Having Fun With It (20gal reef + extra)

[Seafeather]

About a year ago my husband and I started talking about starting a saltwater tank and we started diving in. I’d had experience with freshwater tanks in the past so knew a little, but definitely not the intensive care salt tanks seem to require. We had already established our planted betta tank and I had made my desktop minor planted shrimp tank. The process of getting our reef tank setup was about to begin!

First on the list was finding a tank that fit our aesthetic wants and then the max gallons we could fit in our apartment (darn you apartment leases!) which was 20gal. After some discussion we decided we liked the cube dimensions and went with a Waterbox EDEN 20 with the stand. It even came with a light! We also decided to use the OASE Filtosmart Thermo 100 for our filter. We actually drew a ton of our inspiration for the hardware from MJ Aquascaping on YouTube (seriously jealous of that guy’s LFS).

Once we had that built and ready to go it was off to our LFS for some live sand and reef rock. I do wish our LFS had more hardscape to choose from, but with what we were given I’m pretty happy with our archy setup we have here. Plenty of cotton and super glue later we had our rock coral palace built, ready to house corals, fish, crabs, and shrimp!
(The before water!)

(The during water!)

(The after water!)

After I had anxiously waited a week or so, hoping the tank was cycling and testing it every day, adding fish flakes I had and the casualties from my shrimp tank, I had begun to see the brown spots of life: algae! Once it started to spread on the rocks a little bit I felt it was time to put in our first tenants: clownfish!

Say hello to Zoe and Veritas! Zoe is the Greek word for Life and Veritas is the latin word for Truth. We also bought 4 red leg hermit crabs and 4 blue leg hermit crabs (I still don’t remember their actual names). Our little tank was coming to life! The more picturesque picture of the single clownfish is of Veritas. He’s my boy :)

(The hermit crabs LOVE the reef rock. They climb their little Everest every day, all day.)

The most recent purchase (and longest/most anticipated on my end) is my pompom crab! :D I love him so much. I got to enjoy him for maybe an hour before he disappeared, which was maybe 4 days ago. We’re hoping to get a few more. Maybe if we have more of them I can see them more…lol (actually while writing this I saw him for the first time in 4 days! Still alive so I am happy! :))

The next purchase will hopefully be a watchman goby and pistol shrimp combo! We’re really trying to go for the whole ecosystem thing. Of course we’ll also be adding some corals to the show sometime with some pulsing xenia on the lone rocks in the front of the tank, some GSP to make a carpet on the back, hopefully an anemone for the clownfish sometime, and then just whatever floats our boat! Recs for easy beginner corals would be appreciated! :) I also find too much yet not general enough information on lighting so if you know of a good breakdown for lighting percentages and needs that would be lovely to know too! I will update with each new grouping we add to the tank.

Happy reefing!

 

[cdemoss01]

Nice photos, love the color.

 

[Seafeather]

Nice photos, love the color.

Thank you!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[Seafeather]

We have some new additions to introduce (and one to say farewell to..) to the reef!

My husband and I knew from when we first started this hobby that we wanted clownfish and a goby/pistol shrimp combo. So after getting our baby clowns settled in and the tank a bit more matured in (clowns are doing swimmingly and are as adorable as ever!) I felt like it was time to add the next groupings.

Saturday rolls around after having worked 20 hours overtime last week with the explicit intention of using the funds to fund the tank (what have I become?), I used my day off to go look at a new store to me and end up leaving with 4 new creatures: a yellow watchman goby, a candy stripe pistol shrimp, a zoa, and a clove polyp.

Goby was so cute when I put the net in there to move him to the tank. He just plupped right in and didnt want to move.

Little shrimp, little shrimp! He was sooo tiny and by far the most expensive guy in the tank so far. I havent seen him since putting him in.

Mr. Goby found the big cave and quickly called it home. Shy boy!

And of course the corals looked horrendous after being transported and dipped and placed into the tank. I set them in and let them do their thing and decided to check in the next day. 10 minutes before we leave the next day disaster of a sort occurs and my filter spits up so much gunk but my corals are totally closed and i havent seen goby in a while even with the flashlight i have.

We couldn't do anything right then i just had to pray everything would be okay. Long story short and 5 hours later i have done a water change, cleaned the disgusting filter out, and somehow have to prime it by pouring water into the tubes and fighting the system.

I let it sit and its looking much MUCH better than it did. But Mr. Goby didnt make it through the night and the hermit crabs had quite the feast...not much was left by the time i pulled him out of there.

