First tank, Fluval evo 13.5

[JoJosReef]

Lots to update, but better after Christmas when I pick up my Unique Corals live sale haul.

For now, just a status update: I am treating my hammer for BJD with cipro (day 5), while also treating the tank with fluc for bryopsis (and GHA to boot), and dealing with a brown algae bloom which is hopefully just diatoms (see below) so put the green killing machine back in the DT 24/7, and working on light upgrades. Lot happening, but I can now see the bryopsis turning white and the sandbed/rocks clearing up a bit. I'm worried my hammer is too damaged to make it through even though ir definitely looks like the infection has stopped--had I only done enough reading on this before to know that BJD especially affects Euphyllia and what to look for...

I added locline and two 1/4 in RFGs to go with the new Sicce 1.0 (which is a squeeze, but put a small piece of rubber tube between the wall and pump and it's silent now). Does anyone know of these printed RFGs leak silicates into your system? B/c the brown algae came in soon after adding the RFGs.

My poor hammer

FINALLY got all of the GHA off of my GSP, and it is looking much happier now:

 

[JoJosReef]

This tank has been a real learning curve. I've had a number of disheartening setbacks, but perhaps I'm getting close to "dialing it in".

First, GHA took over rocks, sand bed, even the back wall of the AIO. So, I ripped out two of the Caribsea LifeRock top rocks and replaced them with extra rocks from my office nano's TBS shipment. I also layered on some TBS live sand. FYI, I broke off a bit of the "Life" rock and it was solid white inside--I don't think these rocks are very porous at all.

I also added a tuxedo urchin that started to mow down the GHA on one side.

But I haven't been using my bottle ATO because of the chamber levels varying so much. So covid hit, and I neglected the tank for about 2 days and there was a salinity spike and maybe nitrates too, and the tux lost it's spines and died. I felt terrible.

The torch bailed it's polyps. That's two Euphyllia down. I felt terrible.

Teal candy cane never recovered from its transit injury, tissue receded to the top of it's skeleton and I said bye to it. Felt terrible.

It takes so much time to keep up with this tank. Did a good clean and brush the other night and it took 2-3 hours. So, I am trying to think of how to make this tank easier since it is cutting into my sleep and family time. Plan/ideas:
1. Switch to easier corals, mostly softies and easy LPS
2. Bought liquid food from RUSalty that's easy to mix, spot feed and broadcast--so far everything loves it.
3. Change out the intricate locline 2x RFGs for a single 0.5" RFG (it is a PITA to clean the 2x RFGs that get covered in GHA).
4. Increase CUC (see below).

Last complaint. I picked up water from my LFS which is supposed to be 1.025-1.026 sg. I did a 20% water change without measuring the new water. Next day my tank read at 1.029-1.03sg. I started removing cups of water and replacing with distilled to being it back down slowly. I still haven't seen if there are negative effects of this swing. The LFS water was a 1.039sg. they replaced all my bought water, but I am now considering a RODI unit and bucket salt.

Now at least something a little positive.

1. GSP, scoly, blastos, acan, alveopora, purple candy cane and the mushrooms are all doing really well, despite the parameter swings. Blasto sprouted 3 heads, but they are a bit shaded, so thinking of moving it off a bit onto a small island.

2. I have what I hope is the final lighting setup for the tank with 2x 21LED ReefbarPro bars. Each one has 18x 3w LEDs, so 56w per bar with a nice spectrum. There are two channels: one with all 445nm actinic blue LEDs (18 total) that I have ramping up to 70% at 7am for half an hour, then ramping down to 5% at 6pm for half an hour; the second channel has a mix of 465nm aqua blue LEDs (6 total), 423nm UV LEDs (purple, really, 4 total) and 12K white LEDs (8 total) which I have ramping up to 20% around 10am and down to 0 around 5pm. The par on this is pretty good--each bar is around 50% more than what I was getting with the Fluval Marine 3.0 bar. Right now I think all corals are happy, and their color and growth have been improving.

3. I picked up a pulsing Xenia from Goldenstate Corals. It initially wouldn't glue down to anything and kept blowing all around the tank, so I set up an infirmary and got it to stick to a live rock rubble, and it's now doing great. It will stay on that rock island to avoid taking over.

3. I ordered a bunch of inverts from ReefCleaners that will be arriving next week. Sand bed still needs some work, so I got 4 FL ceriths and 2 Cortez ceriths, 4 nerites for the glass and back wall, 2 astreas for the rocks and a pitho crab to work on the GHA (I will not get another urchin for now).

