Little Slice of Ocean

Tank: RedSea Reefer 170 (About 120L in display I reckon)
Lighting: AI Prime 16
Return Pump: Jebao 2600 LPH
Flow: 2 x Jebao RW4
Skimmer: Bubble Magus Curve 3.5
Reactor: Skimz reactor running GFO
Sump: 30L roughly with cheato, live rock, filter floss and refugium light.


Ever since I learnt about the Fluval Sea. Evo 52L I've been on the look out for a second hand bargain, after about 6 months one came up in my local area on eBay!

This particular one came with some tank upgrades, a load of establisbed media,live rock and sand. It had been running for around 8 months the fella said and was taken down before I arrived, so everything was bucketed up and taken 10 mins down then road to its new home.

All in all it was only 84 quid, which included the standard pump, a heater, upgraded d flow media baskets, d flow random outlet nozzle, mixture of bio rings and seachem matrix, sand, rock and even about 40l of saltwater, plus so the mini critters that was still in the setup.. Very happy with it all!




It's become the fluval corner!

Had a little play around with the scape, because of its position against the wall I opted to not go peninsula and go for more a wall / bay setup at first.




Had it running for a week or so checking parameters etc then got this guy!







This is Marvin, a DaVinci clownfish.

Wells said:

Had a little play around with the scape, because of its position against the wall I opted to not go peninsula and go for more a wall / bay setup at first.


View attachment 137442

Had it running for a week or so checking parameters etc then got this guy!

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This is Marvin, a DaVinci clownfish.

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That’s awesome! It’s good that he had the tank has been setup for over 8 months - I already see some coralline algae!

I would look into getting another DaVinci soon, so they will bond much easier. If you wait a while, it could be pretty nasty when you added the second one in.

Do you have any plans for corals yet?

Wells said:

Had a little play around with the scape, because of its position against the wall I opted to not go peninsula and go for more a wall / bay setup at first.


View attachment 137442

Had it running for a week or so checking parameters etc then got this guy!

View attachment 137443


View attachment 137444


This is Marvin, a DaVinci clownfish.

Click to expand...

He is the cutest I love these guys lol!!!!! ?

I briefly got some plastic corals for Marvin, but very quickly realized I didn't like them at all so they came back out.







I got my first 2 frags of kenyan and a green star polyp.







Then found a local guy and picked up a ricordea mushrooom.

PheonixKingZ said:

That’s awesome! It’s good that he had the tank has been setup for over 8 months - I already see some coralline algae!

I would look into getting another DaVinci soon, so they will bond much easier. If you wait a while, it could be pretty nasty when you added the second one in.

Do you have any plans for corals yet?

Click to expand...

I'm currently on the lookout for a mocha or a snowflake, but if nothing shows up will grab another DaVinci.

I've added a couple frags, the plan is to keep to some soft corals so will put some zoas in, and also I want to get a torch and a hammer, just taking it slow at the moment!

Wells said:

I'm currently on the lookout for a mocha or a snowflake, but if nothing shows up will grab another DaVinci.

I've added a couple frags, the plan is to keep to some soft corals so will put some zoas in, and also I want to get a torch and a hammer, just taking it slow at the moment!

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I would definitely wait on the torch and the hammer. Even though the original owner has had the tank setup for 8 months, I would still get it a little bit of time before getting them.

The zoas should be perfectly fine though.

Wells said:

I briefly got some plastic corals for Marvin, but very quickly realized I didn't like them at all so they came back out.


View attachment 137445


View attachment 137446

I got my first 2 frags of kenyan and a green star polyp.

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View attachment 137488


Then found a local guy and picked up a ricordea mushrooom.

View attachment 137489

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The GSP will take over that frag plug very quickly. Beautiful Kenya!

Little clean up crew update! We have a bumblebee snail, a nassarius snail, a cleaner shrimp and 2 blue legged hermit crabs.

Nassarius Snail


Hermit crabs
Macro of HC


Bumblebee snail with HC


Cleaner Shrimp

Those are some nice hermit crabs!!

Be aware that the scarlet hermit might not be as active as the other hermits.

Be careful having rocks against the glass. Things (fish food, fish, etc) can get trapped behind them and die, thus causing water quality problems. It's good idea to set up rocks so you can see behind them from the front or side of the tank.

If you want to get a second anemonefish, buy a really small one from a group of fish. That way it won't be male or female yet and will be accepted by the older established fish, which will be female.

Colin_T said:

Be careful having rocks against the glass. Things (fish food, fish, etc) can get trapped behind them and die, thus causing water quality problems. It's good idea to set up rocks so you can see behind them from the front or side of the tank.

If you want to get a second anemonefish, buy a really small one from a group of fish. That way it won't be male or female yet and will be accepted by the older established fish, which will be female.

Click to expand...

I may need to do a rescape then, all the rocks are snug with the glass.

So my current fish Marvin is actually going to be Tammi when I add the new fish?

A couple FTS.

Wells said:

I may need to do a rescape then, all the rocks are snug with the glass.

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The fish won’t get trapped in there, at least not the clownfish. If you get some sort of blenny, then they may try to hide.

I see no need to rescape.

Wells said:

So my current fish Marvin is actually going to be Tammi when I add the new fish?

Click to expand...

Marvin may be a Tammi already - there’s no way to tell...

Anemonefish start out as juveniles that are neither male nor female. They don't have a sex at this stage and are considered subordinates by bigger older anemonefish.

When the anemonefish settles on an anemone that contains a pair of fish, the new fish remains a subordinate and does not develop into a male or female.

If there are other juvenile subordinate fish on the anemone, the new baby will be at the bottom of the pecking order and everyone else will be higher up the pecking order. The pecking order and sexes of fish on the anemone are maintained by bullying. The dominant fish will bully the fish below it in the pecking order and this prevents the lower ranking fish from developing sex organs. Juvenile subordinate fish can remain juveniles for years and might not turn into males or females until they are 2 or more years old. This means if you buy a small anemonefish that is wild caught, it might not be young and could be 7 or 8 years old even though it is small.

If the baby anemonefish settles on an anemone that has no fish, then the baby turns into a female and becomes the dominant fish on that anemone. It takes around 1-2 weeks to turn into a female.

If the baby anemonefish settles on an anemone that has 1 dominant fish, the dominant fish will be a female and the baby will turn into a male and pair up with the female. This takes about 1-2 weeks to turn into a male.

If an anemonefish has been on its own in an aquarium for more than 2 weeks, it will be a female.