20 Gallon IM Peninsula Build!

PicassoClown04 · Aug 5, 2020

It’s been forever since I did an update! But today is a big day so I’m gonna go ahead and do one. Just to start, here are some progress pics of the tanks that highlight new additions.

New scoly, beautiful pattern and gorgeous turquoise streaks that don’t come out too well in pics.

Went to Florida a month ago and found this guy drying up on the sand. He’s doing great! I spot feed him 3x a week with veggie pellets and mysis, very active and crawls all over the tank.

A dragon soul torch!!! My first really high end torch so I’m just crossing my fingers, praying he does okay, and taking better care of him than I take care of myself.

Some update pics on the rock flower anemones, these are the two that were the easiest to get pics of. Unfortunately, as we all know, anemones have a mind of their own and the rest of them chose less desirable locations for me to see them but I know they’re all there!

Update just kinda on the acan outcrop. Shows my new radioactive trumpet and the growth on my acans pretty well.

Got some yellow polyps, they’re doing amazing but fail to reproduce the yellow color I saw in the original tank. Any suggestions on how to help them?

Just a progress pic on the indo hammers from last update. Doing great!

PicassoClown04 · Aug 5, 2020

Okay now it’s time for the real update (sorry, can only attach 10 pics so I had to make another post). As some of you may know, World Wide Corals did a contest on Reef 2 Reef recently for the cheesiest slogan. Through hard work, persistence, and determination, I managed to win twice. The winners got free frags from WWC if they paid for shipping. So I searched their website for weeks, eventually finding a sexy shrimp in the invert section that didn’t make my wallet cry.

I decided to order the sexy shrimp and pay for overnight shipping, and WWC included my free frags in the box with my new shrimp. This morning the mailman rang the door and I probably scared the crap outta him I opened the door so fast. Every reefer dreams of opening the blue box...

Giddy with excitement, I rushed to my room and gently plopped the box on my bed, desperately searching for scissors. After slicing carefully through layers and layers of tape, insulation, styrofoam coolers, and cardboard, I reached crisp, white, printer paper. Scrawled on were the names of my free mystery frags!! I got a pipe organ and Agent Orange Enchinata!!

I started temp acclimating immediately after making sure my new babies were okay. Scared me to death when I couldn’t find the sexy shrimp! Turns out, he’s just tiny so I decided to name him Speck.

While they were temp acclimating I decided to research a little bit about my new corals and found these gorgeous photos from WWC of what they’re gonna look like after they get happy!

Finished temp acclimation and put Specky into a pitcher for drip acclimation. I threw the corals in right away and they got happy real quick!

After a long acclimation process, Specky was finally ready for his new home! He’s so tiny, here’s him next to some acans. Can’t wait till Specky Meet’s by other sexy shrimp, Heather.

So that’s the whole story!! Thanks for reading!

rob s. · Aug 6, 2020

your tank is amazing!!!! i love the pics (once again especially the reflection). i can only hope to have mine looking that good eventually. I happened upon a 300 gallon acrylic tank that was needing a new home. No equipment with it but i had to grab it up. My house is just to small for a tank that big so i offered it to my LFS person and she now has it sitting in her house. She has quite a few tanks already so shes gonna frag me some of her higher end stuff and i'm really excited about that! ill post some pics when we do the trade. How often do you do water changes and upkeep? I think there may be a lot to learn from you on keeping a healthy tank if your up for a "student"....Have an awesome day and if your coming to florida any time soon again let me know, I'm up by the Daytona area.

PicassoClown04 · Aug 6, 2020

Hey!! I do water changes every 1-2 weeks. This is my first reef tank. My father has kept one in the house for the last thirty years so I jumped in with a huge amount of baseline knowledge about reefs. I worked out a deal with my parents to get a full set up 20 gallon tank instead of having a sweet 16 and they agreed!

