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VTBig053's Fluval EVO 13.5 - mixed reef


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Hey Everyone,

 

New to the hobby and just joined WAMAS.  Thought I would begin a thread to share to my tank and introduce myself.  I have a Fluval EVO 13.5 given to me by my wife for my birthday this past March.  I honestly don't think she knew what she was getting us into when she bought me this gift, hah!

 

Anyways, the tank has been up and running for a little over two months now.  I really like the tank itself but I have already replaced a lot of the stock equipment.  Here is my current set-up. 

 

Equipment

Tank: Fluval EVO 13.5G

Light: AI Prime HD

Filter Media: Filter Floss, Purigen, Chemi-Pure Elite, and Phosguard in a DIY eggcrate basket (InTank Media basket being delivered tomorrow)

Pump: Stock (138 GPH I believe)

Flow: Hydor Koralia 425 and Jebao SW-2 Wavemaker

 

Live Stock

-Two Oscellaris Clowns

-One Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

-Two Dwarf Blue Leg Hermits

-One Mexican Turbo Snail

-One Trochus Snail

-Two Nassarius Snails

-Three Cerith Snails

-Zoas & Palys (Rastas, Fire and Ice, Purple Fusion)

-Orange Ricordea Florida

-Green Star Polyps

-Red Monti Cap

-Rainbow Micromussa

-Rainbow Acans

-Toxic Waste Lepto

-Raptors Peace Favia

-Branching Hammer

-Blue/Green Sympodium

 

Here is an FTS from the other day.  Sorry for the cell phone quality. 

 

 

 

I am saving the higher perches on the arch way and tower on the right for some Acro and other assorted SPS once the tank is more well established and I have some more experience under my belt. 

 

Looking forward to getting more involved in the Forums and hopefully making it out to the next meeting!

 

 

 

post-2636406-0-06177200-1495480040_thumb.jpg

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Nice start. Thanks for posting.

 

Here's a quick piece of advice: You're going to run out of storage by attaching thumbnails as you did to the first post. To post an image, it's better to have it hosted on a site like photobucket and then link to it, or to start a WAMAS gallery and then link to images stored there.

 

This thread is old, but provides some information that may be useful. Some of it may be out of date, but it'll give you the gist of what to do.  I really need to update it, though.

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Noted on the photo upload/sharing.  Thanks for the advice.  I recently set up an Imgur account for sharing photos on another site.  I'll probably just start linking to that.  

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Awesome tank! I'm also trying out chemipure elite. Tank still isn't clean though...

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Mari! So far so good with the ChemiPure Elite over here.  Although I do wonder if the size bag I am using is too much for my tank.  I've heard people say you can strip the water if you over chemically filter.  I am considering a switch to the Blue Nano version so I have a little more control over the amount of carbon I am using.  I suppose I could also start buying the loose carbon in bulk and measuring the correct amount on my own into a media bag, but I am sucker for pretty labels and marketing gimmicks!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Updated FTS for the three-month mark: 

 

7Yo6jvB.jpg

 

And an updated Live Stock list to reflect the newest additions in bold: 

-Two Oscellaris Clowns

-One Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

-Two Dwarf Blue Leg Hermits

-One Mexican Turbo Snail

-One Trochus Snail

-Three Cerith Snails

-Zoas & Palys (Rastas, Fire and Ice, Purple Fusion, Bam Bams)

-Ricordea Florida (Orange, Orange/Pink, Blue)

-Green Star Polyps

-Red Monti Cap

-Rainbow Micromussa

-Rainbow Acans

-Toxic Waste Lepto

-Raptors Peace Favia

-Branching Hammer

-Blue/Green Sympodium

-Duncan

 

The nassarius snails both died within a few days of each other a few weeks ago but all other inverts appear to be healthy.  I actually saw on another site that acans (and some other corals) can actually eat small snails.  Both the nassarius snails were pretty small and their demise coincided with the addition of the two acan heads, so I suspect that may be what happened to them.  

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  • 1 month later...

VT your tank looks great!  I have a very similar setup and I'm wondering what your AI Prime Settings are?  I only have a clownfish in mine at the moment and some zoas.  The clownfish seems to stick to the shady areas when my light is in full power.  Tweaked my settings quite a bit, I max at the below settings;

 

UV  75%

Violet - 100%

Royal - 59%

Blue - 100%

Green - 15%

Deep Red 15%

Cool White - 25%

 

Please let me know as basically your tank is what I strive to look like.  :)

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Thanks Toasted! I try to keep it clean, hah.  Here are my current settings:

 

UV - 67%

V - 67%

RB - 73%

B - 73%

G - 20%

R - 20%

CW - 40%

 

Sunrise - 9:00 AM (peak at 2:00PM - 5:00PM)

Sunset - 5:00 PM (lights off at 10:00PM)

 

This has been working well so far, but since I have added more SPS coral acquired at FragFest I will be trying to increase the intensity gradually over the coming weeks. 

