My First Tank (13.5 gallon)

Ollie67 · Apr 30, 2024

skyecw said:
Exciting update!

I am so so excited - my first two fish arrived about an hour ago. A pair of clowns, one snow storm and one davinci/gladiator! I was so surprised by how tiny they are. They’ve been acclimated and seem to be doing okay so far, I can’t stop watching them! Any advice regarding care/testing/literally anything I can do to look after these little guys would be super helpful

I’ve provisionally named them Orville (gladiator) and Cowboy (snow storm), although the snow storm is a little bigger than the gladiator so may well end up being a female named Cowboy!! I have some not great pics of them here:

They look great! Glad they made it safely!

Ollie67 · Apr 30, 2024

With care, since you just added some fish and your tank is new, I would just monitor ammonia your first week and make sure your system is handling it! I fed once a day for a 3 weeks or so to not bomb my tank parameters, it worked out just fine! Then you can switch to twice a day if you'd like. I use frozen brine shrimp and feed 1/4 the frozen cube at a time. You can also use pellets. Otherwise that's it! You can also feed "vitamins" to keep them healthy, I like to use beta glucan and selcon occasionally!

thebootreefer · Apr 30, 2024

skyecw said:
Exciting update!

I am so so excited - my first two fish arrived about an hour ago. A pair of clowns, one snow storm and one davinci/gladiator! I was so surprised by how tiny they are. They’ve been acclimated and seem to be doing okay so far, I can’t stop watching them! Any advice regarding care/testing/literally anything I can do to look after these little guys would be super helpful

I’ve provisionally named them Orville (gladiator) and Cowboy (snow storm), although the snow storm is a little bigger than the gladiator so may well end up being a female named Cowboy!! I have some not great pics of them here:

congrats on the first tenants! they look great

Ollie67 · May 12, 2024

How's everything coming along!

skyecw · May 14, 2024

Ollie67 said:
How's everything coming along!

Thanks for asking! Been super busy but everything going well, hoping to write an update on everything this week - I do have my first two corals (softies) arriving on Wednesday so will update after that!

skyecw · May 16, 2024

Tank Update - 16th May 24
I’ve been super busy but here’s an update!

Quite a few upgrades added to the tank, I’m a bit of a compulsive shopper but the new hobby is better than all the clothes I was buying and never wearing…

PUMP:
Upgraded from the TMC Reef Pump Compact 500 to the 1500 version, just arrived today so will be installing either today/tomorrow when I do my water change. Decided on this as I really like the 500 but wanting more flow - the amount of things I’ve bought and now have as spares I could probably set up another tank… (must refrain, for now). Also added two 1/4” ReefPrint RFG nozzles.

FILTRATION:
Bought some biosphere holders, so now have 8 maxspect nanobio balls in the first chamber. My D-Flow media baskets also arrived so running filter floss, carbon, and the original fluval rings in the first chamber, and then chemipure blue in the second chamber.

HEATING:
Bought an InkBird 306t Wifi temperature controller for the tank, and have that hooked up to two AquaEl heaters (75w and 50w). This was an impulse purchase at 3am whilst I was up projecting my anxiety onto my tank, I’m a super anxious person anyway and keep finding new things to worry about with the tank lol.

LIGHTING:
Ordered the Fluval Marine 3.0 light as an upgrade from the stock light - I know there are better lights but I want to keep the stock lid for now. Was planning on waiting a bit longer for the light upgrade but I’ve just bought my first two coral frags and I’m away for two weeks at the end of the month and will be far less worried knowing the lights are on are timer rather than relying on the house sitter to manually sort them out for me!

RANDOM??!?

Added a 3D printed feed cover from Charterhouse Aquatics, firstly to prevent my cat going on a fishing trip, and secondly to avoid any jumping out incidents.
Adding copepods semi-regularly, and started dosing ReefPhyto 5 species phytoplankton blend, only 2ml a day as instructed.

INHABITANTS ETC:
My two clownfish are doing well! That’s them having been in the tank for two and a half weeks now - they’ve grown quite a bit and are eating well on pellets but don’t seem very good at getting any frozen I put in? Also have seen minimal aggression etc between them, they’re almost always together and they sleep side by side under the weir (this has also given me a heart attack before and led to me doing an ammonia test in the early hours of the morning before figuring out they were very much fine…)

Nass snails… doing a good job on clean up, but keep laying eggs all over the black back wall of the tank, thus giving me an extra job for clean up lol. They’re called Gary 1 and Gary 2 if anyone wanted to know.

Thought I had vermatid snails, turns out it was just the mucus from the nass snails - but ended up getting a bumblebee snail. Super cute, called Barry (after Barry B. Benson from the Bee movie), everything has a name as my cousins kids demand to know what everything is called!

