15 Gallon Nano - Waterbox Peninsula All in One (AIO) - Skip Cycle - Mixed Reef

[Macbalacano]

Oh my god! The tank is stunning!

Sorry, for some reason I haven't gotten notifications from when you post on here.

I am so happy that you beat dinos, thats awesome!

How are the wrasse and conch doing?

I am also glad to see that the arrow crab worked to get rid of your bristle worms! That's awesome to hear. I have a few in my tank, and I think a ribbon worm, and I hate them. And, yikes. That predatory worm is not fun, and I hope you find a way to get rid of it!

Aww thank you! I just checked your tank thread as well and glad to see the progress, looks like its going well and lots of fun!

Yes, very happy the dinos are still at bay, but I am definitely having a bit of a harder time dialing in nutrients still. I got busy the past 4 days and I forgot to dose nitrates and phosphates and saw both those almost hit 0 again by the time I dosed. I thought having another fish in there + adding 2 shrimp + feeding more often and heavier + no longer using any nutrient exports = would help increase nutrients, but that doesn't seem to have much of an impact. Starting to look like I might have to dose phosphates and nitrates daily.

The Wrasse comes out every time I feed now and see him exploring out in the open a few times a day. He looks very healthy and the clowns and him seem like good friends, so I'm happy about that!

Conch is doing a really great job cleaning and he is very active every day. He's the perfect size for the tank and fun to watch.

Thanks again for dropping by and looking forward to staying up to date on your tank also!

 

[Nano_Man]

Just came across your build thread . Great job love your reef and how you write about it .
I will follow.
Again great job

 

[Macbalacano]

Just came across your build thread . Great job love your reef and how you write about it .
I will follow.
Again great job

Thank you for your kind words and for following along

 

[Macbalacano]

April 4 Update:

I was doing some work on my laptop late this evening beside the tank after the tank lights went out.

I then saw two of the predatory worms trying to attack my conch!

I ended up grabbing tweezers and managed to grab one of them out of the tank! I think I was only able to do this because it was in the act of trying to paralyze the conch with its slime.

Still at least one other one in there, hoping that I can catch it again in the act in the future.

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

April 4 Update:

I was doing some work on my laptop late this evening beside the tank after the tank lights went out.

I then saw two of the predatory worms trying to attack my conch!

I ended up grabbing tweezers and managed to grab one of them out of the tank! I think I was only able to do this because it was in the act of trying to paralyze the conch with its slime.

Still at least one other one in there, hoping that I can catch it again in the act in the future.

Yikes .

That's so scary. Kudos to you for having the guts to take it out! I for sure would not have been able to do that haha.

I hope you are able to get the last one out!

 

[Macbalacano]

July 8, 2024 Update (Tank is only 7 months old!!!)

It has been 3 months since my last update. Life has been very busy!

The main point I want to share in this update is that the tank has completely stabilized and the parameters are pretty much the same every time I test. I also went on vacation for 2 weeks and did not do any maintenance on the tank for 4 weeks and there were no major issues at all. Keep in mind that I am dosing: AFR, Nitrates, and Phosphates on Kamoer single dosers.

As you'll see in my notes below, the tank isn't perfect, but the stability has helped many of my corals to take off. Many have doubled the number of heads and the SPS are considerably larger than 3 months ago. It is insane to me how fast everything has grown in such a short period of time!

I barely do any maintenance now and my hands are rarely in the tank. I probably spend on average about 5 hours per month on this tank in total to keep it looking the way you see it in photos. Very happy with the results!

Parameters:
Phosphates: 0.02 ppm
Nitrates: 5 ppm nitrates
Alkalinity: ~7-8 dkh

Notes & Observations:

- Alkalinity is running a little lower than I'd like, so I will continue to monitor and increase the AFR dosage over time

- Phosphates & Nitrates are perfect with feeding once a day of frozen

- Barely any nuisance algae, but definitely still have some bubble algae that I keep under control

- Cyano continues to be an issue, if left unchecked it comes back intensely every few months. Chemiclean works great, but would hope to have the issue gone permanently as the tank continues to mature. I don't overfeed, so I'm not quite sure what the issue is.

- The corals all look great except for a couple: (i) I kept my frogspawn near the back of the tank where it did not receive very much light and very low flow. I kept it there for several months and while it grew new heads, it has receded quite a bit. I moved it to a much brighter spot with moderate flow and also dipped it in Coral Rx, it looks stable and hope it will become healthy again over time; (ii) I have one orange Zoa that has not done well over the past few months and have slowly been losing heads. I tried placing it vertically and my assumptions are that it did not get enough light / not enough flow / does not like being near my Duncan coral. Will not change anything and hope some heads survive and grow over time; (iii) My green scoly ended up touching another coral (I don't recall its name but it is aggressive) and it lost some tissue. It looks healthy and seems to have fully recovered, but will keep an eye on it.

