WarEagle88's Evo 13.5

[WarEaglesReef]

That's looks awesome!! I wanted to do something a little more concealing though to hide wires and the ATO tube and whatnot. Do you think this particular stand would be okay to drill into? Like perhaps using a hole saw?

I believe the sides are hollow particle board (like most everything at Ikea) but they're pretty sturdy, so I'd think you could drill a hole in it as long as it wasn't too large and didn't intersect with any of the connecting rods. Luckily being up against a couch has allowed me to bring all of my cords and tubing around that side so they're pretty well concealed. And for the cubbies I know they have lots of different options from adding doors to the front to several different types and colors of baskets like the two brown ones I have in mine.

 

[Sobo's Reef]

I believe the sides are hollow particle board (like most everything at Ikea) but they're pretty sturdy, so I'd think you could drill a hole in it as long as it wasn't too large and didn't intersect with any of the connecting rods. Luckily being up against a couch has allowed me to bring all of my cords and tubing around that side so they're pretty well concealed. And for the cubbies I know they have lots of different options from adding doors to the front to several different types and colors of baskets like the two brown ones I have in mine.

Thank you so much!! I'm gonna look into this before tackling my own custom job. And as always I'll be following along your thread. I hope my tank gets to look half as good as yours!

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Ooo an ai prime. How do u like it. I plan on getting the prime hd for my 10gallon tank

I've had mine for about two-ish weeks now? I love it so far. The corals have all responded really well, and the acclimation mode it has has done a great job of keeping them from being overwhelmed transitioning from the stock light that comes with the Evo. I've definitely seen an improvement in coloration and growth from pretty much every coral in the tank. The lunar mode is really neat too. Syncs with the moon cycle and gives the tank a small amount of extra deep blue glow for a few extra hours at night when the moon is out.
Only qualm I have with it is that the light does spill over the sides of the tank on the shorter sides since it's so narrow. So my couch glows quite a bit at night. Haha. I'm thinking about modifying one of my old photography soft boxes to use as a kind of hood to corral that overflow a bit.
If you get one, a few posts up I posted a link to a document that David Saxby put together that has a good basic schedule with light intensities and duration for the AI Prime that was the best looking of all of the different settings that I found online IMO. That was also another issue with the prime. It's highly customizable, and AI provides pretty much zero information to get you started, so I had to do a lot of research the first day to find myself a lighting schedule I liked and figure out how to program it to my liking time of day wise. Pretty intuitive system, but they should provide you with some basic presets to try out I think.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Thank you so much!! I'm gonna look into this before tackling my own custom job. And as always I'll be following along your thread. I hope my tank gets to look half as good as yours!

Good luck!! Hope it works out for you. It's been the perfect stand for me. And you'll have to let me know when you have a build thread for me to follow! I want to see how your tank progresses too. :D

 

[Sobo's Reef]

Good luck!! Hope it works out for you. It's been the perfect stand for me. And you'll have to let me know when you have a build thread for me to follow! I want to see how your tank progresses too. :D

You got it!!!

 

[brett_schn]

I've had mine for about two-ish weeks now? I love it so far. The corals have all responded really well, and the acclimation mode it has has done a great job of keeping them from being overwhelmed transitioning from the stock light that comes with the Evo. I've definitely seen an improvement in coloration and growth from pretty much every coral in the tank. The lunar mode is really neat too. Syncs with the moon cycle and gives the tank a small amount of extra deep blue glow for a few extra hours at night when the moon is out.
Only qualm I have with it is that the light does spill over the sides of the tank on the shorter sides since it's so narrow. So my couch glows quite a bit at night. Haha. I'm thinking about modifying one of my old photography soft boxes to use as a kind of hood to corral that overflow a bit.
If you get one, a few posts up I posted a link to a document that David Saxby put together that has a good basic schedule with light intensities and duration for the AI Prime that was the best looking of all of the different settings that I found online IMO. That was also another issue with the prime. It's highly customizable, and AI provides pretty much zero information to get you started, so I had to do a lot of research the first day to find myself a lighting schedule I liked and figure out how to program it to my liking time of day wise. Pretty intuitive system, but they should provide you with some basic presets to try out I think.

Great to know. I have a 10g now and I'm getting a e260 later this year. I'm getting a mp10 and a ai prime hd for this 10g and I'm going to start growing and fragging coral that some will be added to e260 when I get it and the other frags will get traded in for other corals

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Anybody else's inverts go nuts for Rod's Food?
About once a month I'll get it out to feed the larger LPS corals some meatier foods than their regular Reef Roids/Coralific Delight. I've got 6 nassarius snails in the tank that are usually pretty reclusive. A few of them come out when I feed the fish pellets or broadcast feed the corals but rarely are they ever all out at once...but man, on that rare blue moon when I get the Rod's Food out?? They go nuts. "Oh crap! Is that ROD'S FOOD?!?" All of them unearth themselves as soon as it hits the water and zoom around the tank for hours after looking for bits of it. Cleaner shrimp steals it from the corals...all the crabs snag themselves a chunk. Clearly a huge hit with all of them. But my fish aren't fans. Weird.