Corals!!! Yay!! I think! Got my first two lil coral frags yesterday, temp acclimated them and then did a dip in the Red Sea coral dip. One zoanthid and one mini toadstool, both currently on the sand bed at the front to acclimate but any suggestions on placement very welcome! The zoa opened up nicely after a few hours and the toadstool extended some of its… polyps?? tentacles? arms???… however is completely leaning over. I reached in and propped it up but it’s just gone back down to leaning so I’m gonna leave it for now - from what I’ve read it seems semi normal but any advice would be great lol

All in all seems tank is doing well, getting a bit of algae on the rock-work and sand which I think is diatoms but just leaving that and letting it run its course! Gonna do full water testing in next few days to see how that’s all going. Including an Orville and Cowboy photo and some terrible photos of the zoa as it started to open a bit and the toadstool pre-armpolyptentecal extension and after I tried to prop it up… Must get a coral lens filter thing so I can take photos w the blues on. Last thoughts of my jumbled update are I’m trying to plan my next fish… I also want more corals… and a cool invert…

Hope everyone is doing well!!!

Ollie67 · May 16, 2024

skyecw said:
Tank Update - 16th May 24
I’ve been super busy but here’s an update!

Quite a few upgrades added to the tank, I’m a bit of a compulsive shopper but the new hobby is better than all the clothes I was buying and never wearing…

PUMP:
Upgraded from the TMC Reef Pump Compact 500 to the 1500 version, just arrived today so will be installing either today/tomorrow when I do my water change. Decided on this as I really like the 500 but wanting more flow - the amount of things I’ve bought and now have as spares I could probably set up another tank… (must refrain, for now). Also added two 1/4” ReefPrint RFG nozzles.

FILTRATION:
Bought some biosphere holders, so now have 8 maxspect nanobio balls in the first chamber. My D-Flow media baskets also arrived so running filter floss, carbon, and the original fluval rings in the first chamber, and then chemipure blue in the second chamber.

HEATING:
Bought an InkBird 306t Wifi temperature controller for the tank, and have that hooked up to two AquaEl heaters (75w and 50w). This was an impulse purchase at 3am whilst I was up projecting my anxiety onto my tank, I’m a super anxious person anyway and keep finding new things to worry about with the tank lol.

LIGHTING:
Ordered the Fluval Marine 3.0 light as an upgrade from the stock light - I know there are better lights but I want to keep the stock lid for now. Was planning on waiting a bit longer for the light upgrade but I’ve just bought my first two coral frags and I’m away for two weeks at the end of the month and will be far less worried knowing the lights are on are timer rather than relying on the house sitter to manually sort them out for me!

RANDOM??!?

Added a 3D printed feed cover from Charterhouse Aquatics, firstly to prevent my cat going on a fishing trip, and secondly to avoid any jumping out incidents.

Adding copepods semi-regularly, and started dosing ReefPhyto 5 species phytoplankton blend, only 2ml a day as instructed.

INHABITANTS ETC:
My two clownfish are doing well! That’s them having been in the tank for two and a half weeks now - they’ve grown quite a bit and are eating well on pellets but don’t seem very good at getting any frozen I put in? Also have seen minimal aggression etc between them, they’re almost always together and they sleep side by side under the weir (this has also given me a heart attack before and led to me doing an ammonia test in the early hours of the morning before figuring out they were very much fine…)

Nass snails… doing a good job on clean up, but keep laying eggs all over the black back wall of the tank, thus giving me an extra job for clean up lol. They’re called Gary 1 and Gary 2 if anyone wanted to know.

Thought I had vermatid snails, turns out it was just the mucus from the nass snails - but ended up getting a bumblebee snail. Super cute, called Barry (after Barry B. Benson from the Bee movie), everything has a name as my cousins kids demand to know what everything is called!

Corals!!! Yay!! I think! Got my first two lil coral frags yesterday, temp acclimated them and then did a dip in the Red Sea coral dip. One zoanthid and one mini toadstool, both currently on the sand bed at the front to acclimate but any suggestions on placement very welcome! The zoa opened up nicely after a few hours and the toadstool extended some of its… polyps?? tentacles? arms???… however is completely leaning over. I reached in and propped it up but it’s just gone back down to leaning so I’m gonna leave it for now - from what I’ve read it seems semi normal but any advice would be great lol

All in all seems tank is doing well, getting a bit of algae on the rock-work and sand which I think is diatoms but just leaving that and letting it run its course! Gonna do full water testing in next few days to see how that’s all going. Including an Orville and Cowboy photo and some terrible photos of the zoa as it started to open a bit and the toadstool pre-armpolyptentecal extension and after I tried to prop it up… Must get a coral lens filter thing so I can take photos w the blues on. Last thoughts of my jumbled update are I’m trying to plan my next fish… I also want more corals… and a cool invert…

Hope everyone is doing well!!!

I'm glad everything is coming along well! Good to hear that everyone is getting along haha. You've got some good upgrades! I think the temperature controller is a must in my opinion, that way I don't have to rely on the heater itself. I'm excited to see your corals fully open! I love your clowns as well, glad to hear not much fighting! Got any ideas for your future fish/invert?