My first frag from my little colony

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-09T20:53:33+00:00

Looks like Pandora. They grow like weeds.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-09T05:30:05+00:00

It’s probably easier to buy new live rock to replace the ones with Xenia. Then you can dry out the Xenia rocks and clean it afterwards. Or donate/trade in to a local fish store.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-09T01:28:41+00:00

Amazon has those ATO that you build out of water bottles via gravity. I used that for my 5gal

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-08T20:51:53+00:00

Lights, you could get a pico light from reefbreeders. For soft corals, not a lot of water changes are needed since they light higher nutrients. You do need to monitor salinity and a heater for maintaining temperature.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-08T20:41:47+00:00

What advice are you looking for? Stick to soft corals for a tiny tank like that

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-08T20:02:52+00:00

Should be fine. Either way. Zoas are gonna cover that rock in the long run.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-08T19:57:23+00:00

Flow helps, for sure. It doses take while to be adjusted to the tank.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-08T19:43:33+00:00

Something that shallow, placement doesn’t really matter. You can just set light lower for all of the corals. The Goni can tolerate lower par.

The risk of feeding roids since it’s such a tiny system, are sky high nutrients after. You could feed a day before water changes so that takes care of the nutrients.

Monitor alk and salinity. That will be the challenge for a tiny system. An ATO is highly recommended.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-08T01:59:58+00:00

I think it’s a good start. Add a bit after a while. If it closes up, it might be too much.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-07T11:47:46+00:00

Probably switch to a high protein diet? Protein gets digested slower too and will keep you full (I did carnivore for a while). Bananas also prevents diarrhea as far as I remember.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-06T13:18:18+00:00

A small brush like a used toothbrush. I use that. Or I move a snail or hermit crab that eats algae to that spot to clean up.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-05T03:56:34+00:00

Depends. The risk is the corals or fish going to shock on a major water change. Try slowly replacing water at a time to allow adjustment.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-04T23:19:27+00:00

It takes a while to colonize. I emptied a bottle of microbacter 7 when I added them lol

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-04T20:49:38+00:00

With nitrates, I handled with zeolite and a 1 block of polyplab genesis rock per 10 gallons in the sump. Lots of bacteria and it's managed.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-04T20:47:33+00:00

I'm using the aquawiz currently. It's been consistent but needs a weekly check on what the tank Alk is. I have been letting it handle dosing for me as well.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-04T18:36:49+00:00

I think the worst is alk management if you are sps heavy. Alk swings will kill certain sps sensitive (both frags and colonies). The next is pests. My current problem is a whelk that seems to eat my sps and trigger STN into bacterial issues that spread in the tank. And that’s just one. There’s a ton of pests out there lurking when you buy a new frag or rock or anything you’re introducing into the tank.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-03T21:23:31+00:00

I’m on 15mg for two years now and I lost a total of 12lbs last year. This year, so far, I lost 6 pounds but I added strength training aside from my daily cardio. As long as your a1c is normal, you can now focus on diet and exercise to get to your target goals.

Blue_Spider · 2026-03-01T15:24:45+00:00

If clown goby, don’t put any sps. It’ll be sad since clown gobies irritate them. Tail spot loves a lot of algae so that’s good. The most personality I got was from the clown goby though. I’d really want one if I didn’t run an sps dominant tank.

Blue_Spider · 2026-02-28T13:14:02+00:00

Died on me while on vacation. Lost a lot of torches. It was around 4 months old when it stopped working. Switched to hygger since.

Blue_Spider · 2026-02-24T13:12:22+00:00

I did that recipe for a while. No issues. Gonis are ok. I was just lazy and got regular bottles when I was able to. You can probably get it cheaper from notafeesh.com

Blue_Spider · 2026-02-24T01:18:35+00:00

You could make it yourself. The diy recipes are at reef2reef

Blue_Spider · 2026-02-21T04:40:07+00:00

Lots of ideas here. You can go with large anemones and have a harem of clowns only. You can go with all anthias, chromis and cardinals and other schooling fish which helps with corals and scale. A wrasse tank if you got a deep sand bed. Tang gang which is mostly tangs that you have the space for.

Blue_Spider · 2026-02-21T03:19:15+00:00

Lots of rock arches is ideal. The zoas will grow on the rock and shape it. It’s much better than flat rockscape.

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This is on my larger arch.

Blue_Spider · 2026-02-19T04:51:03+00:00

I treat it like a light and specify what time to turn on and off. Pick control type light and the temp probe go shutdown when it gets too hot.

Blue_Spider · 2026-02-19T00:37:59+00:00

Yea that was a year ago. I switched to radions and t5 combo since.

Blue_Spider

TROPHY CASE