4. Upcoming coals: I have a large haul from AquaSD to pick up (hopefully next week), mostly for my office nano, but some for the Evo, including 2 more mushrooms, a colorful acan, and a rainbow favia.

5. Water bottle ATO seems to be dialed-in now. I have to rinse out the filter floss twice a day to keep it the levels steady in the back chambers. Not too bad as long as I keep it up.

Hopefully on the upswing now! More updates to come.

 

[JoJosReef]

Been a long time, and not a lot has happened with this tank.

Coral-wise, I decided to take it easy with this tank, forego attempts at Euphyllia, and stick with the corals that were working, while focusing more time on my 10g office tank.

Pest-wise, have a nightly horror show with my eunice worms, but they seem to be scavenger types, not ambush predators. Still, they are getting bigger and they give me the willies!

GHA went away with the new Gulf rocks from TBS, but neglect let it come back and start taking over again.

Biggest news is that I moved houses and did my first tank breakdown and move. Took a whole day for a nano! Next house is going to be forever home! The saddest bit is that I accidentally left the flow off on the night I moved the tank and the fire shrimp I've had since the beginning died :-(

On the upside, when I took the rocks out, I got to see my Randall's pistol shrimp that I haven't seen since it was first introduced into the tank (although I get to hear it every night and sometimes see sand shooting out of the rocks). Pic attached for posterity.

On the next upside, I found a porcelain crab hitchhiker that's been hiding from me!

(pardon the microbrittle photobomber)

Finally, I redid the scape so it was less rockwork than before and more sandbed space for little islands and inverts:

Got a chance to give the rocks a good scrub and they are looking much better. Amazing that a few barnacles are still alive and I found a few additional bivalves. Great rocks from TBS!

Next week getting a ReefCleaners order with a Saron shrimp, pom pom crab and decorator crab to spruce up the tank after my fire shrimp loss. Hopefully see some improvement in this tank.

 

[JoJosReef]

Hello anyone following along.

I took some PAR measurements and posted them. Please see my post:

PAR readings 21LED ReefBarPros 2x "Blue Heavy" budget light over Fluval Evo 13.5g

Hi all, I am sharing my PAR readings on an Apogee par meter lent to me by a local reefer. Specs below: Tank: Fluval Evo 13.5g Lights: 2x ReefBarPro "Blue Heavy" 20" bars that are actually 18" (from 21LEDusa) Positioning of the bars: Here are pictures of the tank without PAR...

www.reef2reef.com

I am reposting below the pics and readings, but I wanted to get some advice on what to do with my light settings. A few notes on my corals below:

LPS:
Torch
Blasto wells.
Blasto merl.
Acan red
Acan green
Caulastrea trumpet
Alveopora
Fungia plate
Duncan
Scoly

Soft:
Xenia
Rhodactis red
Rhodactis green
"toxic bubbles shroom" which might just be another rhodactis
Florida ricordea
Various zoas

Nems:
Big green RFA
RFA orangish

Macro:
Brotycladia
Codium

I know LPS do best between 80-150 PAR, with the blastos/acans preferring the lower range. I don't know about scolys and fungias. And I don't know what the torches will tolerate.

Likewise, for the softies, I don't think the lower end is problematic, but I don't know what zoas and shrooms will tolerate on the upper end of PAR.

Not so worried about the macros or the RFAs. The big green RFA is always stretching way up for more light so I think it'll be fine pumping up the PAR in any case. The one on the sand bed seems perfectly happy as well.

If you have any advice, please let me know. I am thinking that the second setting of 85% Blue, 50% white/cool blue/UV-Violet might be the best range to shoot for, but there are clearly some hot spots and I'm worried about bit about the PAR in the high 100s for the shrooms/zoas. Happy to hear your experiences!


Current pics of tank without markups:

Markups:

Reading 1 (current light settings):

Reading 2 (maybe best target??)

Reading 3:

Thanks!

 

[jfoahs04]

I'm a little confused by some of your readings - are you getting higher toward the bottom than the middle in some cases? That should definitely not be the case.

Regardless, I don't see anything wrong with your second (ideal target) reading - just make sure you very slowly (like over the course of a month or a month and a half) acclimate to your desired setting (if your light has an acclimation mode, that's great).

Your torches and other euphyllia might be sensitive to the highest PAR, so that one spot where you're reading 255 is higher than I'd target for a torch. Other than that, they should be OK in most of the tank. I'd feel comfortable with anything under 150 for them, and I'd even try some around 200 if the space looked good otherwise. Zoas and mushrooms will most likely tolerate almost any light you throw at them. I have some Halle Berries in about 400 PAR right now and they grow so fast I have to trim them back every other week. Same for the rhodactis. They'll still benefit from slow acclimation, but unless you have a particularly sensitive strand of either, I can't see even 255 PAR being too much of an issue. The rest of your LPS should probably occupy the bottom third of the tank - most of them are fine with very low light.

