30 gallon reef tank

[Reef_Aquatics]

So I've had this reef tank for a couple of months now and here is a few photos that I have of how the tank has developed. I started off with a few kilograms of live rock and 3 to 4cm of sand. I added a pair of clownfish as well as skunk cleaner shrimp into the tank the day I set it up and after about two weeks I added a bubble tip anemone as well. At that time there is also 5 nassarius snails. This tank has no sump and I use a Seachem Tidal 55 for filtration. For the light I use a ReefLED 50 as well as a Red Sea ReefATO+ for water top off.
Here's a few images that were taken after I added the clownfish and anemone some time in April. I don't think I have any images prior to this but I'll try to find some later if possible.

So afterwards I waited a month before addding a duncan LPS and gold hammer coral. Here's a few pictures of them. Unfortunately both of them died. The duncan I believe was caused by improper dosing of Red Sea NOPOX and the hammer died of brown jelly disease I believe. The duncan died after two month+ and the hammer died after five months. Also algae started growing at around this time and even now there is still quite a bit of algae.

Around this time I also added a sea hare to deal with the algae. It has been doing a good job of cleaning up algae ever since then but it never completely eradicated the algae. In a bid to try and eradicate the algae, I added a lawnmower blenny too. However the two of them still couldnt deal with all the algae. In June, I added a yellow tip torch and one green toadstool. They're still doing quite well but I think that the torch is unhappy with the light it receiving being too strong so I moved it down a bit. I also made the lighting a bit less intense. After that in August I started to see aiptasia growing. I didn't do anything about it at first but after seeing it spread like wildfire I decided to buy some Aiptasia X. A group of aiptasia is also growing near the anemone and I was worried that the anemone would get stung. The first time I applied aiptasia X it wasn't really effective. I think that the aiptasia grew back in about a week+ after I administered the aiptasia X. I applied aiptasia X a second time two weeks prior and I think that this time it worked a lot better. Now I only see about 3 or 4 very small aiptasia. I also added a pair of firefish in early September and one more torch coral. I think that both are doing quite well. The firefish and clownfish's relations were quite tense at first but I think that as both of those fish got more familiar with one another the tension broke down. The firefish and clownfish used to be quite far apart and avoided each other. Now I see the fish getting closer to each other without problems. I haven't seen the firefish get injured or bitten by the clownfish and they definitely weren't scared either.
The new torch coral:

One of the firefish. The other one is more scared of me and harder to get a photo of. You can see the yellow tip torch in its old position in the background as well.

 

[Reef_Aquatics]

If there are any improvements to be made please don't hesitate to tell me. I am trying to learn and improve

 

[Reef_Aquatics]

I've also got this picture of the toadstool corals as well so I'll post it here. The file size is a bit too large so I compressed it.

Anyways since I still see some aptasia and there are signs of them growing back, I used aptasia X again yesterday. Hopefully that gets rid of the problem

 

[Reef_Aquatics]

I did a water change today and afterwards one of the fire fish got attacked by the clownfish and died. You can still see bite marks on the body of the fire fish. It's quite sad and now I guess I'll sell the other fire fish to prevent it from being another unfortunate victim. Well at least now I know that fire fish don't get along well with clownfish

The snails and shrimp ate the body afterwards. I don't really know exactly when the fire fish died but it's sometime in the afternoon. I only saw the body after I wanted to grab something from the fridge.

 

[Reef_Aquatics]

I plan on making a trap tomorrow to catch the remaining fire fish. I already have someone who's willing to buy it and they'll pick up the fish tomorrow night

 

[kevgib67]

Looks great, you’ve had your ups and downs as we all have but you come across having a positive attitude. A lot of people have better luck with predators for the aptasia, Australian Stripey, file fish, berghia nudibranchs or true aptasia eating peppermint shrimp to name a few.

 

[Reef_Aquatics]

Guys I'm gonna convert one of my older freshwater tanks into a sump and maybe convert the HOB filter into a refugium

 

[dinosaur_1552]

Guys I'm gonna convert one of my older freshwater tanks into a sump and maybe convert the HOB filter into a refugium

Once you have the reefing bug you won't stop tinkering with things

After 6 months of pause I couldn't resist having a tank so I set up my pico less than a month ago - since then I swapped tanks, got another tank, changed filtration, lights, literally everything without any reasonable explanation why I am sinking time and $ into this

 

[Tavero]

If there are any improvements to be made please don't hesitate to tell me. I am trying to learn and improve

You have such nice live rocks. Dont you wanna do more with them than just stacking them on top of each other like a grave?
I think adding negative space would do a lot for the aqua scape.

 

[Reef_Aquatics]

You have such nice live rocks. Dont you wanna do more with them than just stacking them on top of each other like a grave?
I think adding negative space would do a lot for the aqua scape.

Well I didn't think I have enough rocks for this. I'll probably need to buy more

 

[Reef_Aquatics]

You have such nice live rocks. Dont you wanna do more with them than just stacking them on top of each other like a grave?
I think adding negative space would do a lot for the aqua scape.

Nice idea tho I'll think about it

 

[Reef_Aquatics]

I think this thread is long due for an update lol. I haven't really been on this forum very much for the past half a year or so, so please excuse me for my absence.

Firstly, updates about the fish:
I've encountered several problems with my clownfish. The clownfish started hosting my torches in May, and they were very successful in killing or annoying those corals. After they've killed two of my torches, I decided to sell the clownfish in August. The shrimp died of old age in July. After this ordeal, I looked into getting some new fish and corals for my tank. I decided to get a six-line wrasse because I suspect there were bristle worms in my tank. To give the wrasse more space, I sold the blenny as well. Now unfortunately, my lfs told me that the six-line wrasse I wanted was killed off by another fish. They offered melanurus as a replacement and I took it. Now I did some research on the melanurus and found that they would need a large swimming space once they've grown to their full size. My tank's height is quite low at 30cm and it has 75cm of length and around 50cm of width, which would provide somewhat adequate space for the fully-grown fish. If the tank proves to be too small for it, I will either upgrade or sell it. The wrasse was introduced around a week ago and it has adapted well to my tank. I tried to look for worm activity at night but didn't see any since the wrasse was introduced, so I think the fish did a good job of controlling them.

Here's a picture of when it first arrived and buried itself in the sand:

Now as for the corals, I have introduced several more since I last posted. First was this wonderful scolymia coral that I have introduced at around the start of 2026:

This was an early photo taken around May. Originally, this coral was placed at the far left side of my tank. After introducing my new torch, I've moved this coral to the centre-right side of my tank. This coral has grown particularly well in my tank and has gotten quite a bit larger since I first bought it.
As said in the previous paragraph, my pair of clownfish was able to murder my torch corals. Hence, after selling the clownfish, I decided to get a 6 head gold torch with green tips as a replacement for my previous losses. Here are some images taken today:

I have also acquired a new hammer coral, which has rainbow colors.

I've also bought a holy grail torch, which will be arriving today.

Now you've probably noticed that there is quite a bit of algae and cyano in the tank, along with aiptasia. This happened because my biological filter crashed due to a plumbing failure. I've begun dosing Brightwell Microbacter clean a week ago, which had somewhat of an effect on the algae and cyano. I've heard that significant change can take 8 to 10 weeks so I'll see what happens then.

I'll also be upgrading my sump by changing its filter socks into a fleece roller.