WarEagle88's Evo 13.5

[WarEaglesReef]

I replaced the return pump with a small sicce syncra silent and threw an im sea spinner for random flow. I took the hood off and added a screen top with a used kessil 160we for light.

Where'd you find a screen top to fit the Evo? Or did you make one yourself? I've got an AI Prime coming this week to upgrade the light, so I'll have to ditch the hood and I'd love to still have something to cover the tank with. My two golden retrievers shake their hair all over, so having a screen to continue to keep that out of the tank would be super awesome. [emoji23]

I'll have to look into that sea spinner. Ive got a Hydor Koralia nano powerhead going now, but that's just constant flow, so I'd love to get something a bit more random in the future.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Steve Urkel the Urchin came up to the top of the glass today, so I attempted to feed him some nori by cutting off a square and handing it to him. Took him a bit, but he grabbed on and slowly brought it to his mouth and has been chowin' down all day. I'd love for him to continue to feed like this, as it's way less messy than rubber banding a bit to a rock and leaving it in there for him. And this way I can see exactly how much he's eating. He finally decided to drop his zoa frag hat today as well, so I'll probably be taking this opportunity to glue it down somewhere to give it a rest.

 

[Maacc]

Where'd you find a screen top to fit the Evo? Or did you make one yourself? I've got an AI Prime coming this week to upgrade the light, so I'll have to ditch the hood and I'd love to still have something to cover the tank with. My two golden retrievers shake their hair all over, so having a screen to continue to keep that out of the tank would be super awesome. [emoji23]

I'll have to look into that sea spinner. Ive got a Hydor Koralia nano powerhead going now, but that's just constant flow, so I'd love to get something a bit more random in the future.

The sea spinner is just an attachment to the return outlet that rotates 360 to create random flow. I have that with the koralia on an on off cycle from my apex. I think 5 minutes on and 45 seconds or a minute off.
The screen is from bulk reef supply. It comes in a kit and once you cut the aluminum for the corners it fits perfectly inside the tank. I have 4 small clear plastic tabs super glued to the frame to catch the top rim and keep it from falling in. I used the 1/8" screen to keep the firefish in. I have kept in for 3 months now the longest I have ever been able to keep one. In my 45 they jump through the 1/4" mesh and fry under the lights. I was really close to subscribing to paulb's method of buying them at the lfs and opening the bag and throwing them on the floor.
The screen helps with the hair, I have a yellow lab and the top grabs most but every so often some blonde hair floats by in the tank

 

[rantipole]

Thanks for the reply. You provide a lot of great information. In a few months, I'll start thinking about adding a few easy corals (more zoas and a frogspawn is what I'm considering).

I've really loved working with the Biota. I actually know one of the founders, Kevin Gaines, from back when I worked for Pet Age magazine. I knew about some of his plans for the company before it started and made sure to jump on the Indigogo campaign as soon as I could. I pretty much agree with everything you said about Biota, but would add that Kevin is just a great guy that I wish every success for.

The algae is just about the only issue I've had. I had a brief bacteria bloom that scared the crap out of me for a morning. Kevin and the stuff I read on this forum talked me off the edge. Right now, I'm leaving my lights off for 2-3 days. If that doesn't fix the algae, I'm going to get some snails and maybe an urchin.

Cheers,
rant

 

[WarEaglesReef]

The sea spinner is just an attachment to the return outlet that rotates 360 to create random flow. I have that with the koralia on an on off cycle from my apex. I think 5 minutes on and 45 seconds or a minute off.
The screen is from bulk reef supply. It comes in a kit and once you cut the aluminum for the corners it fits perfectly inside the tank. I have 4 small clear plastic tabs super glued to the frame to catch the top rim and keep it from falling in. I used the 1/8" screen to keep the firefish in. I have kept in for 3 months now the longest I have ever been able to keep one. In my 45 they jump through the 1/4" mesh and fry under the lights. I was really close to subscribing to paulb's method of buying them at the lfs and opening the bag and throwing them on the floor.
The screen helps with the hair, I have a yellow lab and the top grabs most but every so often some blonde hair floats by in the tank

Sweet. BRS's DIY screen kits are what I was looking at to do for mine, so it's nice to hear from another Evo owner that it works well and fits great. That will probably be what I will go with. I've heard many people's firefish jumper stories...it's a bummer they're so prone to that, they're beautiful little fish.

