The Fluval Evo 13.5: The Full Journey

Reefanatic24/7 · Aug 21, 2019

Hello! I am new to saltwater and to this forum, however I have done extensive research on the hobby and have decided to setup a fluval evo 13.5. This will be a thread following the progress of the tank, which I recently bought for only $60. For stocking, I was thinking a few easy corals and a few fish.
The fish I'm interested are as following
• Flame Hawkfish
• Falco Hawkfish
• Black-cap Basslet
• Springeri Dottyback*
• Orchid Dottyback
• Black Neon Dottyback
• Geometric Pygmy Perchlet*
•Blue Sapphire Damsel (Springer Damsel)*
• Clown Goby
(* = fish I'm leaning towards)
I'm open to more suggestions and feedback. I've attached a photo of the tank below. I will try to update as often as I can. Setup will begin around next month.

juanrmattos · Aug 21, 2019

Welcome @Reefanatic24/7

The Evo 13.5 is a nice setup to start in this hobby, just take your time and let it develop and mature, this hobby is all about patience and learning but the retribution is gratifying. In this forum you have all the info you need and there are always members willing to answer any questions you may have.

I’m currently building the little brother of this reef, if it helps you some... There is also a nice video feed of this same build from UK in YouTube (Corey Willard) that has been going for about a year.

Best of luck!!!

SPR1968 · Aug 21, 2019

That's looks very nice and keep the pictures coming

And welcome to R2R!

waterwatereverywhere · Aug 21, 2019

Good luck, I'm planning the same! It looks a great little tank, and I've been really inspired by looking on here at what people have done with it.

tupes · Aug 29, 2019

Welcome @Reefanatic24/7
Please keep us updated with photos.

Reefanatic24/7 · Aug 29, 2019

I am tentatively planning out stocking right now and I would appreciate some suggestions. For this nano, I want to avoid the common species (especially clownfish, I kind of want my tank to be different from all the other nanos) and would like to try some lesser known species. My list as of now for fish is:

Yellow Watchman Goby/ Some kind of shrimp goby x1
Pistol Shrimp x1
Springeri Dottyback x1
Flame Hawkfish x1
(Possum Wrasse x1) (this one is a maybe, I really like how it looks though)

I will add the fish in the order listed above with a span of a few weeks to months in between to allow the tank to acclimate to the increasing bioload. I will add corals later on too. What do you guys think? I know I'm going to get a lot of comments on the flame hawkfish. I'd love to hear your experiences with them and the others. Thank you very much!

Reefanatic24/7 · Oct 8, 2019

I couldn't update for a while because I was in the process of moving. My tank had a lot of old coralline and such so I poured in 2 gallons of distilled white vinegar and filled the rest of the tank with water. I've been letting the pump and powerhead run for the past day and will probably drain the tank sometime tomorrow. I'm going to go pick up some free sand and cheap live rock today, which makes me very excited. Any advice on how to clean the sand though? I live in an apartment complex so I can't use a garden hose to rinse the sand out... theres a lot of debris floating about so I put in a sponge to catch some of it.

Reefanatic24/7 · Oct 8, 2019

Picked up the rock and sand today. Got 3 pieces, 18 lb's in total for only $36 (caribsea life rock) emptied the tank and rinsed it and it looks good as new! Hopefully she'll be filled up by next week! I've attached some rockscape ideas down below.

VKP01 · Oct 8, 2019

I’m excited to see where this goes!!

for the sand, you could try putting it on a bucket, adding RO or salt water, and swirling it then draining the water and repeat until it runs mostly clear.

Also, if you do the possum wrasse you’re going to want to add him to the tank first. They’re very shy and the biggest problem with them is that they’ll hide from tank mates and not come out for food. Adding it first would give it some time to settle in. Looking forward to seeing this come together!

Reefanatic24/7 · Oct 8, 2019

VKP01 said:
I’m excited to see where this goes!!

for the sand, you could try putting it on a bucket, adding RO or salt water, and swirling it then draining the water and repeat until it runs mostly clear.

Also, if you do the possum wrasse you’re going to want to add him to the tank first. They’re very shy and the biggest problem with them is that they’ll hide from tank mates and not come out for food. Adding it first would give it some time to settle in. Looking forward to seeing this come together!

Thanks for the tip! I'll try that tomorrow

Reefanatic24/7 · Oct 16, 2019

It's been a busy couple of days as I washed the sand, decided on a rock structure and made a diy media basket out of some egg crate. I have a lot of photos and I hope you enjoy them! I decided to start the tank with tap water which I poured in today. I'll be adding the salt (Instant Ocean Reef Salt) in tomorrow. I know it's not optimal but I wanted to get the tank wet ASAP lol. I'm planning on cycling with lights off in the beginning and doing a large water change later on in the cycle before turning the lights on.

Reefanatic24/7 · Oct 16, 2019

Photos!!!

Reefanatic24/7 · Oct 16, 2019

More...

Bouncingsoul39 · Oct 16, 2019

The Flame Hawk is definitely not suitable for this water volume. The Geometric Pygmy hawk would be the better choice. The rest of your stock list sounds great and some of my favs though borderline over-stocking for that water volume. I'd go with either the dottyback or the wrasse, not both. Sorry, but I'd prefer your venture here to be a fully successful one.

Reefanatic24/7 · Oct 16, 2019

i cut an old gift card to cover the hole in the back wall, unfortunately, it isn't water tight and still lets water flow into Chamber 2 but I'm to lazy to fix it now. Maybe later... Feedback anyone? And how's the rockwork? Took me hours to get it to this, which I still think isn't the best but i guess it's acceptable lol

Bouncingsoul39 · Oct 16, 2019

Tap water is going to be an instant algae nightmare unless you have some pure well water or something you're drawing from. IT's such a small amount of water, just empty it and mix a new batch with RO/DI water or at the worst, Glacier machine water.

Reefanatic24/7 · Oct 16, 2019

Bouncingsoul39 said:
The Flame Hawk is definitely not suitable for this water volume. The Geometric Pygmy hawk would be the better choice. The rest of your stock list sounds great and some of my favs though borderline over-stocking for that water volume. I'd go with either the dottyback or the wrasse, not both. Sorry, but I'd prefer your venture here to be a fully successful one.

Thanks for the advice! I'll take it into consideration!

Reefanatic24/7 · Oct 16, 2019

Bouncingsoul39 said:
Tap water is going to be an instant algae nightmare unless you have some pure well water or something you're drawing from. IT's such a small amount of water, just empty it and mix a new batch with RO/DI water or at the worst, Glacier machine water.

I plan on getting some RO/DI from my LFS next week. Should I do a 100% WC? What do you think?

Lear31a · Oct 16, 2019

welcome to the club. Evo is a fun starter test tank. Mine over ran me so had to move on to a bigger tank. But still run mine for QT tank and experiments. Here are some pics of mine.