Managing My Mature Mini Reef

[kirimarie]

Hi, I am looking for advice. I started my first mini reef tank about 4 years ago. It's been great learning this new hobby. And the tank has done amazing until this last year. I think the problem is that my corals have all outgrown the tank. I upped my water changes and upgraded the pump to increase the waterfloe, and that helped for maybe 4 months...but the coral kept growing! My beautiful anenome is sulking for the last couple of months, and I know I need to do something about this! I am not interested in upgrading to a larger tank, nor in learning how to frag. I just ordered a protein skimmer that I'm going to install. Will that help? But what else can I do?! I traded a beautiful, big leather for 2 small frags at one the local shops 2 years ago, and neither thrived in my tank, so I am reluctant to make a trade like that again. I started with small frags of all my corals, and I know that any of the corals in my tank right now could be fragged into lots of pieces. But I'd probably need to trade in all my rocks that they are on, and then what? Would I need to cycle my tank again with new rocks? I hope you more experienced refers can give me your advice!!! (PS- in addition to the corals are 2 clown fish, a shrimp, and CUC)

 

[Nano sapiens]

Looking on the bright side, you have a problem that many struggling reef keepers would love to have, namely a successful reef aquarium! To maintain that success without bumping up to a larger tank, you'll need to make some choices about what stays, what gets cut, etc. Since you are now forced to evaluate and modify to maintain system health, this is the stage where you can gain a lot of experience about how various choices can effect a function reef system (positive and negative).

What size is your aquarium? I had a pair of Ocellaris Clownfish in my 12 g cube for a few years, but they outgrew the system (female grew to 4" and was starting to develop abrasions from bumping into branching hard coral), so the proper thing to do was rehome them and get some smaller nano appropriate fish. They also eat a lot when adult size which required attention to cleanliness, frequent water changes and regular detritus/uneaten food removal.

Since many 'leather' soft corals are toxic to one degree or another, as your soft corals grow they may start to negatively effect other sensitive creatures in your tank, like the anemone. Anything you do to the system should be to optimize the conditions for the most sensitive animal and then the other creatures should do well, also.

Always helpful to list your full tank parameters, especially nutrient levels like (PO4 & NO3) in this case to see if they might possibly be too high for the anemone's liking?