reef-rc Fluval Evo 13G

[reef-rc]

Hi. This is Reef-RC. My 1st Reef2Reef tank thread!

I am slowly dipping myself back into reefing after 10 years or so away from the hobby. This nano was started, inspired and pushed by my oldest girl insisting I restart my 210G tank build. The 210G RR tank has been sitting dry for the past 10 years with all equipments ready (more about this on a separate thread).

As a preteen, my oldest girl has a growing interest in marine biology. So I decided to “help” her with the interest and at the same time give me an excuse to slowly dip myself back into this great interest I always had. Plus it's also a stall tactic as I know the 210G tank will take much longer to restart. Honestly I think I just needed an excuse .

So here are the specs:

• Tank - Fluval Evo 13G (AIO)
• Sand - CARIBSEA ARAG-ALIVE Fiji Pink Sand - 16 lbs. live sand used
• Rocks - Dry reef rocks from 10 yrs. back
• Protein skimmer - Fluval Sea Mini PS2
• Filtration - Fluval Evo foam block, BIOMAX, carbon (this is for right now)
• Heater - Fluval M50 heater (50w)
• Lighting – Fluval LED (came with tank)
• Circulation - IM SpinStream for return nozzle instead of the standard loc-line return nozzle
• Circulation - Tunze Turbelle Nanostream 6040 for circulation

Tank visual:

Other equipment:

• Controller - Neptune APEX Jr for monitoring
• Neptune low-profile Leak Detector
• Neptune PH probe
• Nano glass scrubber/scrapper
• BRS refractometer (salinity test)
• Test Kits - Salifert (Ammonia, PH, Nitrate, Nitrite)
• Cobalt MJ-1200 pump for mixing salt
• Marine Pure Biofilter Media for extra bacteria growth
• Red Sea Reef Mature Pro Kit for tank cycling cycle
• Milwaukee PH solutions (4.01, 7.01, 10.01) for PH calibration
• Finnex External Refugium HOB - Fuge Ray LED (on order for refugium later)
• JBJ ATO controller for water refill
• ATO water reservoir – tbd
• Salt - Red Sea Coral Pro - 10+ yrs old salt just opened up and used

Here's a shot of most of the equipment:

Location / Furniture:

• In the study
• Sitting on a mobile draw cabinet
• Tank sitting on top of Innovative Marine DIY AUQA Gadget Self-Leveling Aquarium Mat

Visual in the study:

 

[reef-rc]

Day 1 :

Prior to today, I had some 10 yrs. old dry reef rocks cycling for about 3 weeks to help rinse out any materials which had accumulated over the years while sitting out dry. I had it rinsed 1 week in fresh water; another 2 weeks in saltwater. I then used the rocks to aquascape the tank at the same time I put in the live sand yesterday.

Not much to show beyond the typical cloudy water. I plan to start using the Red Sea cycling kit once water clears up.

 

[reef-rc]

Day 3:

Water looks to be clearing up very nicely. I did had to do a small water change to remove some of the accumulated debris within the sump.

I did installed the Tunze nanostream pump and have set it up on pulse mode in least minimum settings to help with circulation.

Here are a few updated pics of: tank, spinstream and tunze nanostream 6040 pump.

 

[reef-rc]

View from top

 

[Sm51498]

You're gonna like that tunze. Great pump.

 

[reef-rc]

You're gonna like that tunze. Great pump.

Liking it already. Does help with the circulation without having too much of a foot print. I definitely like the controlability of the pump. @ the lowest settings, is just about the flow volume for now , for this size tank without pushing the sandbed around.

 

[reef-rc]

Just got this in today for use with PH monitoring. I also plan to use this for ATO later once I have that setup.

 

[reef-rc]

Well I could not wait to installed the Neptune PM1 pH monitor since it was waiting for the probe holder.

Being a new tank and empty of corals and fish and just days into the cycling process...i am not concern with pH but it does give me something to watch [emoji33].

I hooked it up to PM1 and had it calibrated with both low and high solutions below. While reading, I noticed the manual did say using pH calibration solutions in packets is best as solutions bottles tend to shift pH after bottle is opened. [emoji848]

 

[reef-rc]

Day 6:

Six days into cycling and it's starting to build algae. I have also add a few things

1). It's day 6 of using red sea reef mature pro kit. Seems so far so good. here's a visual

2). For a little peace of mind, I installed Neptune leak detection (ALD). Installed 2 units; one on the back of the tank and another in back on the floor. With notifications and alerts this will help reduce water leakage early.

Unit#1

Unit#2

In the interim i plan to setup a quarantine tank that's actually larger than the nano in the garage using. Will share progress of that shortly.

 

[reef-rc]

Day 10:

Thought I share a number of updates from the previous week.

Reef Mature Pro Kit + Cleaning Crew: According to the instructions it should be safe to add "cleaning crew". Since it's a relative 13.5G tank, I added a small crew based on BSR suggestions of 1 to 10 ratio. I decided not to go with hermit crab just because there currently isn't any shell in the tank yet and so will add 1-2 later if snail leaves it shell .

• 2 margarita snails
• 1 peppermint shrimp (sm)
• 1 emerald crab (sm)

Quarantine tank: This is currently running in the garage using the leftover live sand from the nano and old dry reef rocks. Not sure what I'll do from there for now given summer temperatures in houston is hot and humid.

Refugium: The Finnex external HOB refugium arrived yesterday and I have it setup and running with just water for now. The intent is for algae growth and control later on. I plan to add some Marine Pure Biofilter Media inside the refugium for extra bacteria growth. It's currently hanging from the back. Here are few pics.