- My Pink Streaked Wrasse is still pretty shy and I don't see him much unless I'm far from the tank. I rarely see him eat, so I'm not really sure what he eats, but he looks healthy and well fed!

- My conch is awesome, always eating algae, best cleanup crew ever.

- The birdsnest coral looks amazing, but it is getting out of hand. No joke that these things will take over your tank. Very hardy SPS, highly recommend for beginners!

- Since my last update, my Hawaiian feather duster died, the cleaner shrimp were always bothering it and touching its crown every day, multiple times a day. It slowly receded and died. Sad about that, so it looks like I can't have any feather dusters in this tank with the shrimp.

- My coral glue wears off every few weeks on some corals and it's becoming really annoying to have to reglue them. I need to find something else or may go back to supergluing some.

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

July 8, 2024 Update (Tank is only 7 months old!!!)

It has been 3 months since my last update. Life has been very busy!

The main point I want to share in this update is that the tank has completely stabilized and the parameters are pretty much the same every time I test. I also went on vacation for 2 weeks and did not do any maintenance on the tank for 4 weeks and there were no major issues at all. Keep in mind that I am dosing: AFR, Nitrates, and Phosphates on Kamoer single dosers.

As you'll see in my notes below, the tank isn't perfect, but the stability has helped many of my corals to take off. Many have doubled the number of heads and the SPS are considerably larger than 3 months ago. It is insane to me how fast everything has grown in such a short period of time!

Parameters:
Phosphates: 0.02 ppm
Nitrates: 5 ppm nitrates
Alkalinity: ~7-8 dkh

Notes & Observations:

- Alkalinity is running a little lower than I'd like, so I will continue to monitor and increase the AFR dosage over time

- Phosphates & Nitrates are perfect with feeding once a day of frozen

- Barely any nuisance algae, but definitely still have some bubble algae that I keep under control

- Cyano continues to be an issue, if left unchecked it comes back intensely every few months. Chemiclean works great, but would hope to have the issue gone permanently as the tank continues to mature. I don't overfeed, so I'm not quite sure what the issue is.

- The corals all look great except for a couple: (i) I kept my frogspawn near the back of the tank where it did not receive very much light and very low flow. I kept it there for several months and while it grew new heads, it has receded quite a bit. I moved it to a much brighter spot with moderate flow and also dipped it in Coral Rx, it looks stable and hope it will become healthy again over time; (ii) I have one orange Zoa that has not done well over the past few months and have slowly been losing heads. I tried placing it vertically and my assumptions are that it did not get enough light / not enough flow / does not like being near my Duncan coral. Will not change anything and hope some heads survive and grow over time; (iii) My green scoly ended up touching another coral (I don't recall its name but it is aggressive) and it lost some tissue. It looks healthy and seems to have fully recovered, but will keep an eye on it.

- My Pink Streaked Wrasse is still pretty shy and I don't see him much unless I'm far from the tank. I rarely see him eat, so I'm not really sure what he eats, but he looks healthy and well fed!

- My conch is awesome, always eating algae, best cleanup crew ever.

- The birdsnest coral looks amazing, but it is getting out of hand. No joke that these things will take over your tank. Very hardy SPS, highly recommend for beginners!

- Since my last update, my Hawaiian feather duster died, the cleaner shrimp were always bothering it and touching its crown every day, multiple times a day. It slowly receded and died. Sad about that, so it looks like I can't have any feather dusters in this tank with the shrimp.

Wow, great update! @kevgib67 has some experience with birdnests , he is giving away free frags out of thin air lol. Did you very get the worm out? Sorry about your feather duster... but dude, the tank looks awesome!!

 

[VintageReefer]

Your tank looks great! Way nicer than my Waterbox 15 peninsula!

Shrimp are awesome but you do have to make sacrifices to keep them unfortunately. It’s a trade off

 

[Macbalacano]

Wow, great update! @kevgib67 has some experience with birdnests , he is giving away free frags out of thin air lol. Did you very get the worm out? Sorry about your feather duster... but dude, the tank looks awesome!!

Thanks very much! You know what I have not seen the worm ever since the last time I posted about it a few months ago and I haven't had any issues with livestock. So I am hoping that it has starved to death, or that it will never pose an issue to my livestock because they're much bigger now. Time will tell - fingers crossed!