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Updated FTS for 4-months! Just a little late..... 

 

An1XdZL.jpg

 

I swear my clowns know when I'm taking a picture! 

 

I do have some recent additions to share, the first being a purple fire fish.  This is likely the last fish added to the tank unless someone meets an unfortunate end.  I wish it was a photogenic as my clowns.  I attended FragFest last weekend and the haul is listed below: 

 

  • two pieces of brown acro (hoping this colors up soon?)
  • one large piece of pocillopora(?) - split in two when removing some dead skeleton from the base
  • A huge chunk of purple rimmed green cap that looks pretty awesome
  • Clove polyps
  • one piece of brown/yellow chalice that unfortunately did not make it
  • one big chunk of branching monti that was pretty much DOA when I got home from the meeting 

I put a question mark next to the poci because I am not 100% sure what it is.  If anyone can properly ID this, that would be great.  It's the brown/purple polyps with white (skeleton) base frags all the way to right on the frag rack.  

 

I also picked up a nice piece of strawberry shortcake acro from GWS3 and a nice forest fire digi from another vendor but I can't remember the name off the top of my head.  I have a card at home from them and I will update the thread with a plug for them since it's a nice looking piece.  

 

The meeting was great and it was nice to meet a few of the folks from the forum in person, specifically Ben (Nart) and Mok-Yi (Pup Chow). 

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Great looking tank! Whatever your doing, keep it up. I recently set up a nano using the same tank and have it paired with a AI Prime as well. Been toying with the setting for the past few days. One questions I have for you is how do you have the sump/filtration compartments organized?  One thing I did from the beginning is upgrade the pump to a Hydor centrifugal 300 pump giving that it is considerably smaller and over double the output. Because of this I was able to fit my heater and the pump together in that last compartment. I was thinking about crafting a filter sock for the first compartment and filling the second with bio balls or a bag of ceramic media. or possibly just some filter floss right below the intake/overflow slots and then bio balls or ceramic media in the second compartment. I would leave some room in the middle compartment for a bag of carbon or anything else if need be. Thoughts? I see you did a makeshift media basket and was awaiting an InTank media basket. Do you have any complaints about the InTank basket?

Edited by Brucenemours
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The monti with the purple rim sounds like a flower petal monti. I grew out a large colony of that in my old 150 and it was one of my favorites. Watch out down the road, the montipora will start sucking all your calcium as it grows, you're a ways out though!

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Thanks YHSublime. I am definitely keeping a closer on my params since adding the new SPS. Actually going to start adding kalkwasser in my ATO to help with calcium consumption and ALK stability.

 

Brucenemours, I am using the inTank media basket in chamber 1 and so far its been working well. I run purigen and chemipure elite in the basket. Nothing in chamber 2 at the moment but have been thinking about adding some chaeto or a phos reactor possibly. My po4 levels have been pretty low so these aren't necessary at the moment. I am still running the stock return pump in chamber 3 with a cobalt neotherm 50w heater. The cobalt heaters have a nice low profile so they fit in there nicely. I would like to upgrade the pump though and possibly remove the hydor 425 powerhead and just run the jebao SW2. I am probably going way over kill on the flow at the moment but my corals and fish dont seem to mind and it helps keep the tank clean. I think lots of flow with regular weekly water changes are the secret to keeping the tank looking crisp and clean. I try to keep it as simple as possible.

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Mods? Are you listening? Anyway this thread can be moved to the tank build forum or am I forever relegated to the purgatory known as the Nano forum because of the volume (or lack there of) of my tank? Thanks for your consideration omnipresent one!

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Thanks for the thread relocation.

You got it.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Great looking tank. I just set up one of these myself so definitely following along. I upgrades my pump to a mj 900 and it seems to be working well but it's only been a couple days. I have the intake for chamber one and the 2nd on its way. I noticed you run purigen and chemipure, do you ever run filter floss? I'm thinking of doing s refugium in second chamber but worried it might restrict the flow. Did you patch the hole in the middle chamber? I thought about it but figured it's there as a fail safe

 

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Yes, I am running filter floss > purigen > chemipure in the basket in chamber 1 and just set up a chaeto fuge in chamber 2. I've been meaning to update this thread with a post about the chaeto fuge so thanks for giving me the nudge! How is the upgraded return pump working? Is it quiet? I've been thinking about upgrading the return pump and eliminating a power head in the display and for added flow through the AIO chambers for the chaeto. 

