12+ months later and TV still standing. I don’t recommend it but it’s doable. 😂

These are all current photos.

History (if you want it)

Before diving into this, I spent nearly 6 months in my free time reading stories on here, searching reef forums, researching on blogs, watching the odd YT vid... I was never naive enough to think I knew anything about anything but I was naive enough to think I was ready to try haha.

Nearly all the equipment you see came with the tank. Not including consumables we changed the heater, the wavemakers, and built a refugium (at least I think I did?). Livestock wise there was 1 very sad looking stalk of a kenya tree and about half the fish you see here, the rest was added. Except the Kenya tree which exploded into what it is now which we cleaved in two.

The day after the tank was moved, we hired a well known reef tank cleaner to help us finish the setup, check out the tank, help answer our questions. And two interesting pieces of information came out of that meeting:

- She recognized the tank right away, asked us if it used to belong to X which it did. She was a professional so she didn't talk too much smack, but she did mention that X liked to look at his reef tank, not maintain it. When it started to look ugly he called someone to fix it and the frequency of those visits depended on how much attention he paid to the tank, how much money he had on hand...etc...

- Everything my wife and I learned and read we either forgot or it was not quite correct, or it didn't apply in our situation. So for all intents and purposes we knew nothing. This was baptism by fire.

But good news was we were fast learners, we were hard workers and we didn't kill anything.

Questions

8 months later, how are we doing? I know they're just soft corals but anything look off?

When we started Nitrates and Phosphates were astronomical. Astronomical as in darker than the darkest part of the test kit. I'm surprised that anything was alive in the tank.

To solve it, my strategy is always change 1 variable, be patient. Measure outcomes, over time, if desired outcome isn't achieved, make another change.

So we started with large (30+%) water changes every few weeks and that would have a small effect but it would almost immediately climb back up. Then I thought refugium, so I removed the sump, cleaned it completely, and created what you now see in the pics. The rate of increase of NO/PO may have slowed at this point between water changes, but if they did it was nearly imperceptible (over 3 months with 3 or 4 30% water changes). Then we started Nopox with a dosing pump. At the max recommended Nopox dose for my tank. After 3 months Nitrates began to stabilize around 50-25. Phosphates around 1ppm, sometimes higher. Then we did a sand change. We did it over 2 months or so 33% at a time, dosing bacteria in between. I had this idea - I don't know if it was a good one - but I would prepare an extra 50L "bath" of fresh saltwater to store rocks while I removed sand and then I discarded that water after replacing the rocks.

So today, my problem is I have 1+ppm PO4. I'm still dialing in the nopox to the right dose but right now I'm at 1/2 the original dose and if I'm not careful I'll wipe out all my nitrates, in fact I accidentally almost stripped it to 0 and panicked the shut it down and overfed a little to bring them back up. GFO seems to have 0 effect but I dont have a reactor and I suspect it's basically doing nothing the way I use it now just sitting in the sump on the pump.

Should I get a reactor for my GFO? if yes, any recommendations?

Can I graduate to any big boy corals or am I just gonna kill them instantly?

Can I add more fish? I love corals but I also really love fish.

If you made it this far, thank you so much.

I have read numerous threads and talked to multiple people in the industry about this but is this tank size okay for a yellow tang, and I know obviously the longer the better.

These things are straight up pigs

It got knocked into my micromussa by my conch and ate 2-3 heads of it in a few hours. The favia wasnt even fazed

I know eventually most clownfish will pick a host. And I know it’s exactly rare they pick zoas…. But these two just crack me up. Sleeping on their bed of “flowers”.

Since they decided my zoa garden was their home they never venture far from it now.

Hi all,
I am buying a fish tank and wanted to make sure I’m getting a decent deal.
The seller is asking 900 for all.

Equipment included:
hello reef 33 gallon with stand,
2 Nero 3’s,
Radion xr15 g6,
top lids custom lid,
hydro blenny,
since pump.

Fish:
two clowns,
tomini tang,
watchman and mandarin goby.

Coral:
Miami vice Goni,
glitter Goni,
alien eye Goni,
hellfire torch 2 heads,
Malaysian holy grail 2-4 heads,
baby Godzilla mushroom,
raja rampage chalice.

What’s your thoughts?