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

Thanks very much! You know what I have not seen the worm ever since the last time I posted about it a few months ago and I haven't had any issues with livestock. So I am hoping that it has starved to death, or that it will never pose an issue to my livestock because they're much bigger now. Time will tell - fingers crossed!

Crossing my fingers too!

 

[Macbalacano]

Your tank looks great! Way nicer than my Waterbox 15 peninsula!

Shrimp are awesome but you do have to make sacrifices to keep them unfortunately. It’s a trade off

Thank you for your kind words! The tank in your tank thread looks AMAZING!

 

[VintageReefer]

Thank you for your kind words! The tank in your tank thread looks AMAZING!

Thank you!
I wish my Waterbox looked the same! can you see where my focus has been lol

I just started cleaning up and redoing my Waterbox and decided it’s going to be a gonipora dominant tank. I’ve added some in and they are doing well. I still have some cleanup to do. Just found what I think was a technical problem leading to algae. Sooo got that fixed and working on the build again

 

[Macbalacano]

Thank you!
I wish my Waterbox looked the same! can you see where my focus has been lol

I just started cleaning up and redoing my Waterbox and decided it’s going to be a gonipora dominant tank. I’ve added some in and they are doing well. I still have some cleanup to do. Just found what I think was a technical problem leading to algae. Sooo got that fixed and working on the build again

Oh wow a Goni dedicated tank would look so cool, looking forward to seeing progress pics!

 

[SaltySqueeble]

July 8, 2024 Update (Tank is only 7 months old!!!)

It has been 3 months since my last update. Life has been very busy!

The main point I want to share in this update is that the tank has completely stabilized and the parameters are pretty much the same every time I test. I also went on vacation for 2 weeks and did not do any maintenance on the tank for 4 weeks and there were no major issues at all. Keep in mind that I am dosing: AFR, Nitrates, and Phosphates on Kamoer single dosers.

As you'll see in my notes below, the tank isn't perfect, but the stability has helped many of my corals to take off. Many have doubled the number of heads and the SPS are considerably larger than 3 months ago. It is insane to me how fast everything has grown in such a short period of time!

I barely do any maintenance now and my hands are rarely in the tank. I probably spend on average about 5 hours per month on this tank in total to keep it looking the way you see it in photos. Very happy with the results!

Parameters:
Phosphates: 0.02 ppm
Nitrates: 5 ppm nitrates
Alkalinity: ~7-8 dkh

Notes & Observations:

- Alkalinity is running a little lower than I'd like, so I will continue to monitor and increase the AFR dosage over time

- Phosphates & Nitrates are perfect with feeding once a day of frozen

- Barely any nuisance algae, but definitely still have some bubble algae that I keep under control

- Cyano continues to be an issue, if left unchecked it comes back intensely every few months. Chemiclean works great, but would hope to have the issue gone permanently as the tank continues to mature. I don't overfeed, so I'm not quite sure what the issue is.

- The corals all look great except for a couple: (i) I kept my frogspawn near the back of the tank where it did not receive very much light and very low flow. I kept it there for several months and while it grew new heads, it has receded quite a bit. I moved it to a much brighter spot with moderate flow and also dipped it in Coral Rx, it looks stable and hope it will become healthy again over time; (ii) I have one orange Zoa that has not done well over the past few months and have slowly been losing heads. I tried placing it vertically and my assumptions are that it did not get enough light / not enough flow / does not like being near my Duncan coral. Will not change anything and hope some heads survive and grow over time; (iii) My green scoly ended up touching another coral (I don't recall its name but it is aggressive) and it lost some tissue. It looks healthy and seems to have fully recovered, but will keep an eye on it.

- My Pink Streaked Wrasse is still pretty shy and I don't see him much unless I'm far from the tank. I rarely see him eat, so I'm not really sure what he eats, but he looks healthy and well fed!

- My conch is awesome, always eating algae, best cleanup crew ever.

- The birdsnest coral looks amazing, but it is getting out of hand. No joke that these things will take over your tank. Very hardy SPS, highly recommend for beginners!

- Since my last update, my Hawaiian feather duster died, the cleaner shrimp were always bothering it and touching its crown every day, multiple times a day. It slowly receded and died. Sad about that, so it looks like I can't have any feather dusters in this tank with the shrimp.

Wow. Everything is so fluffy and vibrant. Gorgeous

 

[VintageReefer]

Oh wow a Goni dedicated tank would look so cool, looking forward to seeing progress pics!

I don’t think I have a build thread but I’ll show a pic now and maybe in a few months a progress one. Still picking out a few more frags and then need to wait for them to grow in

 

[Macbalacano]

I don’t think I have a build thread but I’ll show a pic now and maybe in a few months a progress one. Still picking out a few more frags and then need to wait for them to grow in

Amazing Goni's so far! I love them, but honestly have never had success keeping them. Are there hardy ones that you think are easier to keep than others?

