Neb's Reef

[KingNebTheGreat]

Starting my build thread has been long overdue. My dad set up his first saltwater tank around a year before I was born, and since then he has always had a tank. I have always loved saltwater aquariums. My dad used to take me when he would purchase corals or livestock for his tanks, and it was just the best. From around 2020 his tank (24g biocube) began to see less effort put in, and eventually, in his words "it reached a state of equilibrium, where things neither died nor thrived". In the beginning of 2025 I was very much addicted to internet and video game things, and it had been that way for a while. In March of 2025 however, through a series of events, I completely stopped using electronics for anything apart from schooling. I decided I needed something to do and I chose to begin taking care of my dad's tank.
Here is 2 pictures I took of said tank on March 30th

Inhabitants:
Royal Gramma
Springeri Damsel
Serpent Star
and definitely not enough clean up crew
Corals:
Pulsing Xenia
Everalasting gobstopper zoas
Super Saiyan zoas
Rasta zoas
Pinwheel zoas
Orange ricordia yuma
Red discosoma
Devils hand leather
Kryptonite Candy canes
Birds nest (never been identified)
blue tentacle green tip frogspawn
There used to be more corals, but there was a ph crash in 2019 that killed many.
I started out slowly, with just some water changes, more regular feedings, cleaning, and eventually building up the clean up crew. There was some free floating coral pieces that I decided to make into frags. Problem was I didn't have any frag plugs, so I designed and 3d printed some in PLA.

And as much as people want to say pla is not good for this kind of thing. I still have the zoa frag in the picture over a year later and it is perfectly fine and the frag looks exactly the same.
Things slowly began to look better and better.

I started documenting all of my tests in the note book my dad used and after a few weeks I got my own. Most entries in this book prior to me where almost years apart. The last parameters that were written down where from December 2022 and also they were real bat parameters. I'm talking calcium 300, ph 7.4, salinity 1.023 like I don't know what was going on there, but what ever it was, it was bad.

April 18th 2025
I get my very first purchase for the tank
Astrea snails
Nassarius snails
2x ocellaris clownfish
Radioactive dragon eye zoas
White zombine zoas

The clownfish were named by myself. Named after the og clownfish my dad had and mom still brought up. Tic and Tac. Tic being the smaller and Tac being the larger.
The zoas were chosen by me and I was really excited to have my own corals. I will be frank here. I don't think I ever once saw those white zombies open fully in the 3 to 4 months they were actually open. After that they closed up, slowly shriveled, and disappeared.
The pinwheel zoas had a population of maybe 12, with a single large one like 2 inches from the rest. My dad said to snip it off and start a second colony.

A month or so go by with not much to note on. Pinwheel grows a baby head, Tic attempts to cosplay nemo and gets sucked into power head (separate story), and I start taking pictures of things using my parents Nikon D40 camera.

Between then and now Ive got purple people eater zoas, utter chaos zoas, jf limelight hydnophora, and a spicy lemon favia. No exact date unfortunately.
Around this time I convince my dad to take me to my lfs who I will be calling my dealer from now on. I get some stuff from him, probably some more cuc of which I don't remember, and some corals.

Butt muncher zoas
A favia I have only recently determined to be a Purple people eater favia
A lps that to this day I have no clue what it is
Reverse superman montipora
Keds red zoa

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along!

 

[KingNebTheGreat]

it's early may and I have somehow managed to convince my parents to let me upgrade to a larger tank we had, a 35g bowfront. (I still have no idea how I managed to convince them). By this point it is May 17, another local reef is giving away a redsea 250 for free when she couldn't sell it, and with spending all my allotted luck, the person before me to get it didn't have the space for it. So I took it home, cleaned it up, and then it sat outside for the time being. In anticipation for the larger tank, my dad and I make an online purchase from CandyCorals, for snails, crabs, and a few corals ;)
I ended up getting some Belladonna zoas, Blueberry fields zoas, Pandora zoas, and a Blue Macaw palythoa (I really like zoas can you tell yet?) My dad gets a Blue Rave Blastomussa.

A little while prior to this I modified the redsea to be sumpless (another story).
Once the water was mixed in the tank and the sand I ordered from amazon arrived it was time. I had bought a bottle of Dr. Tim's one and only from my CandyCoral order along with the ammonium chloride from amazon. Now I am a genius and I determined that the bacteria in the "live sand" were too beneficial to lose in washing the sand. So in the first bag of sand went. In that instant, the water went from crystal clear, to the most murky and disgusting looking water I have ever seen. So I put the glued together rockwork in, completely blind because I can't see my hand 1 inch below the waters surface along with some more seed rock from the old tank. and I dump the second unwashed bag in. Like I said, Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius. The sand came with clarifier packets which I dumped in, they made it clear up a bit, but very far from being able to actually see in the tank. A bit of jerryrigging later and I had a spare maxipump with a cut pop bottle full of filter floss pulling water through the floss. About 12 hours here's how it all looked. Day 1 June 13th 2025

I meant to take daily pictures but then didn't. Anyways, after almost a month (including water changes) I have determined that it is ready for the first bits of life. Apart from the medusa hydroids I saw during cycling and some limpets.
July 9th. The first corals which are just some frags I had.