Thanks for the reply. You provide a lot of great information. In a few months, I'll start thinking about adding a few easy corals (more zoas and a frogspawn is what I'm considering).

I've really loved working with the Biota. I actually know one of the founders, Kevin Gaines, from back when I worked for Pet Age magazine. I knew about some of his plans for the company before it started and made sure to jump on the Indigogo campaign as soon as I could. I pretty much agree with everything you said about Biota, but would add that Kevin is just a great guy that I wish every success for.

The algae is just about the only issue I've had. I had a brief bacteria bloom that scared the crap out of me for a morning. Kevin and the stuff I read on this forum talked me off the edge. Right now, I'm leaving my lights off for 2-3 days. If that doesn't fix the algae, I'm going to get some snails and maybe an urchin.

Cheers,
rant

Happy to help! You'll have to let me know if you pick up an urchin! Do you have a build thread for me to follow?

Yeah, every interaction I've had with Kevin has been awesome. I was amazed that he seems to be handling all of the support emails himself...that's gotta be nuts with a startup, so bravo to him for doing that and doing it well. He seems like a really great guy, and I'm hoping his company is wildly successful too. It was a fun experience to be involved in from the crowdfunding phase.

Thankfully I haven't encountered any bacterial bloom issues yet. *knocks on wood* Hopefully it turns around quickly for you. Did you have the wild explosion of copepods in your tank? I had thousands and thousands of them for about a week until they died off to a sustainable number. The clowns had a field day picking them off the back glass all day.

If you decide to get snails I'd definitely recommend the trochus and nassarius that I have. The trochus snails do a good job with the glass, back wall, and rocks and can right themselves if they fall unlike astrea snails that you have to go in and flip over by hand if they land upside down (I'm not sure exactly how they've survived in the wild with that issue ). And the nassarius keep the sand turned by coming up like zombies when you feed the fish to pick up all the bits that sink to the bottom and then burying themselves again. Cool little snails. I could go either way with hermits...the zebras are cool to look at, but one of the plain hermits I have is a real ******* and bullies every other crab and snail in the tank. Main plus with them is that they'll clean the algae off the sand which none of my other CuC members will do.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Snapped a pic of my zebra hermit in his new shell this evening and realized I had a similar pic to compare it with to check out the coral growth. This is today vs mid-February growth of my green toadstool leather coral.

 

[ultimatemj]

War Eagle! Class of 89 checking in...

Enjoy the saltwater ride and the R2R community~

 

[rantipole]

Happy to help! You'll have to let me know if you pick up an urchin! Do you have a build thread for me to follow?

Yeah, every interaction I've had with Kevin has been awesome. I was amazed that he seems to be handling all of the support emails himself...that's gotta be nuts with a startup, so bravo to him for doing that and doing it well. He seems like a really great guy, and I'm hoping his company is wildly successful too. It was a fun experience to be involved in from the crowdfunding phase.

Thankfully I haven't encountered any bacterial bloom issues yet. *knocks on wood* Hopefully it turns around quickly for you. Did you have the wild explosion of copepods in your tank? I had thousands and thousands of them for about a week until they died off to a sustainable number. The clowns had a field day picking them off the back glass all day.

If you decide to get snails I'd definitely recommend the trochus and nassarius that I have. The trochus snails do a good job with the glass, back wall, and rocks and can right themselves if they fall unlike astrea snails that you have to go in and flip over by hand if they land upside down (I'm not sure exactly how they've survived in the wild with that issue ). And the nassarius keep the sand turned by coming up like zombies when you feed the fish to pick up all the bits that sink to the bottom and then burying themselves again. Cool little snails. I could go either way with hermits...the zebras are cool to look at, but one of the plain hermits I have is a real ******* and bullies every other crab and snail in the tank. Main plus with them is that they'll clean the algae off the sand which none of my other CuC members will do.