 

[VintageReefer]

Amazing Goni's so far! I love them, but honestly have never had success keeping them. Are there hardy ones that you think are easier to keep than others?

Absolutely. On my main tank I have Goni that have been open every day since I got them 6 months ago and have extended the same as day 1

I have Goni that started out extending 3” that now only extend 1/2”

And others that fall in between. I see no pattern or reason :/

I have sellers that tell me use low flow for max extension and sellers that tell me medium flow. And people on the forum that say high flow. Same for light lol low, high, medium.

It seems everyone has different experience but I think it just depends on the Goni itself and it’s history

 

[Macbalacano]

October 21, 2024 Update (Tank is 11 months old!)

Friends, it has been a while (3 months) since I last posted an update. My family and I went on vacation out of town for 4 weeks and when I came back, life was so busy that I didn't get to do tank maintenance for another 4 weeks. I finally cleaned the tank 2 weeks ago.

Lots of updates and some pictures below:

1) First-time Fragging: In early August, I ended up ordering a fragging kit, plugs, and a magnetic rack. I fragged my birdsnest and made 15 frags on plugs.

2) Had a couple of losses while I was away: Gorgonian was smothered by cyano and my blue tipped frogspawn, which was already experiencing some tissue loss, further degraded.

3) Have some coral not doing well currently:

(i) Plate coral is losing tissue all around. I noticed it was injured a couple of months ago by my conch constantly going on top of it. I think it has a very slim chance of recovery.

(ii) Green Scoly continues to experience tissue loss all around. It has been slowly receding for months now. I think it has a moderate chance of recovery.

(iii) Red Monticap had experienced quite a bit of RTN due to coral warfare, especially from the octospawn beside it. I have moved the octospawn and cut off the dead parts. It looks to be continue to grow and be healthy otherwise.

(iv) I have noticed some heads of different Zoas disappearing, not sure why, or maybe they jus moved.

4) Got rid of some coral: Dropped off all 15 plugs of the fragged birdsnest to one of my LFS for store credit. I also dropped off a chalice plug and a blue rainbow montipora plug. I am also thinking of trading in my Bubble Coral (I have always felt it is too big for my tank).

5) Other Observations:

(i) All other corals in the tank have taken off! When I came back from vacation, most corals looked significantly bigger, had more heads, etc.

(ii) I continue to battle bubble algae. Still can't seem to get of it completely and always pops up somewhere new in the tank after maintenance.

(iii) After cleaning the tank and hand removing + filtering out Cyano, I saw it starting to come back again a couple days after. I was getting ready to use chemiclean again. However, i noticed that after I started dosing Macrobacter 7, the cyano started getting less and less. I'll continue dosing Macrobacter 7 for now.

6) New ATO container: I had an LFS build me a custom 2.5 Gallon ATO glass container for $50. It fit perfectly behind the tank and is between the tank and the wall.

7) Shifted Lighting Schedule: I shifted the lighting schedule from 11 AM - 11 PM to 10 AM - 10 PM, just for my viewing pleasure in the mornings.

8) Water Parameters: Seem to be holding steady at 0.03 phosphates, 10-25 nitrates (trying to bring this down a little bit), and 7-8 DKh Alkalinity (trying to raise this a little)

9 ) Adjusted Dosing: Decreased nitrate dosing by 20% and increased All For Reef dosing (for alkalinity) by 10%.

10) Switched from Filter Floss to Socks: I was replacing filter floss ever 1-2 days and just got tired of it. I tried running no floss for a while but it was really contributing to more nuisance algae and clogging my wavemaker and return pump quickly. I've switched to back to felt socks at 225 microns. Seems to be going well so far.

11) Removed UV: I originally had this on for dinos, but now don't really see any benefit from it. I took it out for now.

12) Adding another wavemaker: Adding another Jebao SLW 3 since all the corals have gotten bigger and want to ensure there is still good flow around the tank. Waiting for it to arrive still.

13) Planning for new additions: Currently contemplating the following additions:

(i) Tube Anemone
(iI) Clam
(iii) Redfin Wrasse, Firefish, or Neon Goby (Just 1 of them for my final fish)
(Iv) Zoa frag, Frogspawn (to replace the one loss I had), Leather coral of some sort
(v) Blood Red Shrimp (but I am worried that its too many shrimp?)

 

[Fishy Guy]

Tank looks great! I love that big trachy up front.

 

[Macbalacano]

Tank looks great! I love that big trachy up front.

Thank you for your kind words!