I’m definitely armpits deep in this tank every. Single. Day. My fish lay in my hands kinda like how betta fish lay on leaves and my fire shrimp loves to give me a little cleaning while I’m messing around in the tank. The tank was producing frags in its first three months and has continued to do so at a rate I almost can’t keep up with! My number one tip (that a lot of people seriously disagree with me on) is don’t test your water. Neither me or my dad have ever tested our water for calcium, alk, nitrates, or anything like that. The only testing tools I own are a thermometer and a refractometer. It’s easy to blame corals not doing well on a water chemical misbalance, but many times I see chemically ‘perfect’ tanks that just cant keep specific corals. I dose based on my coral behavior. If I notice my acros and clam are growing slower, I dose some calcium, if my mushrooms look shriveled, I ease up on the alk, etc etc. Knowing what each chemical component does and what a coral looks like responding to its presence in the water to me is more important than knowing how many dkh of everything your supposed to have. Every tank is different, so I feel like standardized numbers for each one doesn’t really account for each tank’s needs.
Salinity always stays at 1.025 for me and temp is a stable 78 degrees.

People are kinda 50/50 on this one but for me, gloves are an absolute no no. Feeling your rocks, feeling the flow, feeling exactly what you’re doing is very very important to me. You find things you’d never know were there if you had gloves on. For example, the way I’m able to stuff this tank so full is because I feel around with my hands and find those nooks and crannies in the rock, which I can then use to support another coral or create a hold for epoxy. I enjoy being hands on with my tank because I feel like it helps me create a relationship with my corals. I know that indo torches like high flow, and I can look at my powerheads and know where I think the high flow places should be, but that’s not always right. Flow can be diverted by rocks and can create high flow areas where you’d never expect it, which you can use to your advantage to create a lot of movement and make your corals happier.

I also believe in feeding not only your fish, but your corals as well. Many of my corals are fed daily and you can see them bursting with health. The anemone gets as much food every day as all the fish get combined, and now it only splits into thirds and does so every month give or take. The weirdest thing is, the morning after it splits, it looks exactly the same as before, I see no shrinkage or anything. This is also the way I’m able to get my anemones to bubble so well, it’s feeding, every day. The scolies are super fat because I feed them three times a week (not the purple one cause I just got him like last week, he needs to get fattened up), I feed them LRS nano reef frozen food. I also feed all of my LPS three times a week at night, and my growth rate has tripled. My blasto sprouted two heads only a week after I started feeding meaty foods, whereas I saw zero growth in the two months I’d had it previously. In addition, I feed twice to three times a week with reefroids, just to the sps, chalice, zoas, and small torches (like super tiny it’s only got 7 fat little tentacles). My larger euphyllia gets fed daily with the fish and they sprout new heads about every two weeks. All my zoas started with 1-3 polyps and now they’re at least 7 polyps, many I acquired about a month ago.

I’d be happy to explain anything else, answer questions, provide exact schedules, etc. I know that it sounds like I do a lot but I really only spend about 30 minutes every day on the tank.

PicassoClown04 · Aug 6, 2020

Updated FTS!!

rob s. · Aug 6, 2020

some great info. I just posted the other day that I stopped testing and use my candy canes as an indicator that the tank is in need of something. I do weekly changes and do the same with salinity and temp. Good to know I don't stand alone whaen it comes to testing but I found I was chasing things and the water was never the same for any length of time. I do not feed corals as often as you. I was worried about algea explosions but I think ill start. I use reef roids also but it never seems like they get enough. How else can I feed them directly? BTW I didn't realize you were 16 so my apologies for the weak attempt at flirting...… Hope to learn more from you and thanks!!