July 10th Corals are not dead and are looking decent

Here are the medusa hydroids I saw early on in the tanks life

After a few days to make sure everything is doing fine, I begin to move over any corals that aren't glued down from the old tank. Along with Tic and Tac.
July 14th

Probably was hasty I know, but I was not incredibly concerned as everything in the new tank was ready and I had about 20 or so pounds of rock that had been curing for nearly 2 decades not yet in.
July 15th The big move

 

[KingNebTheGreat]

July 15 That night I took these beautiful pictures of the tank

Fish lost: 0
Corals lost: 0
Once I am sure everything is acclimated and happy I begin moving corals around, trying different positions in rock work.
July 26th The zoa garden begins to form

These are the pinwheels by this point. July 26th there are 3 and 1 baby polyp.

Hind sight is a pain sometimes, and that is very much the case with these. I should have waited longer.
July 31 The torches

My dealer had a sale going on for torches. 4 torches for $200. 1 Dragon soul (supposedly) 1 reverse holy grail, 1 black tentacle purple tip, and 1 other that I don't quite remember. in addition to a info gold hammer, rose gold hammer, orange acan echinata, and a red acan lord. The black tentacle purple tip never fully opened up and it basically had no flesh band at all.

Told the guy he had given me a practically gone torch, he said it was fine, I told him no, he said he would look when he brought my next order of corals (duncan, magician palys, red people eater palys, and gsp). That day comes around and he has brought me another dragon soul torch (again supposedly, they didn't look at all like dragon souls) "incase the one dies". About a week or so later the black tentacle became brown mush. Also he forgot my gsp.

I am going by my photos folder for all of this and the time jump to the next photos is like 2 months so here's what happens in those two months. Get red planaria flatworm infestation. Fail to kill flatworm infestation. I set up my own frag tank since my frag rack is huge. Buy some more stuff from dealer including:
blood sucker zoas
gorilla nipple zoas
candy apple red zoas
jungle juice zoas
purple death palys
scrambled egg zoas
blowpop zoas
watermelon something favia
a favia that was not the one I asked for (blood diamond favia)
the favia I did ask for (bulbasaur favia)
Gold cloves
Rainbow cloves
Fire walker cyphastrea
Green paragoniastrea
This in my opinion, was the peak of the tank. No issues apart from the flatworms and everything is doing well.
I get my absolute favourite fish. Minu, my Longnose Hawkfish

Minu was my child. I loved him so much. After that I got Nyx the Sixline wrasse who for the most part was peaceful. The purpose of getting him was to deal with the flatworms (which has been mediocre). Then Minu started acting weird one day, he was perched in the rockwork which was very abnormal for him. He ignored feeding time which was incredibly out of the ordinary as he was quite food motivated. Whether it was stress or something I don't know. He managed to jump out of the tank that night and passed away. The lid was eggcrate and he managed to wriggle through. I don't think I have been broken like that in a long time. After that, for a few weeks I struggled with wanting to take care of the tank. This was beginning of the tank's downward slope.

November
It had now been a bit since the passing of Minu and one day I noticed my gsp fading. Over the course of 3 days it went from perfect bright green, to grey. Not dead, it was still extending polyps, but something was wrong and I ignored it. A day or so later all my lps closed up. I tested everything: calcium, alkalinity, salinity, nitrate, phosphate, ph, the only thing I didn't test was magnesium because I didn't have a test. This went on for a few days without improvement.
I was testing wrong.
After a few days I took some water to my dealer since I was heading out that way for a different reason. He tested it and I figured out what the problem was. My alkalinity. Through a mixture of testing wrong, increasing alkalinity too fast and being misinformed about correct values. My alkalinity was around 13. I replaced some tank water with ro water, added calcium because it was already low and to help lower alk. I ended up losing 3 of the 4 torches and eventually the 4th, the info gold hammer, rose gold hammer, and about a third of my large green hammer colony and more later on. Very rapid tissue recession, talking complete recession in under 2 weeks.

My dealer brought me a free torch a month or two later when he heard I lost 3 of the 4. Minimal flesh band but I can't complain about a free torch. I have managed to keep it alive over this time, doing everything in my power to keep it alive. Gold tentacle blue tip, i'm not quite sure what it is exactly.