My build is here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/rantipoles-aio-nano.299658/#post-3667588
I haven't updated it lately. The algae in the sand has gotten pretty bad. The bacteria bloom was an issue for like a day and a half. I was worried that the Sinularia took like three additional days to open fully, but otherwise no big deal.

I'm sad I never got the copepod explosion. I was considering adding some pods, but I figured without a refugium they would just all get eaten anyway.

I don't like hermits in tanks because I'd feel bad if I couldn't provide them with shells each time they need them. I just don't like to keep any animals unless I can provide a good life for them. The snails sound really cool though, not to mention useful.

Really glad I found your thread. It's given me a new perspective on what I can do with foundation Biota provided.

Cheers,
rant

 

[WarEaglesReef]

War Eagle! Class of 89 checking in...

Enjoy the saltwater ride and the R2R community~

War Eagle!! Is that your lightning maroon? It's gorgeous! Considering getting a small anemone for my clowns in a few months after my tank ages a bit more, although I'm not sure I could convince them to stop being hosted by my powerhead and switch to the nem. Haha

 

[ultimatemj]

War Eagle!! Is that your lightning maroon? It's gorgeous! Considering getting a small anemone for my clowns in a few months after my tank ages a bit more, although I'm not sure I could convince them to stop being hosted by my powerhead and switch to the nem. Haha

It is! Great fish!

Some folks have good luck getting clowns to host by introducing a nem in an acclimation box and put the clown(s) in with it...eliminates distractions/options

 

[WarEaglesReef]

My build is here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/rantipoles-aio-nano.299658/#post-3667588
I haven't updated it lately. The algae in the sand has gotten pretty bad. The bacteria bloom was an issue for like a day and a half. I was worried that the Sinularia took like three additional days to open fully, but otherwise no big deal.

I'm sad I never got the copepod explosion. I was considering adding some pods, but I figured without a refugium they would just all get eaten anyway.

I don't like hermits in tanks because I'd feel bad if I couldn't provide them with shells each time they need them. I just don't like to keep any animals unless I can provide a good life for them. The snails sound really cool though, not to mention useful.

Really glad I found your thread. It's given me a new perspective on what I can do with foundation Biota provided.

Cheers,
rant

Followed your thread! I'm excited to see how your tank evolves. Especially that toadstool leather that I don't have from them.

I got my explosion of pods after the diatoms in my sand died off, so perhaps those are still in your future? They died off pretty rapidly after the explosion but I still see a few on my glass pretty much all the time, so it seems as though they've got a pretty stable smaller population thriving in the tank.

With the hermits, luckily one of the reef aquarium stores just outside of Denver has a whole little tank full of abandoned shells of all sizes that you can just pick from for free, so when I notice the crabs getting a bit bigger I can just go pick them out a shell that's the next size up. I need to do that here soon. The hermit I have that bullies everyone has gotten a bit big for his shell and I don't want him to kill my larger nassarius snail to take his.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

It is! Great fish!

Some folks have good luck getting clowns to host by introducing a nem in an acclimation box and put the clown(s) in with it...eliminates distractions/options

Are they really as aggressive as people say? I hear they can be insanely territorial and need a lot more space than standard ocillaris clowns.

Hadn't thought about an acclimation box. That's a good idea! I've seen people tape photos of clowns in anemones to the side of the tank for theirs to see, or playing them YouTube videos of clowns hanging out in their anemones with mixed results. Hilarious, but hey...if it works, that's awesome.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

AI Prime is here!! All set up on the tank and tinkering with all of the settings. It's not the most user friendly, but I think I've got some settings that I like for now and we're all set up to run in acclimation mode for 4 weeks. So far it's a mix with the corals...some of them are open suuuuper wide and a few are closed up a bit.

Here's the settings I've got so far, with acclimation mode reducing everything by 50%:

Took the opportunity to move my Duncan coral frag today now that I don't have a lid and it's much easier to move stuff. Noticed that it was getting stung by my frogspawn on one side, so I relocated it by my ricordea where it has a bit more room to grow and be far away from the stinging euphyllias.

 

[reef-rc]

Congrats on the new light. Now you're cooking! I see new light loving corals on the horizon ...

I am curious how you came about with the settings? From AI? One area I find very much confusing is the need to do some trials and errors to figure out the right color percentages.

