Steph's Mantis & NPS Mix-and-Match Tank

Gumbies R Us · Jan 29, 2026

Stephers said:
2 months since an update, but not much has changed!
Still chugging along and pouring in lots of BBS every day lol. I did lose my tunicates a monthish ago, the one I bought and one that came in on a coral and had gotten quite large. They both died in the same few days, which I'm not sure what that means. The nitrates did get pretty high at one point. I was out of town for Thanksgiving and then got very sick with whatever the heck was going around for weeks and slacked on maintenance. I think that was likely it.

Everyone else is doing well and I've actually seen some fabulous growth. Here's some comparison pics on the more obvious ones. Makes my heart happy that they're not just surviving but growing. The orange and purple gorgs are nearly out of the water now lol... The yellow finger gorg has a good encrusting base going onto the rocks now. Hopefully he'll start growing vertically soon as well.

Such an interesting tank! Thanks for sharing updates with us!

Stephers · Feb 15, 2026

Hello!
Wanted to share my new guy I picked up this week. Happy to have finally found a red chili coral. I got an orange one a while ago (which I didn't even know existed). And boy is it much larger than I expected!! I got it 3 days ago and finally got it to come out a bit today. The polyps are pretty small compared to the orange chili. Hopefully some good meals will get those polyps long and thick soon.

And my mantis was being very photogenic the other day, so I took a few pictures of him. He completed a molt last week (after being completely MIA for 2 weeks) and is now back to normal business. Just wish the glass had been a bit cleaner. It's hard to reach down there lol...

gorgoniansfever · Feb 17, 2026

Very happy to see your tank update!
The chili coral polyps will get long and thick quickly under good feeding ,I have such experience.
How about your carbon dosing plan? your gorgonian looks very happy.

Stephers · Mar 13, 2026

gorgoniansfever said:
Very happy to see your tank update!
The chili coral polyps will get long and thick quickly under good feeding ,I have such experience.
How about your carbon dosing plan? your gorgonian looks very happy.

I gave up completely on carbon dosing months ago. The corals just seem much happier without. I'm just doing a very large water change weekly (about 50%).

Stephers · Mar 13, 2026

Finally, bit the bullet and got a blueberry gorgonian... Have had it almost a week now. I've been debating for a while about getting one, but I went out of town for a show and one of the LFS I stopped at had the most beautiful and healthy looking ones and I couldn't resist trying. It opened up immediately after being in the tank and has been open 24/7 since then.

Here is the first day.

I'm feeding the live BBS to it twice a day directly and then plus whatever it gets when I dump in the daily live phyto and weekly copepods and random BBS flying around the tank. It seems to be enjoying the BBS. The polyps open much larger now. I'll have to take a new picture.

Here's a side view of the tank. The new red chili is doing great.