Hey guys I am actually working on 2 tanks at the moment but my daughters took priority over mine when today she brought home student of the month for her school. I told her if she ever did it I would make her a small tank for her room so here I am. I have the tank and substrate I do have a question about the substrate it is black and made for cichlids will this work bc I am wanting a black sand for this tank. Live rock if anyone has any xtra they can spare or sell me cheap please let me know! As soon as I get water and live rock in I will the tank I will post photos and updates! If anyone has ever done a evo 13.5 build please let me know so I can get some ideas!
Some black sands have metallic particles in them. Something to check out if you are going to use a magnetic glass cleaner.
1/30/19 Day 1 of Evo 13.5g Tank Today i put substrate in tank and about 16lbs of live rock and saltwater. Tank is foggy as usual and will hopefully clear up by tomorrow. Tommorw’s Agenda: I will check the salinity levels to make sure they are in the correct parameters! If there is anything else that I need to do please let me know!
I can't really think of much to do other than wait for the cycle to end! You could put some bacteria in and turn the temp to 80 so the bacteria population explodes.
There was a really good study recently done that showed Fritz Turbostart could produce bacterial populations to convert 2ppm ammonia/24 hours in as little as two days! You know the drill better than we do....be patient.
Ok so today i felt so dumb the salt i used for my tank was by aquaforest called Probiotic Reef Salt! No big deal but when I open the tub it has a plastic cup in there that has 2 lines on there one saying 5l Ro Water and then one at the top saying 10l Ro water well by looking on them I thought it was a I behind the number I called many LPS and LRS to find out if they new what it could be and still no clue! Well to find out the I was a L or atleast that is what i have come to terms with so I put 10l in my tank instead of the 37L worth for 10g of water. b/c that is what my Evo is holding right now with the live rock in there! So yea That was my fubar for today that made me feel stupid so now i have added more salt and hopefully that will bring my salinity up lol! I hope yall have a good laugh reading this b/c i sure laughed at myself when i realized my mistake! thank goodness it was way less than way more!
Day 2 going to go to Little Rock today to see if I can’t find a heater for this tank and maybe a clean up crew for my other!
You don't need to leave the lights off I would probably run the blue lights if thats possible. Again if you don't want to you don't have to.
Ok so I will just leave the blue on all the time until the cycle is done which I like bc the blue is calming especially at night!
Very true! I have my 180 with just blues really only because I don't have enough plugs on my apex for the light to fully be on.
Day 3 I added a few more small pieces of live rock and changed the aqua scape just a hair I also added fritz 9 for bacteria! Will do water test tonight when I get off work!
K so I ordered this light and bracket for my tank and also ordered a chamber 1 media basket for it as well
