Riff and Raffs Fluval 13.5 build

[Salty_Northerner]

Hey everyone, this is me and my wife's build. It's the fluval 13.5 Evo. We've had it running this past January.

After some research we did some tank mods. Nothing fancy but it's all working wel.

We went from the stock tank to an expensive tank lol but you know what, it's what we both needed and it's been a blessing.

After a month this is what we upgraded, bought 2 10lb boxes of Caribsea life Rock.

Sicce syncra 1.5 pump
Fluval RFG upgrade kit from VCA
Bubble magus mini Q skimmer in chamber 1
Intank media basket in chamber 2
A bunch of bio gems and a roll of cut to size filter pad.
Ditched the stock lighting for the fluval 25000k sea light bar. A slight modification made it fit well and looks great.

After a while I grabbed 2 12" 21ledusa led light bars and mounted them under the stock lid.

Bought their led light controller but it was garbage so I bought a smart power strip from amazon which I can control everything where ever I am

As this hobby grabbed me more and more and new in time I'd be going bigger so I then bought a ecotech MP10QD wave maker. I know that's over kill for such a small tank but it's clean and with the ability to set different modes it just blew my mind as we never had tech like that 20 yrs ago.

I ditched the fluval heater and bought a cobalt 75 w NEO-THERM heater.

Added a Duetto2 ATO and swapped out the included water hose with a good food grade silicone hose which works and bends perfectly! That hose XPAqua include gets hard fast and I wasn't going to have that.

I have the Fluval Marine light on a pro modded schedule and also the Vortech. The 2 light bars are set to 25% and come on with the smart power bar 1 hr after the Fluval Marine starts to ramp up for the day.

Additives I use are
B-ionic 2 part
Red Sea Reef energy AB+
Red sea foundation C magnesium
Ocean magik live phytoplankton,
Added eco pods from algae Barn and then added their galaxy pods.

Testing equipment I use.

Hanna instruments checkers for
Calcium
dkH
Phosphorus ulr ppb
HR nitrate
pH meter by Apera
Refractometer for salinity at 1.025
Red Sea magnesium pro kit.

We've got 2 clown fish named riff and raff and then added a tiny orchard dottyback names cheeky. Also have 3 red scarlet crabs, 4 blue hermit crabs, a few trocus snails and a few astria snails. 4 bumblebee snails and cerith snails.

Corals
GSP Local dude sold me.
Kenya tree local dude sold me.
silver pulsing Xenia
Blue mushroom
pink Zoas
other Zoas no name and bleached out from lighting and a aptasia that I killed and in turn had cut the rock it was attached to so added stress to the zoa but are making a good come back.
green pally
and a few sticks that I have no idea what they are, also a green hairy mushroom.

Salt initially used was IO then went to RC and recently switched to Red Sea coral pro as the tank wasn't stabilizing and with the switch to Red Sea things have turned around in a big way! Thanks @Red Sea

Thank you all for your help in some of my other threads and thank you for viewing my build.

Now for the pictures as I know you all like pictures!

Have a great blessed day all of you!

Brad

 

[blaxsun]

Looks great (nice upgrades). Happy clownfish I gather?

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Looks great (nice upgrades). Happy clownfish I gather?

Yes they were my cycle fish. I had been given some kind of fancy damsel fish, but had to trade him off as he would totally destroy my sand bed and rocks that I had before adding the life Rock. He would push smaller rocks and hit the front of the tanks glass and it would only be a matter of time before something would give. So out with the damsel and in came 2 tiny clowns. They never got stressed out finishing the cycle and after having them about 7 weeks I introduced the dottyback. They had no issues with him and they all get along great.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

I figured I'd better get this build thread done with before breaking it down.

I ordered the waterbox 35.2 with stand, AI Prime HD and screen top. I should've had it by now but WB screwed up and told me after raising heck about where's my stuff. They took my money and then told me they have no rough ETA. I said why is that? Then they proceeded to tell me that there was a problem with the server updating the web page here in Canada and I was at the tail end of what they had in stock. The website showed everything was available and I paid for it to find out that if I want the tank I wouldn't be able to get the Aspen stand that I originally wanted. But if I would choose a white or black stand then I'm looking at the end of May to the first week of June for delivery. Anyways that's giving me time to buy the gear I need to set it up and get it up and cycling and will do a more in-depth build thread once the water box shows up.