20 Long LPS and Softies Build

[Razorbacks]

I started my first tank just under a year ago (a 10 gallon) and bumping up to a 20 long.

Tank Components:
Tank: Aqueon 20 Gallon long with glass lid
Filter: AquaClear 50.....nothing permanent other than the sponge. Sometimes run a bit of carbon if needed.
Protein Skimmer: Bubble Magus MiniQ skimmer Nano.....I use this primarily for oxygenation. The plug is usually off letting anything skimmed drip back in as my nutrients are always low.
Heater: Eheim 75 watt....plan to add a second one at a lower temp as a redundant fail safe.
Rock: Marco Rock 10lbs.....some new but mostly aged from the last tank
Sand: CaribSea Ocean Direct Caribbean Live Aquarium Sand 20lbs
Lighting: A029 AquaKnight.....need to add or upgrade
Flow: hygger Mini Wave Maker & Hydor Koralia 240....Hydor is proving a bit too weak so upgrading to the 425 to elminate some detritus buildup on one side

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Stocking List: 2 Ocellaris clownfish, 3 cerith snails, and one nassarius
Corals: GSP, Xenia, Superman discosoma, chalice, blastomusa, favia, frogspawn, neon green sinularia leather

Plan to Add: 1 Royal Gramma, 1 Wheeler's Goby, 1 tuxedo urchin, and possibly a small conch to keep sand clean. Would love a blue porcelain crab if I can ever find one.

It's pretty clear the single AquaKnight is insufficient. There is too much dark space and coral placement is a bit of a challenge. Also because of the black plastic strip between the glass panes on the lid there is a long, ugly band of shade the length of the tank. I don't want to ditch the lid so I'm looking at the new AI blades as an upgrade. I think with it sitting almost flush to the lid vs several inches above, the shadowing should be minimal plus they're supposed to have better spread all around.

I planned to buy new sand, but the store didn't have enough of the kind I wanted so I ended up washing the old sand and then adding more. I was SHOCKED how dirty the old sand was at less than a year old especially given I cleaned it regularly. I'll upload a few pics of the before/after. I was a little nervous to wash and re-use the sand, but followed what others said and washed it with regular tap water until it was clean. I've seen no ill effects from this.

The tank is only 24 days old, but I've already run into a couple set backs. One of the big drivers to upgrade from the 10 was because I really want a Royal Gramma and needed just a hair more swimming room. I paid a big premium vs wild to order a Biota captive bred one ($120 total: $60 for the fish and $60 for shipping) because I like the idea of sticking to captive bred when possible and supporting the programs. It arrived healthy and was in a QT tank. The day I was going to add it to my display I walked in to find it dead. The air pump on the QT went out overnight and the poor thing suffocated. They are now out of stock on biota as well as all my local shops so I'll have to wait to replace it. I'm learning from the situation and converted to a slightly louder air pump that has better reviews and will be adding a small power head to the next QT as backup to create some more surface agitation. I'm also upgrading the temp controller on the main tank which will allow me to put my current one on the QT vs just running a stand alone heater. Basically adding redundancy where possible to the QT. I also finally cleaned up my wire mess by the main display and put everything safely elevated with proper drip loops, etc.

One other small set back is my trochus snail seemingly crawled out of the tank to it's death. I couldn't find it for days then looked behind the tank and there it was. Not sure if this is common. I've never had a snail do this before, but the cerith do often crawl slightly above the water line and just hang out. Since there's a lip on my tank, totally getting out is a bit harder.

 

[Razorbacks]

Photos. You can see the before and after on the sand. It took 6 to 8 washings per scoop to get the color change pictured. You can also see my before and after on my wiring. I ordered a bunch of corals right after setup so not all pictured. Need some more recent photos.

The favia is my oldest, but has never grown and one head recently died off. For a long time I was just guessing on par but now have that actually measured and adjusted placement so hoped that would turn it around but not so much. Just did an iodine dip a few days ago and that seems to have helped a bit. The other problem I have with it is that hair algae loves to grow on it's frag plug. I use a toothbrush but can't get the stuff right on the tissue so I try to trap snails in a jar with it to get them to clean it up which does work, but has to be repeated. There are few feather dusters growing directly on and under it so not sure if those could be a pest to it or harmless.

GSP and Xenia are next oldest and doing fine other than I've put the Xenia too far into the corner and it seems less happy lately and not pulsing I think due to insufficient light so starting to move it back out a bit.

Frogspawn seems to be growing well and seems particularly happy since I moved it off the sand bed and onto the rockwork. Not sure if the sand was irritating it or if it just prefers getting slightly more indirect flow.

Chalice, blasto, and disco are all new from Tidal Gardens. They came packaged extremely well to the point that I'm saving the materials for use when buying frags locally in the future. All seem to be doing fine though I'm struggling to get the right spot where the flow is low enough to keep the mushroom in place while also not totally dark.

