My dear reefers, my apartment has asked me to downsize. (180 not doable)

[Zionas]

First, some good news. China has allowed citizens of 36 European countries to apply for visas / or if they have valid visas to visit / return, I think South Korea too. This means I’m inching closer to going home and starting my tank. Now, the bad news. I informed my apartment manager once again that I intend to have a 180 in a 246 square foot area occupying a section of the wall, and she absolutely freaked out. I also started having doubts myself before this. Then I asked her if I could do a 120 4-2-2 and she also wasn’t too keen on that (she’s nice though). So after a bit of negotiating back and forth, we have agreed that I can do up to a 3’ tank, and I will be going for a custom build 90cm x 60cm x 55cm (36” x 24” x 22”) which will give me slightly under 80 gallons to work with. 78 gallons to be exact. I chose 22” instead of 24” to keep the water volume under 80 gallons and closer to a 75. Looking back the maintenance of a 6’ in an apartment would have driven me crazy.

My place is a (very) low rise apartment, I think a total of 7 stories tall and I’m on the second floor. Hopefully being close to the foundation, and being in a 5-year old building (so very new) should work in my favor. The manager thinks a 3’ x 2’ x 1.8’ footprint shouldn’t be too scary.

This also means I’ll have a much easier time doing water changes because it can be done with a 10-gallon bucket or two.

As soon as I get my butt back home I’ll start a build thread lol. Will keep you guys posted. Tank will remain a mixed reef of LPS and soft corals, looking into Pavona decussatus, M. digitata and M. capricornis too but worried about their difficulty since they’re SPS.

My list of livestock will be as follows:

Fish-
2 Ocellaris Clowns
3 PJ Cardinals
1 Yellow Coris Wrasse (for pests)
1 Royal Gramma
1 African Flameback Angel
1 Azure Damsel
1 Purple Firefish
1 Starry / Bicolor Blenny (With Starry as my first choice)
1 shrimp goby (YWG / Pink Bar / Randall’s / Wheeler’s / Orange Spotted) + Tiger Pistol Shrimp



Inverts-
1 Tiger Pistol Shrimp (to be added ~1 week after the goby)
1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
1 Blood Red Cleaner Shrimp
1 Red Tuxedo Urchin
1 Blue Tuxedo Urchin
15 Trochus Snails (add if more needed)
15 Nassarius Snails (add if more needed)
15 Cerith Snails (add if more needed)




Corals-

Softies-
1 Orange Discosoma
1 Green Discosoma
1 Green Striped Discosoma
1 Florida Ricordea
1 Elephant Ear Rhodactis
1 Bull’s Eye Rhodactis


1 Multi-Colored Zoas (Variant 1)
1 Multi-Colored Zoas (Variant 2)
1 Green Zoas
1 Purple Zoas
1 Pink Zoas
1 Yellow Zoas


1 Toadstool Leather
1 Fiji Yellow Leather
1 Flexible Finger Leather
1 Devil’s Hand Leather

1 Branching GSPs

1 Purple Tree Gorgonian (Muricea)
1 Muricea Gorgonian



LPS-

1 Bubble Coral
1 Branching Frogspawn
1 Candy Cane
1 Pink Duncan

1 Pentagon Favites
1 Green Crystal Brain (Cynarina)
1 Goniastrea Honey Comb
1 Blastomussa Pineapple (Wellsi)

1 Lord Howe’s Acan
1 Australian Scolys
1 Lobed Brain
1 Cat’s Eye Brain (Acanthophyllia)

1 Green Turban
1 Tongue Coral
2 assorted Fungia Fungites

1 Echinopora Fox Coral
1 Open Brain Trachys
1 Folded Brain Symphyllia
1 Branching Hammer



SPS (maybe)-

1 M. Capricornis (maybe)
1 M. Digitata (maybe)
1 P. Decussatus (maybe)

For a total of 38-41 corals.


The Songbao 100W UV sterilizer and the BK skimmer will still be used.

Looking forward to this xD. Smaller tank actually brings me more peace of mind.

 

[KrisReef]

I am wondering how many square inches of bottom surface area you will have for each coral once this is set up? It’s a simple math equation in 2 dimensions (and with rock you will have 3). I should have asked myself this question when I started so I’m not attacking, just posting to share something I’m learning over time.

 

[Zionas]

That’s something I have not thought about yet, so thanks for bringing it up. Currently all I can say is I don’t know yet. I do know some of these corals can get really big.