But on the bright side, the corals are slowly opening. Our first forray into corals! Yay!

The zoa!

He's been very unwilling to fully open. We'll see! Its a gumball(?) zoa, at least i believe thats what it was called.

And the clove polyps! Would love to know their exact name if anyone knows. :)

I will hopefully be replacing the goby soon. Probably within the next few days. And maybe a cleaner shrimp as well. This algae is getting a bit out of hand.

 

[Seafeather]

Whew its been a journey! And we have a few more corals to add to this ever growing list!



We snagged this amazing toadstool coral for only $50 at our LFS. Even the associate at the store said it was an amazing steal. He was open for about a week and then has been closed since then to do some sloughing of old skin. He only recently started opening again and I'm so happy! This was taken today.

Moving right along we also added a duncan! I didnt know these guys existed till we saw them at our LFS and I'm in love with it. He's so cool!

And then some of our local chorus eggs (for those of you who like Skyrim know what I mean!) i.e. ricordea. Heard it was easy to take care of, likes the sand bed, and I wanted something a little different. He's grossly cool.

And now to the big reveal. Our first coral that doesnt just do its thing on its own without our help! Welcome to our alveopora! My husband really wanted this guy in the shop. So this coral is his responsibility. It will require some feedings but we've yet to do anything for him since the tank is exploding with copepods, he looks fine, and the coral food we do have apparently dirties up the water. So we'll feed him at the next water change.

And then FINALLY our zoa has completely opened. I had to move him up closer to the light. Dude loves it up there now. We also got some GSP and I don't recall if I included it in the last posts or not, but here he is. He will eventually be moved to the back so he can create a carpet along the back wall. Husband saw it in the shops and liked it so that was that!

Finally that brings us to a full shot of the tank! Can't wait to see what happens over these next few months! Its becoming a proper reef tank!

 

[Seafeather]

Its been a while so it was time to add some new buddies to the tank!

Added a funny lawnmower blenny who is absolutely demolishing the algae problem i was having. He is lovingly called Lenny or Leonard. We like to play the new game called Find the Blenny.

And then the newest addition is a blue tang! We will be buying a house soon and as such will have room for a MUCH bigger tank (we're thinking 100+ gallons). So when that's set up, the baby tang will be moved to her permanent home in the big tank so she can swim to her heart's content. Her and the clownfish have become fast friends! They even encouraged her to come out and eat the nori I placed for them.

 

[Seafeather]

Update!!

After being gone for a month in December and leaving the tank to hopefully survive with an auto feeder, buying a house, and the whole task of moving not only our stuff, but several fish tanks too, we have finally settled in.

Not long after we moved the tank, we left the lid off the whole time. It was nice being able to look down into the tank. But one day i couldnt find one of our clowns. My dog kept sniffing in some clothes on the floor and it turned out to be a clown. :( Poor thing went carpet surfing and didnt make it. The lid has stayed firmly on since then.

A couple months have passed and we felt like it was the right time to start adding more to the nano tank (and also to the new micro tank sitting on my desk!). Plus some surprise money from my parents didn't hurt either. Decided to get 6 new corals and a new blenny (our other blenny sadly passed several months ago now with no idea why he passed other than possible age).

The first two are in my micro tank! A single zoa polyp and a lil mushroom! I've never had a mushroom before and this tank doesnt have a ton of flow so figured it would go good in there. The microtank is home to 2 hermits, 1 snail, and 1 pompom crab.

Now to the nano tank!

Freshly added over the last two months are 3 corals that I got from Aquashella in Dallas (I really could go on and on about my experience there. I had a BLAST!)

First is some pulsing xenia. I know, I know, it's a pest, but it's on its own rock for now and my husband loves it.

My sister went with me to Aquashella and bought the Hammer for me! I love it so much. It adds such wonderful movement to the tank.

And then the big surprise! A space invader pectinia! I actually had to post a pic on here to get it ID'd because I had no idea what it was. I paid $25 to pick out an egg from a tank and this is what was inside it. Gotta say I think I made the right choice! It wasnt doing too great at all when I put it in, but it's perking up quite nicely now. I'd love for it to grow out and to be able to frag it for trades or stores.

And now to the really truthfully newest additions as I just bought them yesterday (along with the zoa and mushroom in the micro tank).

A brand new duncan, 2 little zoa colonies, and some GSP since our last one was lost to the Great Abandonment (i.e. our long vacation in December).

All in all, I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with this tank. It felt so empty for so long, but slowly it's coming together again.

Sneak peek at the newest project...