M-A-T-T-Y's Fluval Evo 13.5g

[M-A-T-T-Y]

08 May 2018 Update:
Tested my water, all parameters were good except Salinity was down to 1.020 which is quite bad for Coral I believe.

Decided I would try my hand at mixing my own so I purchased some Red Sea Salt and mixed it up to about 1.030 and added that when I did a water change. I will test the water again tonight to see if it has made much difference, hoping to get the water Salinity to roughly 1.025.

As it was my first time mixing myself I just purchased a small bag, however it was relatively easy and I will probably keep doing it. I will be purchasing a bucket of the Red Sea Coral Pro Salt in the coming weeks.

The Royal Dottyback has gone straight to work digging the sand out from under one of the rocks! I am currently pushing it back in every few days but I might have to start gluing my Rocks and Coral to make sure I don't have any accidents. At the moment the Rocks and Coral are just sitting/balancing on each other.

Purchased another 2 small pieces of Coral from a new LFS we found, don't really have any idea what they are.

• One appears to be Orange Plate Coral (I believe eventually this may grow too big and I will have to sell it off)
• The other looks similar style to the Green Brain Coral we have, any ideas?

Similar to the Alveopora Coral and Open Brain Coral, I intend to target feed both of these 1x per week with Hikari Corilific Delite.



Current Full Tank Shot:

 

[M-A-T-T-Y]

17 May 2018 Update:
Water parameters are much better now that I am mixing my own salt.
Salinity is higher which was my original goal (now sitting around 1.026), and an added benefit is Alkalinity and Calcium have risen to perfect levels!

Still have small Aiptasia, I have it under control but I read Peppermint Shrimp are happy to eat Aiptasia so I decided to get 1 Peppermint Shrimp to try it out.

What I apparently forgot to look up was how Royal Dottybacks feel about Shrimp... lets just say the Royal Dottyback wasn't a fan and I don't have a Shrimp anymore.

Other than that everything is going well, Coral and fish all seem pretty happy and active as far as I can tell.
However I think I have Colonial Hydroids on some of my Live Rock (pic below), research says they may have a sting to them so I should start trying to kill them off too right? Sorry for the crappy quality photo, quite difficult to get a picture of them.

 

[M-A-T-T-Y]

22 May 2018 Update:
Purchased a fantastic looking Coral over the weekend, Duncanopsammia axifuga (or simply Duncan Coral).
We love it, I have been keeping an eye out for Coral that flows in the current like the Alveopora coral and this looked great in the LFS.
It hasn't quite opened up like it had in the LFS, however it is getting a little more open each day.



We also purchased a Neon Velvet Damsel from the LFS simply because I love the color Blue and the LFS guy told me it doesn't grow too large.
Unfortunately once getting it home I noticed the Fish had quite a bit of damage to its rear, then the Royal Dottyback gave it about 2 days.

Came home today to find it was inside my Orange Plate Coral, the Coral seems to now be spitting it back out as of a few hours later but it has not come completely out yet.



I have also purchased some Selleys Aqua Knead It to plug the hole in the AIO Filtration on the back of the Fluval Evo.
I will perform this task most likely tomorrow night.

Questions

1. Should I be concerned about the Fish inside the Coral? Or just let it eventually spit it out?
2. Is there anything I can keep with the Royal Dottyback besides the 2x Clown Fish (which it appears to have no problem with)?
3. Any recommendations of Coral that are fairly easy to care for, don't grow too large, and flow nicely in the current?

Thank you!

 

[M-A-T-T-Y]

Long time no Post!

Everything was going fairly well until I went on Holidays for a few weeks.
Since then Algae and Aiptasia has run rampant in the tank and I just cannot seem to get on top of it!

Additionally, the "grass" (that's what it looks like) that is growing out of the rock I don't seem to be able to pull off, so the tank is looking pretty ugly right now.
I considered completely getting rid of all my rock and replacing it, but I believe that would cause a Cycle and kill everything.

So a bit lost looking at my ugly tank at the moment

 

[count krunk]

could you post some pics so we can see this algae?