 

[JoJosReef]

I'm a little confused by some of your readings - are you getting higher toward the bottom than the middle in some cases? That should definitely not be the case.

Regardless, I don't see anything wrong with your second (ideal target) reading - just make sure you very slowly (like over the course of a month or a month and a half) acclimate to your desired setting (if your light has an acclimation mode, that's great).

Your torches and other euphyllia might be sensitive to the highest PAR, so that one spot where you're reading 255 is higher than I'd target for a torch. Other than that, they should be OK in most of the tank. I'd feel comfortable with anything under 150 for them, and I'd even try some around 200 if the space looked good otherwise. Zoas and mushrooms will most likely tolerate almost any light you throw at them. I have some Halle Berries in about 400 PAR right now and they grow so fast I have to trim them back every other week. Same for the rhodactis. They'll still benefit from slow acclimation, but unless you have a particularly sensitive strand of either, I can't see even 255 PAR being too much of an issue. The rest of your LPS should probably occupy the bottom third of the tank - most of them are fine with very low light.

Thanks!

So the readings in the middle and high part are right at the perimeter, i.e. next to the glass. When you get to the top of the tank, I think only a little of the light spread is reaching the glass. Middle gets a bit, but only from one of the bars (front and back). Sides are a bit of a different story. The glass side seems to get better light, but the black acrylic wall gets less PAR, perhaps because of some shading from the rocks and perhaps because of less reflection from the acrylic (?).

Thanks for the info about the shrooms and zoas. I feel better about their placement all over the rocks now.

I am mostly worried about the acans and the blastos, since they are already getting a decent blast of PAR where they are located. If it gets up to 160-175, think it will be OK if acclimating slowly?

I would love to know ideal PAR for the fungia, as it has moved around a little bit closer to the center, so maybe to get more PAR.

Thanks!

 

[JoJosReef]

ReefCleaners day!

I organized a group buy with local reefers and there were 8 of us in total. Lots of CUC to sort and pass out! I've been back at it with GHA, and so I decided to go for an Indo Turbo Snail, a Chestnut Turban Snail, a tuxedo urchin and two more Trochus snails. Even if they aren't the #1 cleaners, I think I like the Trochus the most among snails (excluding conches, which are just the best ever).

Sadly, my pom pom crab is gone, nowhere to be found. And today I passed on my serpent star and my Saron shrimp to others in my group. I need to focus on nutrients, and it's tough keeping the serpent fed, and on the flipside, the Saron is difficult to feed, so I worry about misbehavior.

So today, I received a new skunk cleaner shrimp (quite a small one actually). And it already seems like a very engaging tank member. Had a spat with the chica clown, but seems to be finding its happy space. It also got a good introduction to my green RFA, which is no joke--I know what you folks say about RFA stings; my green bad boy from Cultivated Reef is in a class of its own.

And funny enough, the urchin wasn't in the tank for even a half hour before it decided that one of the new Trochus snails would do as a hat:

I'll just imagine it was lending a helping feeler to an upside-down snail. Surprisingly strong grip, by the way!

 

[JoJosReef]

I never saw the appeal to koji wada/pink nepthea. Just seemed like an expensive Kenya tree. But, I got one from a local reefer that I gave a bunch of macro to, and man, have I changed my opinion on these!

I hope it stays alive. I'm loving the look that it has under regular room lighting or when whites are higher.

 

[JoJosReef]

Happy to say that this tank has been making some progress! The battle with GHA has been horribly demotivating. This is what I've been dealing with, and ripping it out has been futile:

GHA has been completely covering the top of the rocks. I got 2 turbo snails from AquaSD along with some coral, Tux urchin from ReefCleaners and more snails in general. They don't touch it when it's growing like this. Dishonorable mention: the pencil urchin from ReefCleaners that does nothing that I can tell, other than eat the coraline paint off of the CaribSea LifeRock.

So, here is what I did:
1. Took out 3/4 of the tank water--threw away 1 gallon to be replaced with new SW, as a simultaneous water change.
2. Used paper towels on the rocks to rip out as much GHA as possible all the way down to the surface of the rock, leaving as little as possible. Went through half a roll of paper towel.
3. Using a pipette, dropped enough H2O2 on the surface of the rocks to touch all surface area of the rocks but not necessarily saturate the rocks--didn't want to kill off EVERYTHING.
4. Return water.

