHA all over the glass, false wall, frag rack, and frag plugs, but surprisingly none of the rocks. I've added 5 trochus snails to help combat some of the other forms of algae and noticed that I had what appeared to be bubble algae on some of the frag plugs. I took out the frag plugs that had the bubble algae from the tank and carefully used a syringe to scrape them off so as not to pop them. I then scrubbed the surfaces of the plugs with hydrogen peroxide and rinsed them with tap water and have not seen the bubble algae return in the 3 weeks since. For the GHA I moved some of my hermits onto the frag rack to help since it was at the point that it looked like a little grassy field. After about a week of constantly chasing the hermits with my tongs, placing them on the rack and having them eat the GHA coupled with using tweezers to manually remove it and cutting back on feedings; the GHA seems to have slowed down growing on the rack and plugs, but still growing on the false wall, wave pump, and back glass. All the while I've been using vibrant for the past 5 weeks in conjunction with all the other methods, however I'm not sure if it's really working as of yet; hopefully after a few more weeks of dosing it'll start to affect the GHA on the glass and false wall. I'm happy to say I've noticed some specs of pink and purple on my frag rack and wave pump and all my zoas are popping out new polyps, some 4-5 since my last post. Even the higher end ones that I thought would take forever have popped out new ones. Water parameters stable; nitrate lowering to around 5ppm and phosphate still ~0.05. All in all I'm feeling rather excited seeing all the progress thus far in this little tank

.

Tme12 · Jul 14, 2020

I'd also like to mention that I've done freshwater dips after I used hydrogen peroxide to scrub down the frag plugs on all my zoas with no issues whatsoever. I usually dip them for around 5 minutes with freshwater (straight out of the tap) that's close to tank temperature and have had no issues. They usually open up within a few minutes after the dip. I only do this for my zoas and haven't tried this with my acans or cristata torch as I'm sure they wouldn't be as forgiving. Just something I thought was interesting.

Tme12 · Jul 14, 2020

Here are a couple pictures of the rack from a few days ago; with some reduction in GHA, but still a good amount. About 95% has been removed, but I haven't gotten around to taking an updated picture as of yet.