In-Progress Items:

• ATO
  • Neptune Systems Apex PMUPT Standalone pump (on order)
    
  • Innovative Marine Hydrofill Ti Titanium ATO Acrylic Return Bracket for hanging on tank (on order)
    
  • Looking to leverage JBJ ATO controller. I am still on fence if this or IM HydroFill Ti ATO controller is better in the limited space on this tank. Will likely decide once I get the JBJ up and running.
• Better LED Lighting - Kessil Tuna Blue A80 (on order)
  • Question: Anyone using the Kessil A80 with Apex Jr? Like to know if Apex Jr + VDM would give me better controllability of lightling.

Overall tank is cycling through nicely. So hard and require so much "will power" to not get some fish in there yet ...That's it for now.

 

[reef-rc]

Just realized my last post should have been labeled Day 14...not Day 10.

Day 15:

The Neptune Systems Apex PMUPT Standalone pump arrived today. The IM Hydrofill Ti Titanium ATO Acrylic Return Bracket for hanging on tank came in a day earlier. This evening I am looking to setup these along with the JBJ ATO controller for a simple setup to reduce the mundane task of refilling fresh water. Looking to use the standard 5G jug while I am waiting on the smaller water jug I have on order. In hindsight if I did not already had the JBJ ATO controller, I would have gone with another all in one ATO solution right off the bat. For now this will have to do.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Nice scape! I'll be interested in your thoughts on the pmup. I keep thinking about pulling the trigger on one of those.

 

[reef-rc]

Nice scape! I'll be interested in your thoughts on the pmup. I keep thinking about pulling the trigger on one of those.

@mdbannister - thx

As for the pmupt - it's a strong one for sure. Too much power (head pressure imo) for feeding my 13.5G tank with fresh water. For larger tank or more ideal sump, this unit seems great for that purpose. As a precaution I installed a control value as shown in the pic below to ensure fresh water was added slowly. I am glad I did as this little of a monster was ready once the ATO was triggered.

Here are some pics of my simple setup with Neptune PUMPT, JBJ ATO and IM bracket. I placed the pump in standard 5G jug for now with about 5 foot of tubing from pump to tank.

1 - Pump connected to 3/8 push fit coupling like this (this pic is 3/8 to 1/4 I believe. mine is straight 3/8).

2 - 3/8 tubing connected to 1/4" push fit control valve. Lowe's did not have 3/8 so I improvised for the time being until I can find the approriate 3/8 push fit control valve. This is then connected to the return bracket.

3 - Overview shot of the return bracket and the JBJ float switch inside the tight return space with return pump at the bottom + heater.

Thoughts:
I will be pursuing a smaller alternative ATO solution in the coming weeks for sure. This setup works...it's just too big and too powerful for this size tank imo. I have decided to go with Smart ATO micro but have yet to pull the trigger waiting to see how this pan out next few days.

The IM bracket is meant for a bigger tank as you can see I had to improvise to clamp the unit on to the thin wall of the side. Even so I will likely leverage it for the next iteration of the ATO.

The PUMPT does what is designed. Since I only had the Apex Jr for now I had to get one with the power supply. This pump is strong and is better suited for long run water line to sump or tank. For this size tank and distance, it's more power than I need and without the ability to control the speed, it's not ideal for my needs. However I have other needs so looking I plan to use it either on quarantine tank or my 210 when I get around to that.

At least for now, I have a method to refill tank with fresh water .

 

[reef-rc]

Tomorrow I will be seeding the refugium and tank with live copepods from Algaebarn. I figured since I started with dry rock and just live sand, these extra live crew will help. Ten years this was not an option and only recently I noticed it while researching. Given I do not plan to add any other micro-organisim to the tank beyond corals, I would think this will help diversify the tank somewhat.

Will also seed the refugium with three different macroalgae (chaeto, pom pom gracilaria and caulerpa prolifera). The objective is the have these little copepods living within the macroalgae.

Here's a pic of a small bag of a caulerpa prolifera I got yesterday from LFS. There are three chambers in the small refugium. I plan to put one macroalgae in each camber with Marine Pure Biofilter Media to house these critters and bacteria.

 

[Sandroni]

Your tank setup is really cool.

 

[NanoReef66]

I like the aquascape, looks great!

 

[reef-rc]

Your tank setup is really cool.

Appreciate it. My first small tank and seem to just required as much time as a 60G tank [emoji6]

 

[reef-rc]

I like the aquascape, looks great!

Thank you. Given the limited space hopefully this will give fish sufficient space for "privacy"[emoji6] and ample room for swim.. plus space for coral placement and growth.

 

[reef-rc]

Guess what these two little guys are? i am excited to have these two in the tank. Although not yet bonded, they're close and paired up very well at the LFS and here in the tank. Very optimistic in time they will pair up very easy as they're had already been bonding for about a month @ the LFS. One is slightly bigger than the other; this will help when they mature as who becomes the female.

 

[reef-rc]

I received the live copepods, phytoplankton, chaeto and pom pom gracilaria in today. The objective here to increase the biodiversity. There are definitely a number of small little critters inside the bag (hopefully it comes out to 5280 ...but who can really count that small of a population ).

Anyway...here are the shots before introducing these to the tank.

To introduce them, I accumulated the pods for about 15 min., introduce them into the small refugium first then the remaining half of the bottle into the tank. In all I had the tank stop running for about 1 hour in a chance to increase these little critters survival rates.

Open box view:

Core content packaged all up:

Core content all unpacked:

and look...Algaebarn even gave me my very own Swedish Fish for my tank. However instinct tells me not to introduce this "little red" monster into the tank