 

[brett_schn]

Anybody else's inverts go nuts for Rod's Food?
About once a month I'll get it out to feed the larger LPS corals some meatier foods than their regular Reef Roids/Coralific Delight. I've got 6 nassarius snails in the tank that are usually pretty reclusive. A few of them come out when I feed the fish pellets or broadcast feed the corals but rarely are they ever all out at once...but man, on that rare blue moon when I get the Rod's Food out?? They go nuts. "Oh crap! Is that ROD'S FOOD?!?" All of them unearth themselves as soon as it hits the water and zoom around the tank for hours after looking for bits of it. Cleaner shrimp steals it from the corals...all the crabs snag themselves a chunk. Clearly a huge hit with all of them. But my fish aren't fans. Weird.

Weird. They may have had that while they were at the lfs. Since I don't have any corals I don't use anything like that and my inverts are perfect on just Algee

 

[brett_schn]

What coral is this?

 

[WarEaglesReef]

What coral is this?

That's a ricordea. I believe Florida rather than Yuma, but I'm not 100% sure. It eats like a champ.

 

[brett_schn]

That's a ricordea. I believe Florida rather than Yuma, but I'm not 100% sure. It eats like a champ.

And I never see the Florida version when I go and dive all the reefs in key largo. Lol. I don't see near me in pompano

 

[WarEaglesReef]

ReefEd was pretty sweet! The vendors there had some really good deals on coral (my guess would be due to the ridiculous snowstorm) and they had a really interesting speaker from The Breeder's Registry talking about advancements in aquacultured fish. Got a free little pack of nano brine shrimp to feed the tank from Algae Barn too. It's a bit much for my size tank, but their rep said I should be ok to feed half of it in one go in my nano. I tested out a small bit of it and the clowns LOVE it. Non-stop frenzy to catch all the little brine shrimp.

Came home with 6 frags. Two types of montipora, a Hollywood stunner chalice, two micro/acan lords, and one that I can't for the life of me remember the name of. I'll have to post it on the ID forum once it opens up. Here are my three favorite purchases...still a ways to go before they're open and happy, but you can get a good idea what they look like.

 

[reef-rc]

nice frags!

 

[WarEaglesReef]

nice frags!

Thanks! I'm really happy with what I brought home today. 6 frags for $60 is a steal. Found a little brittle star hitchhiker hiding under one of my montipora frags too. Decided he was cool enough to let live in the tank. :p

 

[WarEaglesReef]

With a lightning fast response in the LPS ID forum, my 6th frag is a blastomussa merletti coral. Opening up really nicely now that it's had a couple hours to settle.

 

[reef-rc]

Thanks! I'm really happy with what I brought home today. 6 frags for $60 is a steal. Found a little brittle star hitchhiker hiding under one of my montipora frags too. Decided he was cool enough to let live in the tank. :p

Good deal for sure. You had also mentioned montipora. Did you id them? Was part of the of package deal?

Seems to be good addition to your tank. Looks like I need to brush on acan, blastomssa and favia...more between favia and acan it seems as I can't tell them a part. Wished I have room for a chalice.

Sometimes I find starfish and other friendly critters only after the fact they fallen off from the dip, which by that time is a tad late for them to let live :oops:. Others I don't feel so bad flushing them down the toilet ;Dead.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Good deal for sure. You had also mentioned montipora. Did you id them? Was part of the of package deal?

Seems to be good addition to your tank. Looks like I need to brush on acan, blastomssa and favia...more between favia and acan it seems as I can't tell them a part. Wished I have room for a chalice.

Sometimes I find starfish and other friendly critters only after the fact they fallen off from the dip, which by that time is a tad late for them to let live :oops:. Others I don't feel so bad flushing them down the toilet ;Dead.

I believe both of them are of the capricornis variety. I got a standard red one and one that is kind of purple with tiny little blue polyps. Still waiting to get a good look at the blue on that one as it gets more comfortable in my tank. Got those two together with the Hollywood stunner thrown in as a freebie, and then the two micro/acan lords were BOGO from a different vendor. Can't resist a good deal.

Favia is the only one of those three I've yet to try. Saw one today I really liked, but the blasto won out and came home with me instead. Favia is next on my list since I'm pretty much relegated to corals that like being in the sandbed now. You're right they can be hard to tell apart from some of the acan varieties. There's something distinct about them, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

You could maybe squeeze a small frag of chalice in your tank! [emoji12] The one I got is maybe silver dollar sized, and luckily it does best in lower light/flow so it's perfect for my empty-ish sandbed. I hear they grow pretty quick though, so that will probably be one I have to frag at some point. Waiting to see how aggressive it is to know how much clearance I should give it. I hear they can have 2-3 inch sweepers.

Yeah, I'm glad I noticed the star on the frag when they were packaging it up for me or I probably would've been in the same boat not noticing until it was too late. Not sure I'll really see that much of him since they're so reclusive, but he's a cool little hitchhiker to have.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Micro lords are all open really nicely this afternoon. Diggin' my new little garden of them. :D

 

[bir4y]

Been SUPER busy the last couple of weeks and haven't had time to look on r2r. I can on and went straight to your thread... was blown away by how quickly you tank has progressed over the past month. Incredible.

 

[brett_schn]

Micro lords are all open really nicely this afternoon. Diggin' my new little garden of them. :D

Those are really cool Coral pieces what type are they.