Wow - it’s been awhile since I have updated this thread, time for a long overdue update.
First off, the original pair of clownfish that I had one developed a severe case of popeye. His eyes eventually went back to being normal but I fear his vision never returned to normal and he ended up passing away a few months later. The remaining clownfish was so aggressive that I did not dare add another fish to the tank.
I made the difficult decision of rehoming my remaining clownfish for a new pair. This time I chose a pair of snowflake clowns. I love the patterns on these guys.
Full tank with new clowns
Eventually one of the clowns turned into a black snowflake clown - making them a unique awesome looking pair
I ended up picking up a falco hawkfish from a local reefer. The original intent on adding him to this system was he would eventually be moving to the new build I was working on. That still is the plan but I have had some hiccups that is delaying that process. For now, he will remain here king of the castle.
One of the weirdest things that has happened was I was in the process of cleaning out the sump area of this tank and out came one of the sexy shrimp that I had added and thought had died five plus months prior. I ended up moving it to the lagoon right away to save it from being a snack for the hawfish. The GSP in this tank also started to climb the side wall of the tank making a really cool feature of the tank.
I continued to collect new coral pieces and house them in the Evo while the lagoon was being setup. It became packed quick but looked so amazing. I made myself a frage rack with some egg crate and suction cups to house all the zoa frags I was collecting for the lagoon. I was able to manage all the coral needs with regular weekly water changes and dosing Tropic Marin’s All-For-Reef.
Sadly for reasons unknown the black snowflake clownfish passed away. I then decided to just have a solo clown for awhile. The lagoon was now up and running and I slowly started to move frags over to the new system. I did end up moving the remaining clown to the lagoon.
This is the current state of the Fluval Evo -
The Evo has turned into a softie tank. I tried taking out the Kenya trees that were put in there a while ago. It seemed to have worked until one day they came back with a vengeance. The fair dust polyps that I have added along with the GSP have almost completely overtaken the arch. For awhile I had a bad hair algae problem and was slacking on my water changes. The rock I had with xenia on it has almost no xenia on it anymore. I think with Kenya trees, GSP and the polyps running rampid in this tank the xenia can’t keep up.
To combat the algae problem, I ended up picking up a tuxedo urchin and cutting the light schedule wayback. I also manually removed a lot of it from the sand bed. This took care of most of it but the stuff on my frags wasn’t going down without a fight. I ended up doing a hydrogen peroxide dip on them and now they are squeaky clean.
how bad the hair algae is
frage after a hydrogen peroxide dip
For the past few months between the two tanks I have been faced with a lot of issues that I wasn’t sure how to handle and to be honest - I almost threw in the towel. But I just stuck with it and just focused more on maintaining and getting both tanks back on track. I’m honestly not sure what the plan is for this tank. I have been debating pretty seriously on tearing it all down and starting over. Mostly because the corals that I have in it are so invasive. I have also been thinking of making the first upgrade to it - upgrading the light and making it a clown nem tank. I This past week I ended adding a new pair of clowns to the Evo - two snowstorms
