Fine, I'll setup a reef tank

[KayPi]

I never wanted a reef tank, I could not have cared less about corals, I never wanted to deal with mixing saltwater ever again, and fish wise, I've only ever yearned for a picasso triggerfish (some day!). My brother and I murdered MANY a marine fish back our youth, and I was perfectly happy to never do that again. After who knows how many years of my brother pestering me to setup a reef tank like his, I finally caved after I started reading up on corals for the first time, and discovered pulsing xenia, GSP, and toadstool leathers (say whatever you want about these all being easy, weeds, for beginners, etc; they all look awesome!). But first things first...the stand! The only space really left for a tank was in the living room, and god help me if I ruined the mid-century modern aesthetic with some heinous stand. The stand was seriously the make or break of this whole endeavor (and I had to get a Royal Gramma). Well, it just so happened that Petsmart had a "designer" line of stands with one that fit perfectly...that was no longer available online and showed zero stock available for in store pickup. As fate would have it, there was one still available at the Hillsdale Petsmart…so brace yourself wallet, this is actually happening!

As for the tank, since the stand only supported 32G, and I didn't trust Petsmart's weight assessment, I decided to go well under that and looked in the 20-25G range. The Red Sea nano's are pretty expensive, and besides, the 25G IM Lagoon AIO looked perfect. At the time (March'ish 2025) I couldn't find one locally, and online orders were backordered. An Aquatic Collection employee said they didn't carry IM tanks as they had heard stories of IM not honoring their warranties, and they had a 24G Lifegard AIO in stock, so sure, let's give that one a go. Next up, lighting, can I get away with something cheap? NOPE according to my brother ("buy once, cry once" he said). What should I get then? An AI prime? Fine, I already have an AI Blade for my planted tank, and at least I don't have to install another damn app. I figured I'd start as basic as I could get and add stuff like a nano skimmer if needed so besides filter media and a heater, that's about the extent of my equipment…I don’t actually need an ATO right?

I filled it up with some Caribsea Liferock and filled it up April 4th of 2025 and started cycling it w/ live sand and ammonia. Three weeks later I was ready to add some life, and of course it had to be a nemo. Luckily I also have a free coral supply in my brothers tank, and he had a big ass GSP covered rock that he wanted to get rid of; and I was happy to take it. He also has a ton of other corals that he was more than willing to give me. In one fell swoop I got my GSP, plus a frogspawn, birdsnest, hollywood stunner chalice, and a red monti cap. In hind sight, I shouldn't have taken the chalice and monti, but at the time I didn't know better. It looked great in his 180G...so why not take some? It didn't look great, and I had no idea where to put the corals, and I needed to move that damn sponge & heater into the back of the AIO…but I was finally reefing!

 

[MichaelB]

You gotta show the stand lmao. Built all the suspense about it. Now I wanna check it out.

The stunners have very long sweeper tentacles it may do battle with the frog spawn. Probably best kept in a corner. Their sweepers avg 6-8 inches some can go longer. Anything within 6-8 inches of it would likely get stung. Safe options near it are leathers they are pretty tough.


Also I'm nit sure if your back dating the tank journal or this is current. If so I would assume you've already learned what I refrenced above. Lol. If not consider it my attempt to save you from figuring it out the difficult way. Nice tank so far in any case.

 

[KayPi]

> You gotta show the stand lmao. Built all the suspense about it. Now I wanna check it out.
Here it is in all its glory. It was more about matching the coffee table than being a standout piece on its own

> Also I'm nit sure if your back dating the tank journal or this is current.
Oh, yeah, sry that wasn't clear. So this picture is the day I dumped all my brothers random corals into the tank (circa late April/early May 2025) without even know what ANY were except the GSP & hammer

 

[KayPi]

So yeah, turns out I did need an ATO…what a pain doing top ups by hand was! Beyond that, things stayed the same for many months. I threw some chaeto in the back section with a couple submersible lights, and it actually kinda worked (and continued to). I got that Royal Gramma (aka. Purple Rain…y’all name your fish right?) and finally got my xenia!

I wouldn’t say I was happy though. It was…fine. After the initial wave of corals, I really only added that xenia, a hammer, and the first of what what would be many Ricordea Florida’s. I took it slow like you’re supposed to, and things were doing well…but it wasn't sparking joy. Around October I started getting the itch to actually aquascape my planted tank (https://bareefers.org/forum/threads/planted-40g-waterbox-eden.40068/). Well the itch spread to the reef tank too. I had also been learning a TON more about different corals (like the chalice ) and learning that, hey, I don't think I want to deal with the xenia, and toadstools get WAY too big for a 24G. I also started getting into LPS's, and since the hammers were doing well, I figured that hey, maybe I CAN do harder corals.

I ended up wanting a GSP back wall and to re-focus the main area to more LPS's (and MORE Ricordea Florida's! I want all the colors!). The GSP wall limited my options, but I really wanted something with multiple levels and lots of hiding places for the fishies. I was also trying to account for concepts I'd picked up along the way, such as flow, and, as @MichaelB pointed out, coral warfare.

Come late November I had taken two weeks off work, and was going to dedicate one of those weeks to re-scaping both my big tanks. I got more Liferock, drained the tank, yanked all the GSP off that big ass rock and glued it to the back wall. I dunno where I went wrong, but I got WAAAAY to high with the rock work. I either measured wrong, or just got messed up between laying it out dry and actually implementing it. BUT, I was happy with the result, like, really happy, and that's the important thing...I'll deal with the coral placement in the tippy top somehow, some way...

Circa Late November 2025 (right after adding corals back in temporary locations):

And yeah, I still had no clue what to do with that chalice…just rested it on the side of the rock for now…

 

[KayPi]

In the ensuing 5+ months, nothing major has happened. I returned the chalice to my brother, and gave away the xenia. He gave me some pocillopora that I love, and is growing great at the tippy top, so that problem was solved! I've just been slowly adding the corals I wanted (hello torches or ricordeas). I also got into zoas...I dunno why I didn't appreciate them when I first found out about them, but thanks to some incredibly generous BAR members I have a zoa garden going. I apologize zoas, I was not familiar with your game.

I also added a purple firefish (Mochi) and a pygmy angelfish (Duran Duran, who hasn’t been a problem to my corals, so I’m keeping it around).

Circa now:

 

[clownvan]

well if you ever need a baby clown fish, lmk