PicassoClown04 · Aug 6, 2020

rob s. said:
some great info. I just posted the other day that I stopped testing and use my candy canes as an indicator that the tank is in need of something. I do weekly changes and do the same with salinity and temp. Good to know I don't stand alone whaen it comes to testing but I found I was chasing things and the water was never the same for any length of time. I do not feed corals as often as you. I was worried about algea explosions but I think ill start. I use reef roids also but it never seems like they get enough. How else can I feed them directly? BTW I didn't realize you were 16 so my apologies for the weak attempt at flirting...… Hope to learn more from you and thanks!!

it’s no problem! Feeding corals is very important to me but it’s a delicate balance!! I really REALLY recommend getting a large shrimp (Fire, peppermint, skunk, etc) maybe 1 per every 15-20 gallons if you’re planning on feeding as heavily as me. I also have 15 hermits and around 10-12 snails for just a 20 gallon tank. So I really had to beef up my cuc to support my feeding habits. Duncan are also another great indicator coral, as are easy acros such as purple bonsai and birdsnest. They’re hardy corals but it’s very easy to tell if their growth rate slows or if the polyps aren’t extended fully. I use acros and clams for calcium, mushrooms for alk, and zoas/cloves/xenia for nutrient level.

rob s. · Aug 7, 2020

got it..i already have a fire shrimp, about 10 hermit crabs and several snails so i'm gonna slowly start to feed more and see how it goes.

samnaz · Aug 7, 2020

Heather lol what a silly name for a sexy shrimp, love it.

PicassoClown04 · Aug 7, 2020

samnaz said:
Heather lol what a silly name for a sexy shrimp, love it.

yeah, based on the movie heathers because she always bullies my fish and basically runs the tank and one day it’s gonna get her killed

LRT · Aug 8, 2020

@footgal you should throw down those full tank shots!
@revhtree have you seen this 6 month old reef?

Very well done @footgal

PicassoClown04 · Aug 8, 2020

I’d try to get some fts just from the front but you really miss out on that stunning nem in the back and some of the stuff up top. The tank reaches to about 5’ on the stand so it’s mostly looked at from the front/top at the same time. Very difficult to get a decent shot from the top due to the lights. Any tips?

PicassoClown04 · Aug 8, 2020

Posted a selling forum thread about this but it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention. I’m trying to sell this split off my nem. I hate it being in this tiny cup cause I feel like it deserves better. $100? I don’t really know how to price it cause that’s how much I paid for the mother but I am just a hobbiest. Anyway, thanks for reading this!

LRT · Aug 8, 2020

footgal said:
I’d try to get some fts just from the front but you really miss out on that stunning nem in the back and some of the stuff up top. The tank reaches to about 5’ on the stand so it’s mostly looked at from the front/top at the same time. Very difficult to get a decent shot from the top due to the lights. Any tips?

No. Just keep doing what you do. Get all sides. For sure reeftank 365 here.I just set my frag tanks up around the same time. End of Feb. Been looking at DT's here lately. Wouldn't imagine looking at pix thats its only 20 gallons here.
Incredible job. Nice work

gmyers0203 · Aug 12, 2020

Very insprirational! I'm working on getting the exact same tank set up. Keep the pictures coming!

PicassoClown04 · Aug 12, 2020

Took a couple pictures yesterday. Notice a lot of growth in the acros and clam compared to a couple months ago. My zoa garden is also filling in nicely, I’m very pleased with the progress I’m making!

I finally got an ID on my torch as well, turns out it’s a hellfire torch!!! Very happy that I got a nice torch in the tank. Only cost me $40 too so I’m even happier about that.

And my LFS was having a killer deal on scolies and I couldn’t pass this little guy up. He makes the third scoly of the tank... $100 bucks for him which hurt a little bit but he’s so pretty he’s worth it. Almost wish I got the bleeding apple (same price as him) but it was in pretty bad shape so I passed it up.
Does this one have a cool name like that? Orange with blue? (That’s my starfish on the back of him btw he’s all good)

PicassoClown04 · Aug 18, 2020

Okay! Here are some passable pics of the newbies!! I really need to turn the pumps off and take good good pictures but this isn’t too bad for some quick through the glass phone shots. The acan is really stunning, I’ve never seen one like it before, and I seriously need to photograph it. The hammer isn’t bleached, just looks like it in the pics. I’ll try turning up whites later to see if that helps bring out the color my eyes are seeing.