 

Anyways, the tank is a little over 5-months old now. I recently set-up a chaeto fuge in chamber 2 using an LED plant light recommended by @Nart and some sticky back velcro tape. Just added the chaeto on Wednesday and I am using a media bag at the moment to contain it, but we will see how that goes.  If it's not getting enough light or flow I will probably repurpose the DIY eggcrate media basket I made when I first set up the tank. Here's a shot of the set-up. 

 

Xqgc38R.jpg

 

And an updated (crooked) FTS for 5-months! 

pJ5Ynzm.jpg

 

And some close ups of some new additions..... 

 

New Acans from Ben at Supreme Reefs

rlbd3fF.jpg

 

vouGK5m.jpg

 

Poci and a piece of Acro picked up at FragFest that have some color coming back finally

cDBzPee.jpg

 

v6hR1oN.jpg

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Yes, I am running filter floss > purigen > chemipure in the basket in chamber 1 and just set up a chaeto fuge in chamber 2. I've been meaning to update this thread with a post about the chaeto fuge so thanks for giving me the nudge! How is the upgraded return pump working? Is it quiet? I've been thinking about upgrading the return pump and eliminating a power head in the display and for added flow through the AIO chambers for the chaeto.

 

Anyways, the tank is a little over 5-months old now. I recently set-up a chaeto fuge in chamber 2 using an LED plant light recommended by @Nart and some sticky back velcro tape. Just added the chaeto on Wednesday and I am using a media bag at the moment to contain it, but we will see how that goes. If it's not getting enough light or flow I will probably repurpose the DIY eggcrate media basket I made when I first set up the tank. Here's a shot of the set-up.

 

Xqgc38R.jpg

 

And an updated (crooked) FTS for 5-months!

pJ5Ynzm.jpg

 

And some close ups of some new additions.....

 

New Acans from Ben at Supreme Reefs

rlbd3fF.jpg

 

vouGK5m.jpg

 

Poci and a piece of Acro picked up at FragFest that have some color coming back finally

cDBzPee.jpg

 

v6hR1oN.jpg

Beautiful tank. Love me some acans. I like the pump so far. It has a little bit of a hum to it but it became background noise fairly quickly. It was a bit of a tight fight so if there is a smaller one that might be better. I didn't use the mount at all or it wouldn't of fit and used the smaller guard as well. It's in the den so I'm usually playing ps4 when in there so I don't hear it. I was thinking off adding a Koralia nano 240gph powerhead but from what I read the mj might be enough.

 

I was thinking in the far right chamber(1?) Purigen,chemipure then filter floss with intank rack and then in middle chamber having the refugium in bottom two parts of intank rack. Not sure if I'd put anything in top spot on middle rack.

 

Did you plug that hole in the center chamber? Was wondering how much it actually helped flow and if worth the risk of stopping that failsafe?

 

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You love acans? I would have never guessed!

 

Yes, I did plug the hole in the AIO wall and it helped with flow over the overflow grate immensely. I have also noticed a lot less detritus build up in the back chambers since plugging the hole. 

 

I think you want to put the filter floss on the top shelf of the media basket to catch bigger pieces of yuck coming through the overflow before it gets to the purigen and carbon. Also, there are only two media shelves in the chamber 1 basket so I am not sure what you would put the floss on if you put in the bottom. I tie the bag of chemipure elite from the bottom of the second media shelf so its suspended in the bottom of the chamber with better water flow all around it, but the diagrams on InTank show it just sitting on the bottom. 

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There should be 3 shelves? The middle one comes out I thought. I haven't got too much in back chambers outside the middle one. I might still plug it but I doubt it now. Intank said have floss on top so that's why I was thinking that.

 

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Sorry, I am not counting the bottom of the rack as a shelf since anything you put there is just resting on the bottom of the chamber.  There's really only two shelves that you can guarantee water is being directed through. This is why I chose to hang the bag of chemipure just under the second shelf.

 

Main(37).jpg

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I wanted to tell you I ended up gking back to the stock pump. The mj900 was too tight and I ended up not liking it. If I could find a slightly smaller version I would get it though.

 

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I have seen on other forums that some folks use a hydor centrifugal or a small sicce (cant remember the actual model name).

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