Sinularia Leather is also new from Biota. It seems to be doing ok but not as fluorescent as when it first arrived. I may have given it a bit too much light so moved it a smidge over.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Nice looking tank!

 

[danielm5]

Thank you the update. I've been following your posts. Very detailed!

 

[Razorbacks]

Upgraded the main tank heater controler this week to the Inkbird ITC-306A. For the slight price premium vs the base model you get a lot of enhancements; definitely worth the money. Also upgraded to the Hydor Koralia 425 for a bit of extra flow. Moved both the old devices to the QT. Was also able to find a replacement Royal Gramma at PetCo today. My LFS didn't have one last week and didn't get an order at all this week due to the owner being on vacation. With the heat advisories we've been under I'm also hesitant to order any livestock online right now. The fish seems healthy and wasn't super shy in the store so hoping it stays that way.

I did not drip acclimate it. I was really surprised when I saw Biota said explicitly not to do this on their order (I always have before), but it worked out fine. I was going to this time, but realized I already put copper in the tank and I didn't want to contaminate my drip acclimator since I also use it for inverts. I temp acclimated about 20 minutes then checked the bag salinity. It was an exact match to the tank so felt good skipping the drip. Hopefully, don't regret that later.

My favia that hasn't been doing well for months seems to have responded well to the iodine dip I did last week. The head/mouth I thought was dead even shows some fluorescence poking through so maybe it will recover... From what I've read multiple iodine dips is not advised so I'll hold off on doing more for now.

Last week I dosed phosphates because I've been reading zero for months and months. I saw an almost immediate boom of cyano. Don't get me wrong I had some before (mostly where detritus was settling), but it sure seemed to boom and in more places when I dosed phosphate and then I still read zero on the test kit afterwards. I think I'm done dosing that for good. I try to target feed reef roids 2-3 times a week so I should be covered in terms of coral nutrition. I'll probably start measuring phosphate less often and just not worry about it.

In addition to the cyano, I have some green hair algae starting to grow in one of the most highly lit spots. I think there's enough algae again to plus up the clean up crew. The tank was initially so clean after the upgrade that I actually thought all the snails might die. They were pretty much eating whatever grew for a bit. Instead of more snails I'm probably going to order a captive bred tuxedo urchin. I only recently came around to the idea of an urchin once I learned more about them. From what I've gathered, a tuxedo urchin is one of the best algae eaters for a nano owner and one of the few things you can get in a smaller tank that will eat longer hair algae.

In preparation for an urchin and because the extra flowing is knocking my frogspawn off the rocks I finally glued/epoxied down some of my frags today as well.

 

[Razorbacks]

New Fish clip (taken at store)

 

[Razorbacks]

 

[Razorbacks]

Well the fish survived the night. That's always the first hurdle. It's been huddled in a corner of the tank for probably a 12 hour window but moved out of it this morning. I have some PVC to hide in but it hasn't gone in yet. The last RG acted the same way initially and then again when I did a large water change. It moves so little and for so long you assume it's dead or dieing but seems to just be a stress response.

 

[Razorbacks]

Royal Gramma came out of quarantine yesterday and added to display. He hid all day to the point that I checked the back of the tank a few times to make sure it hadn't jumped out. It finally came out this morning and I've seen it a little. Hoping he gets more comfortable. He hid for 2 weeks after I did a major water change on the QT.

I tried to add some AI blades to the tank, but was sent two defective units in a row by BRS. While some are saying they've gotten good replacement units direct from AI, I've pivoted and bought a cheap Nicrew light. While the build quality is clearly inferior along with the functionality, I still find it to be an upgrade from my AquaKnight. Plus it was $60 where as the AI equivalent is $265. I'm going to hold off trying to rebuy the blade until I'm no longer hearing any reports of issues.

Between the wall to wall coverage and the fact that it sits flush with my lid, I've seen immediate improvements to corals with the Nicrew. All the shadowing issues are gone and I'm seeing much more consistent par readings vs a hot spot in the center. This has made it far easier to move corals around. Before it was challenging because few spots had the right mix of flow and light.

My pulsing Xenia that was off in a corner (lowest flow spot) hasn't pulsed in a long time and began again within a day of adding the light. Unfortunately, so did a piece that apparently floated away from the island into my main rock work....I might be pulling the Xenia soon due to this. It was good as a test coral, but unless you leave the flow really low (not good for other corals) the pulsing action is less intense and without that it's just kind of a grey coral.

My Favia also seems to be enjoying the additional light. The two iodine dips I did on it really had an amazing effect and it's been looking incredible recently. When I added the new light I saw showing more feeding response and opening/closing in ways I had not seen before.

My frogspawn has not been looking great recently. It's been sort of closing up and I couldn't figure out why since nothing about the tank had changed. I tried moving my powerhead directly on it and noticed it was still not moving that much...realized my powerhead had lost considerable flow even though it did not look bad at all. I cleaned it up and frogspawn is back to looking great.