 

[KingNebTheGreat]

SHORT STORY TIME: Tic and the Belly of the Beast
Tic and Tac were the newest members of the reef. Tac was the size of a quarter and Tic the size of a dime. Being a 24gallon biocube, a generic power head was more than enough flow for the entire tank apart from the return of the filtration. Tic felt he was not getting the attention that he had deserved. All his life, practicing his acting career for the chance to make it big and score an acting role in the next Disney Pixar Finding Nemo movie. Despite his talent, he felt he was never truly given the stage to himself and the audience's attention. On one fateful day however, during tank maintenance, Tic saw his opportunity to prove his acting skills. With an enormous audience of two, he saw his chance to prove his worth. But, how to prove his phenomenal acting skills he pondered. Then it clicked, he would recreate the scene from Finding Nemo when Nemo heroically slays the wretched hang on the back filter in his aquarium by swimming inside and lodging a rock inside. Tic couldn't carry a rock up to the power head, but that was no big deal. So long as his whole audience observed he too could be the tank's hero, and stop the power head. Tic swam to the pump, overflowing with confidence, his fiancé Tac giving support in the background. As he reached the pump he had to choose how to enter the pump. There was no easy entry as Nemo had it. The back? No too simple and he knew it wouldn't reach the center of the pump. The bottom? He could easily enter to the center of the pump! But how would his audience see his performance? The top was the only option. He swam to the top of the pump, feeling the immense power the pump was exerting. For just a moment, he wondered if he was as brave and heroic as Nemo was. Could he really stop the tremendous beast? At this moment of hesitation, his fiancé called a last encouragement. He must do this. For his acting career! This was his chance. He swam in the top of the pump. In he went, head first. He managed to wriggle in almost half way before all of a sudden. The pump stopped. To Tic's horror, his audience was trying to stop him! Did they not want him to succeed? Surely they thought he couldn't be as brave as Nemo. No, he must prove them wrong. So he wriggled and slid his way into the pump. The whirring of the blades had stopped but the beast must only be sleeping, he thought. So to the back of the pump he swam. He could hear the audience attempting to rescue him from the beast. But he did not need saving. He would prove he could slay the beast. As the audience struggled to behead the beast, Tic swam to the heart of the beast. But it had no heart you see. For the beast was smart, and had armoured away it's heart. Upon seeing such a disappointing site, Tic made his was back to where he had entered. The audience had beheaded the beast and rejoiced when they saw Tic return from the belly of the beast. Tic had a warm feeling inside him. He had finally proved his acting skills to his audience. Tic had escaped the beast, but not unscathed. The beast had managed to rip off part of his tail fin. Just like the real Nemo, Tic now had his own damaged fin. A reminder of the best day in his acting career.

 

[KingNebTheGreat]

Current plan is to get a bta from my lfs, continue dealing with my algae, continue building my sump, and maybe get some more cuc

 

[jaymer]

Which lfs do you go to?

 

[Quantum.Reef]

Nice setup

 

[ozreef88]

I like your story of going from internet addiction to reef addiction. Nice setup!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Beautiful zoa selection you have going!

 

[KingNebTheGreat]

Beautiful zoa selection you have going!

Thank you! I love zoas and tend to have decent luck with them. Started out with the four in my dad's tank in march of 2025 and currently I have 24. would have 27 but 3 have melted on me. White Zombies, Red People Eaters, and Magicians.
I keep telling myself I don't need anymore zoas, but every time I order anything there seems to be a new zoa in my cart every time.

 

[KingNebTheGreat]

More reefing history later. Current tank update: Been dealing with Dinoflagellates Ostreopsis for a couple months now due to high phosphates (0.8 at one point) and bottomed out nitrates. However, I currently am gaining (I hope) the upper hand on it with a UV sterilizer 24/7, GFO, dosing NeoNitrate, dosing Aquaforest NP Pro, dosing microbacter7 and dr. tim's waste away on alternate days, blackouts, and manual removal.
I have switched from RedSea Coral Pro blue salt to Aquaforest Reef Salt and after only two 15% water changes have seen numerous corals (especially softies) looking better than ever. Not only that but it mixes sooo much faster and cleaner.
I bought 40-50 more pounds of dry rock which I have now bleach soaked and plan to rescape the right side of the tank with as most of the rocks are no longer glued together and I don't like how it looks now:

I traded some soft corals for two Nicrew Hyperreef 50 gen 1 and a controller with another local reefer who had them from a downsize.
My grandma was down in Florida and found a place that had juvenile fighting conchs (Strombus Pugilis) for cheap and brought me four of them. All of which have been in quarantine and will stay in quarantine for the next four to six weeks as I know they were wild caught but I don't know how long they were quarantined prior to sale, that way I am not introducing ich or velvet into my tank.

I designed, 3D printed, and installed an underground burrow spanning the width of the tank for my engineer goby Flotsam:

Yes I do know that the periscope pipe above the sand is not visually pleasing and I will be placing rubble and more sand around it, I just made it a little taller than I should have and I didn't want to continue bothering the area much more.

Other than that the tank has been doing quite well and I am content with how it all is. I am running out of space for coral if I haven't already so I will now be looking at getting more fish rather than more coral. I am looking into getting another engineer goby, 3 blue neon gobies, a court jester goby, and possibly some banggai cardinals.

 

[Tahoe61]

It's such a great tank now! Are you sure you want to disrupt the rock work and corals with an Enginer Goby?

 

[KingNebTheGreat]

It's such a great tank now! Are you sure you want to disrupt the rock work and corals with an Enginer Goby?

Yup, I already have one and his name if Flotsam and I love his antics. Keeps me on my toes managing any corals that may be buried