My Fluval 13.5

[Cougarr]

Hello! I dove into this hobby last fall with a Fluval Evo 13.5 gallon AIO. Long backstory made short: When I was in college and we had a house with a basement I had many freshwater tanks going, mainly new world cichlids and almost exclusively South American fish. Moved downtown, downsized, ended up losing my favorite fish (8" Oscar we had raised from 1" fish) and lost interest.

After that it's been a world of kids, work and about 5 years in a very small house. We've recently moved into some more space so I treated myself with returning to a hobby I have always loved. There is just something about recreating and maintaining an ecosystem that really gets my brain going! Not sure why I went marine this time but I have to say I NEVER expected to like coral this much. I figured I would get some fish and live rock and maybe some coral to spice it up a bit. Fast forward a few months and all I want is to buy more coral. Reminds me a lot of gardening: there is just something about watching something grow that I find fascinating. Really developed an interest in propagation and I would love to contribute to growing/fragging coral to (ideally) reduce strain on natural stocks.

Despite being a decently experienced photographer I don't have too many pics of my tank. I need to get some filters to be able to photograph under blues. I will post what I have, probably do a few different posts to kinda show the progression. I will admit I rushed things, I cycled with biospira and was not as patient as I should have been with letting the tank mature. I haven't really been bit by it, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea or something that should be repeated. Happy to answer any questions about my experience!

Annnd just an example of what I plan to do with this tank and reef keeping in general:

• 3d printed media chamber. Currently 2/3's printed but I decided to upgrade my printer and now everything is broken =)
• Frag Tank. Likely 1-2 50 gallon low boy's
• Large living room display tank. Probably something with a 6ft dimension. Not in any rush as I want to acquire and grow some more coral.

 

[Cougarr]

So here is where it all started

Clearly it was a bit cloudy back then. You can see both clown fish and my first two corals. They don't look great back then but I'm happy to report both are in great shape now! Will post some pictures when it's chronologically relevant.

 

[Cougarr]

Next batch of purchases contain my first and only losses. Should not have purchased the montipora frags at this stage in development and the bright green/gold favia (much later than the montipora) is the only other coral I've lost. That might be a bit premature, it actually looks like it's growing a new head out of a previously dead area so that's definitely something to watch!

 

[Cougarr]

I feel it was around this time I started to get my groove a bit. I've kinda had a mindset to acquire coral opportunistically (good deal, unusual color, missing color option in my tank, things like that). This candy cane coral is beautiful under blue light, it's almost black around the outside and glowing green in the center . It's also around this time I realized I love encrusting coral. The lepto was a $10 frag from my LFS, likely due to the weird shape? Ended up epoxying it to the end of the rock and it's growing over to make it look like just an extension of the rock.

I appreciate a lot of coral but if I had to specialize in cultivating one type, it would probably be leptoseris.

 

[Cougarr]

This is a mixed bag of a live sale and a $5 frag sale from my LFS.

You can barely see in the distance an sps that appears to be a grafting experiment. Looked good when I bought it but the green part eventually failed to thrive. I believe it's a purple seriatiphora but it could be a stylophora. Also pictured are my first zoa's, some blue symposium, a scarlet favites which has actually been around since the very early going of this tank. I had originally bought the montipora, Duncan and cyphestrea from a tidal gardens live sale and added this one on after the fact. It took a little bit to get going but is now overflowing the frag plug in two spots.

These are part of the same era of coral. The blasto comes from said $5 frag sale and Kenya tree from the live sale. Also you can see my horrible epoxy job but thankfully the lepto is growing quickly and bailing me out!

 

[Cougarr]

Last update for today. Pics from today of current status and yesterday's purchases. Spent the most I have on a single frag ($25 lol) on the goniopora and I am absolutely mesmerized! I absolutely love my LFS. Combination of some legitimately beautiful coral and a great price range of frags. I'm constantly blown away when I go in there both with the quantity of coral available as well as the quality. I'm new at this so I stick to the $5 and $10 frag section but yeah, love this place.

The OG's of the tank

And some random pics from the side nearest my computer

Also FYI, very little is permanent in placement. Not the happiest with the scape and some of these will probably get moved to the frag tank once I get it up and running. What you see is a mix of "this is a reasonable light/flow location" and " it's next to things that won't kill it".

Thanks for taking the time! Excited about the future in this hobby and it's been fun to look back at where it all started.

Ps. Coraline algea when?

 

[Cougarr]

Oh, and no idea what the white flecks are on the side of the glass. Was speculated they could be snail eggs but I'm pretty sure I saw them before I had any snails. They absolutely are not spirorbid worms which seems to be the most common "white speck on glass". The cleaner shrimp peels a few off each day and they really don't look like much.