The babies have started appearing everywhere. I dont even bother about the ones in my filter chamber but i know they survive in there

The Pandoras are unkillable. They only splinter and will move across the rock in 3-4 days if they need to

Hi guys,

I am preparing the plumbing for my tank and a friend of mine has a gate valve he was using it in his previous tank he said I can take it!
My question is it doesn’t look like the one BRS sell! Can I use it for the tank?

Also my intake is 1in this is 3/4, is it safe to use a 3/4” x 1” reducing coupler on both sides and then 1” pvc with both 1”union on both sides?

Thanks anyone for the help in advance!

He looks more like a rock palm tree than a rock flower. I thought these guys liked low light? He’s on my top rock with my montis

They seem to be little tiny cloves… not sure if it’s a pest/weed that I shouldn’t let grow

These are currently my parameters. I have a lps softy tank and the salinity is 1.024. My question is what is the most simple way to raise my alk calc and mag? would it be tropic marin all for reef?

Hi, as the title suggests I’ve been dealing with an outbreak of red flatworms (Convolutriloba sp.) in my 13.5 gallon AIO reef tank. I’d like to know if there are any predators to control their populations that would fit in my tank. Discounting the filtration chambers I estimate it has a volume of 10 gallons, so it seems that most of the typical recommendations should be ruled out (most sources I’ve seen suggest at least 15 gallons for even small wrasses like six-lines). I’m open to all sorts of suggestions, from fish to invertebrates.

Currently my tank has an emerald crab, pitho crab, blue legged hermit crabs, a sexy anemone shrimp, brittle stars, and several snail species.

I’ve seen velvet nudibranchs as an option, but I would feel bad about getting one and having it die after consuming them all, and risk nuking my tank if he did so, so I’d like to research other options as well.

I am aware of chemical treatments but I would like to keep this as only a last resort. I’ve tried flatworm exit in the past and using it apparently wiped out my pod population, and seemed to almost kill my brittle stars. This appeared to be due to the flatworm exit itself, rather than the tetrodotoxin alone, as i tested it on one of my brittle stars, and i also noticed the invertebrates in my tank reacted before the flatworms one of the times i used it.

I barely do anything to this tank other than some very light feeding and cleaning the glass. There’s a skimmer on the tank but I don’t really turn it on, it’s not really skimming anything out with the low fish load and high coral density

No questions here - just enjoying the ride.

I recently saw this very nice red macroalgae in a YouTuber video and I’d like to get some for my tank but none of the comments in his video or the videos themselves discuss the exact type or name of it. Can you please help?

May 2025 to Today. Dosing AFR and running a kalk stirrer. Tank will be 2 in December. The hammers have grown well for me so far 🤞

What is this purple thing on my candy cane coral? I haven’t seen it move from this spot. It is growing slowly tho. Not sure what it is.

Just looking for some thoughts on the best way to fix this issue?

My calcium is testing at around 310ppm with a brand new salifert kit. My magnesium is at 1320ppm. kH is 8-9.

I have been dosing carbonate to maintain kH.

Tank is 32 gallon + 8 gallon sump.

I have not tested calcium for a while as I dont have any stoney corals except a single candy cane polyp. So I was not expecting Ca to be consumed much.

The tank does have some large soft corals and a bunch of anemones.

Im wondering whats consuming the calcium without consuming magnesium, and what the best way to bring my calcium up might be?

Photo so you can see the corals.

Who has used a storage bin for a sump refugium? I dont have a drilled tank, nor a good stand to have a sump under.

What would the main issues, hurdles be using a storage bin, a good one...

Thanks

I saw that UNS has their own refugium insert with built-in housing for a light (which is dope) and I've heard that it's compatible with other brands' AIOs but what are some other options for hiding a refugium in an AIO? I'm guessing a model with sump/filtration in the back would allow for more than a side mounted one?

How are we looking on flow? Just changed to a Gmp10/40 combo and trying to find a sweet spot

Lights have been ramping down so not extended much as normal

Got this five months ago, no experience with any type of aquariums whatsoever. Red sea nano 20g. Watched some videos, read here what I could find, little AI help for research. Some corals I ordered were little bigger already like the red one in the middle. Had goby shrimp pair but shrimp died and goby went with it 2 days later. I miss those dudes. Not sure if he was old or something bad at my part. Going to get another pair probably. No more fish for sure until I scale up.

The goals was to have something next to my desk, but to be honest now I wish I went bigger although this makes it easier to manage with water changes. Any suggestions from too of your head when you see it?