 

[Razorbacks]

Video Update

 

[Razorbacks]

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[Razorbacks]

6 Month Update

Major Revelation / Breakthrough

• I was sort of embarrassed after watching my own video posted above a few months ago and realizing that I'm a year into reefing with almost no coral growth. I realized if I really do want this to be a grow out tank for a future upgrade I need to get going. I ordered purchased more coral and saw that new pieces from multiple outlets were not doing particularly well. I started running down the list of what could be going on and...
• I had WAY too much flow. The one SPS piece I purchased (the birdsnest) completely stripped within a few days of going in. I also mentioned in the video I was struggling to find a place that the mushrooms would be able to stay on the rocks and not blow off. Adding up my two wavemakers and my HOB I realized I was at 80x tank turnover when 20 is closer to what's recommended in my scenario. I eliminated my wavemakers in favor of two Jebao SLW-3. These are capable of much lower flow rates and WOW. EVERYTHING was so much happier. My fish went from sticking in one corner to swimming around the tank naturally again. All my corals perked up. Even GSP which had been growing was opening better. This was a break through for my tank. It's frustrating though because a lot of people have small tanks and there are not many wavemakers available that actually go to flow rates this low. I tried in the past to just use the HOB, but that did not work well for me. In fact, I just ordered a baffle from an etsy seller I can attach to my fluval HOB. It's designed to actually soften the output considerably. Right now I find it pretty hard to aquascape the end of tank my Fluval output is on so I'm excited to get that in and get more corals onto my rockwork without directly blasting them under the output. The only downside of fixing the flow is my sandbed has looked bad. Algae growing in it. However, it's not that bad and if it doesn't clear up soon I'll add a small conch.

Recent Revelation

• I've got to do a better job tracking major changes instead of expecting to remember. Despite measuring par at the beginning and knowing where I should be, I've been running way too low for probably months. What finally tipped me off was that my blasto merletti (a low light loving coral) is reaching for light and doesn't look like it did when I purchased it. I must have cut the intensity down when I had dinos and forgot to turn it back up after. I've had areas of the sandbed at 30 or 40 par. My chalice that had been blue up top is brown at the moment. I'm now slowly increasing the intensity a few percentage points a week for a couple weeks to close that gap, but this time I actually wrote down what my current settings are and what I'm planning to stop at.
• I also got creative and ripped my petco tank lid in half. I realized the two pieces of glass where just wedged into some plastic not glued down. Now I have no black strip blocking any light at all. However, be cautious if you do this. You must be careful and it does make the whole lid less stable.

Livestock Additions

• Kupang damsel added then removed after about a month. Did not work out, he was definitely trying to kill my Royal Gramma. I don't think there was enough territory for him to have to himself. It was a real bummer as it's a gorgeous fish and I'll probably try one again when I get a bigger tank. However I did get...
• Pink Spot Watchman in QT. Waited and waited and waited for my LFS to get this, kept asking. Never came. Finally on the third time I saw some in Dallas I decided to buy there (5 hours away) and drive it home. Shout out to Exotic Aquatics in Plano. They did a great job packing it for the drive. I know this is far from the most popular goby, but I don't know why. I think the coloration is gorgeous and reportedly they also sift the most sand out of the non-"true" sandsifters so they do some light cleanup as well.

Cleanup Crew Additions

• Tuxedo Urchin: This things is AMAZING! Love love love it! I am so annoyed these seem to get left off of most "best cleanup crew" lists. This thing is the MVP of the cleanup crew and I could almost get away with having nothing else. He tore through that unsightly hair algae from the video in about a month. Now it grows just enough that he has to work to locate it and doesn't go hungry.
• Continued issues with Trochus. These are so attractive they're almost decorative for the tank but I can't keep one alive. I have had 3 and none survived. The last one I purchased at the same time as the pink spot goby and 2 more cerith snails. He tied within 24 hours of going into the tank where as the other snails are thriving along with the urchin.

Less Fun News

• I mentioned in the video that the frogspawn wasn't opening great and it half closed in the video. Flow was part of the problem but also I discovered I had my first vermetid snail growing at it's base. It was happier once I removed that BUT two things. First I realized it was never a frogspawn, but some sort of frammer and second I accidently broke...we'll say fragged...it into separate heads in the process of clearing the vermetid. I replaced it with an actual frogspawn which is what I wanted and I'm a lot happier with it BUT...
• Purchased a red flashlight to check in on the tank at night and look for pests. I was looking for worms and such and instead I found...aiptasia LOL. It's small and growing directly behind my large new frogspawn. I'm not sure I would even have seen it if I didn't have the new tuxedo clear everything around it. When I saw just a few points sticking out behind the frogspawn I got curious why the tuxedo missed a spot....so now on the hunt for a peppermint shrimp. LFS is out as were 2 different Petco's. Guess it's not urgent, but want to clear it up before it spreads.

 

[Razorbacks]

 

[Razorbacks]