Last Chance Tank Before Baby!

Ben's Pico Reefing · Dec 17, 2025

Hello, it's been a few weeks. I thought I had posted but seems I never clicked the button. Wife and baby are doing great. Everyone is happy and healthy just all a little tired.

The tank itself is doing well. I needed to do a full cleaning as it was neglected a bit few days after we got home from hospital. I pulled out the rock to scrub and treated with hydrogen peroxide. I also been spot treating in tank.i picked up a few snails as well. I also added some rubble when I cleaned the sand in order to have more structure and stability for the pistol shrimp.

I have lowered my water changes as I have to dose nitrates and phosphates. I also started dosing aminos as well as photo feast. I did remove the lid to tank and evap seems to be manageable but may change the auto water change to dose either the photo or nitrate and just add it as a to.

I am currently working to bring the red back into the sps at the top currently an off green color.

My filter roller seems to be possessed as it is wanting to always roll every few minutes just a pinch. I have tried all sorts of adjustments but seems to be getting splashed and triggering sensor.

All in all tank is doing well and almost have everything dialed in.

Ben's Pico Reefing · Dec 22, 2025

Just posting some pics of the sps I added a few months ago and growth starting from 9/18

9/18

Sps was knocked over and reglued between these photos

Dec 22

I have a bunch of photos of this coral to monitor growth but figured I just post a few. Currently working to get the red coloration back.

Ben's Pico Reefing · Jan 3, 2026

Happy new Year everyone. The baby is doing great and is over a month old. She has been smiling and laughing already as well as lifting her head on her own and looking around. Our new favorite game is guessing are we talking about the baby or the dog for some things lol. She got to meet her uncle and cousins as well as re-meet her aunt on wife's side this week. Our pup loves to be with her and if not, will get to her quick if she starts crying.

But the tank will be changing again. I think I just have to have some sort of project. But this is more for wife.

Every time we go to our lfs, she always points out and looks at the clownfish and how much she likes certain ones. We decided we will be getting a pair for her. Specifically the black ice with more of the black coloration in it. This also means we will need a bigger tank.

The tank I am looking at is the IM Fusion 15. This will mean I would not have to upgrade or swap out gear which makes my wife happy. And the lights will still work with the 2 blade lights. Glow and grow. The tank is the cheapest at 99.

In return I will ask my local shop to sell my other tank once swapped since I have no room to store and save some money.

I don't know when yet we will be executing this plan yet as I have some other things to take care of first.

Ben's Pico Reefing · Jan 20, 2026

Since we are planning 2 get a couple clowns, I have a 15 gallon tank coming. This will pretty much be a swap out as everything will work perfectly with the larger tank. We will hopefully be picking out the clowns for the LFS to hold for us until I setup the tank which should be here Friday.

I did neglect my current tank but cleaned it up nicely yesterday and did my own coral snow to help with algae and cyano. Cyano seemed to be clearing up though. I also added microbacter clean as well. I am not a fan of microbacter 7 or anything that has biological organisms that is used for fresh and saltwater mainly involving bacteria.

Prior to dosing I scraped and cleaned the glass best I could and syphoned out the sand doing 2 large water changes to get all the loose detritus and algae. This really surprised me as much flow as I had while not much was syphoned out of sand, when I added water back debris was floating everywhere so syphoned again. After refilling, I then dosed the coral snow and then microbacter clean. I also added a bit of nitrates and benepets. Today I fed a bit of mysis, benepets, a bit of bacteria again, aminos and a food with coral mix in it as well as nitrates.

I also noticed my corals have exploded as well recently. The sps are growing a lot more, bowerbanki is growing new mouths, everything seems happy. Photos were after feeding. Sorry for the hypersaturation.