 

[Mikedawg]

I've got two Evo's and really like what you're doing with yours..........keep more good ideas coming!

DawgNation forever!

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Congrats on the new light. Now you're cooking! I see new light loving corals on the horizon ...

I am curious how you came about with the settings? From AI? One area I find very much confusing is the need to do some trials and errors to figure out the right color percentages.

AI is definitely not much help for figuring anything out in terms of settings. It would be helpful if they provided some basic light schedules for you to try out on their website so you can get a feel for what some of the different variations look like without having to manually enter each setting yourself. But I did some searching around and found a few people who had uploaded their light schedule files to share and tried a few of those out first. I ended up going with the ballpark settings listed on page 7 of this document from The Aquarium Solution to start out with, as I liked the color settings for peak daylight best with those numbers: http://www.theaquariumsolution.com/files/Setting up AI Prime or Hydra HD_3.pdf
and then I adjusted my ramp up and down durations for the time of day I prefer and opted to test out their "lunar" function by having the deep blues synced to our moon phases at variations of 5% for a portion of the night. Not sure if I will stick with that or not, but it's a neat little function. I went with a 12 hour cycle with 4 hours of ramp up and down times and 4 hours of peak lighting in the middle, which closely resembles what lighting would be like in tropical environments in the ocean.

Hopefully the corals dig it. I've seen some interesting looking schedules that create a kind of rolling clouds effect by having the lighting fade up and down several times a day during peak lighting, which could be interesting but I'm not sure if that would really provide any plus for the coral. They have a storm setting as well that will simulate lightning which is pretty wild.

Also, I'll say that in using this on a nano tank, I wish it came with a hood you could adjust around the sides to keep light from spilling past the sides of the tank. When attaching it in the back sump area it does ok on the long side, but light spills far out into the room on the short sides of the tank. I might try attaching it to the glass on one of the longer sides to see if that makes a difference...but right now I'm being blinded on my couch!

 

[WarEaglesReef]

I've got two Evo's and really like what you're doing with yours..........keep more good ideas coming!

DawgNation forever!

Thanks, man! I think Auburn's due for a win in the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry...better watch out. WDE!!

 

[rantipole]

Are you using a protein skimmer on your tank? If so, is it the one Biota offers? I was debating getting one. I think I'll likely need it if I add some more livestock.

Cheers,
rant

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Are you using a protein skimmer on your tank? If so, is it the one Biota offers? I was debating getting one. I think I'll likely need it if I add some more livestock.

Cheers,
rant

Yeah, I'm using the PS2 Mini that's meant for the Evo that Biota sells on their website. Theirs is priced a bit higher than I've seen other places, but it's also always been in stock and it's much harder to find elsewhere. It took about a week to break in and then another week or so for me to get it fine tuned so it wouldn't swing from skimming nothing to skimming too much. It's not the easiest machine to get dialed in perfect, and Fluval's instructions are pretty much non existent. But it does do a pretty good job of pulling lots of gunk out of the tank though, so I'm glad I got it.

I had to tape the sides of the lid down because it wouldn't keep the seal on the top to get the bubbles going well, and I will say it works much more consistently now that I have an ATO hooked up that keeps the water line in the back in the same spot all the time.

Also, if you get one be wary that adding any kind of water conditioner to the tank (like the one Biota provides) will make the skimmer go absolutely nuts for like 4 days straight. I added a bit to help one of my clowns with his slime coat and I pretty much just had to leave the lid off and let it bubble out into the air for several days until it calmed down because it was filling the little collection cup in less than 5 minutes.

 

[WarEaglesReef]

Went to check out a new LFS that opened just down the road from me today. They had a decent selection of fish and coral and a really beautiful stingray in their big tank in the back. Excited to have one so close to my house!

Picked up a box of Marine Pure spheres that I've had my eye on for a while. I've always wanted to make use of that small space under the skimmer in the Evo, and having some extra biological filtration seems like a perfect way to use it. Also snagged a bigger shell for one of my red legged hermits that's been eyeing my large nassarius snail because his shell is getting a bit small. So hopefully he moves in there soon and is good to go for a while!