By lights out, the turbos and the tuxedo became super active and were crawling all over the rocks. Since then, about 2 weeks ago, the rocks have been maintained pretty clean. I am supplemental feeding the urchin and turbos with nori and algae tabs every few days.

Bit too much blue, but you can see that the GHA mats are gone.

Right, you might notice a difference in the LED fixture. That's right, the bars are gone, and now I have a Noopsyche K7 Mini. I really love it so far. If this LED hold up over time, it will become my go-to LED for any shallow reef tanks. I prefer this LED over the AI Prime 16HD, which is on my office nano.

And one pic of my most recent acquisition from AquaSD:

Oh, and there's an amazing R2R Giveaway for a Hanna Marine Monitor! I took my salinity with a cheap-o Amazon refractometer. Since reading some posts by Randy Farley Holmes, I've since been calibrating the refractometer with a NaCl solution that pegs the specific gravity to 1.026sg, instead of calibrating to RODI water. Bang on 1.026sg! Still, would be nice to have a Hanna...

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Happy to say that this tank has been making some progress! The battle with GHA has been horribly demotivating. This is what I've been dealing with, and ripping it out has been futile:

GHA has been completely covering the top of the rocks. I got 2 turbo snails from AquaSD along with some coral, Tux urchin from ReefCleaners and more snails in general. They don't touch it when it's growing like this. Dishonorable mention: the pencil urchin from ReefCleaners that does nothing that I can tell, other than eat the coraline paint off of the CaribSea LifeRock.

So, here is what I did:
1. Took out 3/4 of the tank water--threw away 1 gallon to be replaced with new SW, as a simultaneous water change.
2. Used paper towels on the rocks to rip out as much GHA as possible all the way down to the surface of the rock, leaving as little as possible. Went through half a roll of paper towel.
3. Using a pipette, dropped enough H2O2 on the surface of the rocks to touch all surface area of the rocks but not necessarily saturate the rocks--didn't want to kill off EVERYTHING.
4. Return water.

By lights out, the turbos and the tuxedo became super active and were crawling all over the rocks. Since then, about 2 weeks ago, the rocks have been maintained pretty clean. I am supplemental feeding the urchin and turbos with nori and algae tabs every few days.

Bit too much blue, but you can see that the GHA mats are gone.

Right, you might notice a difference in the LED fixture. That's right, the bars are gone, and now I have a Noopsyche K7 Mini. I really love it so far. If this LED hold up over time, it will become my go-to LED for any shallow reef tanks. I prefer this LED over the AI Prime 16HD, which is on my office nano.

And one pic of my most recent acquisition from AquaSD:

Oh, and there's an amazing R2R Giveaway for a Hanna Marine Monitor! I took my salinity with a cheap-o Amazon refractometer. Since reading some posts by Randy Farley Holmes, I've since been calibrating the refractometer with a NaCl solution that pegs the specific gravity to 1.026sg, instead of calibrating to RODI water. Bang on 1.026sg! Still, would be nice to have a Hanna...

What made you want to change light fixtures? I like the new one you have going though.

 

[JoJosReef]

What made you want to change light fixtures? I like the new one you have going though.

The last set of bars (21LEDusa ReefbarPros) had a good bit if power to them, but

(1) I was a bit worried about the blending, especially at the sides of the tank,

(2) I have an AI prime on my office tank and the corals in that tank are growing and look great while the ones under the bars just look like they are surviving and not thriving,

(3) I have been reading positive reviews about the Noopsyche LEDs, and the Noopsyche mini has been reviewed well, and

(4) I was getting tired of lifting the bars every night to pull the lid off and feed (the clowns are particular and don't like veing fed directly from the feed hole + coral/nem feeding).

All in all, very happy with the change! And the price is good.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

The last set of bars (21LEDusa ReefbarPros) had a good bit if power to them, but

(1) I was a bit worried about the blending, especially at the sides of the tank,

(2) I have an AI prime on my office tank and the corals in that tank are growing and look great while the ones under the bars just look like they are surviving and not thriving,

(3) I have been reading positive reviews about the Noopsyche LEDs, and the Noopsyche mini has been reviewed well, and

(4) I was getting tired of lifting the bars every night to pull the lid off and feed (the clowns are particular and don't like veing fed directly from the feed hole + coral/nem feeding).

All in all, very happy with the change! And the price is good.

Yeah, I could definitely see the convenience factor being a good reason to change lights, cause those lights can be a pain in the rear to move. Glad you like the new lights though!!