J’s 20G Peninsula Reef

[thebookshark]

Howdy everyone! This is the journal for my new 20G peninsula reef. I’ve been in the hobby for nearly 20 years and have to say this is my dream tank . It is an upgrade from my smaller 10G UNS peninsula and with the new light I will be able to stock some great SPS which I’m super excited about.

See below for equipment and stocking info; thanks for tagging along!

-J


Tank: UNS 90LA Rimless AIO
Lighting: Kessil AP9X; 10” above surface running Tuna Blue program
Filtration: UNS Media Tower running Purigen & ChemiPure Elite
Heating: 100W Aquatop submersible
Return: TMC Reef Pump Compact 1500L/396GPH
Water: Aquatic Life 4-Stage RO Buddie
Salt: AquaVitro Salinity
Biological Filtration: 25lbs. cured rock; 30 lbs. dry rinsed CoraLife Fiji Pink
Nutrient Export: Mini Refugium LED grow light with chaeto
Testing & Measurement: Red Sea Saltwater Test Kits, Salifert for Mg and Ca; TropicMarin Hydrometer for SG; basic mercury floating thermometer

Stocking:

-2 banggai cardinals
-8 RFA’s
-10 sexy shrimp
-1 fire shrimp
-Porcelain crab
-LPS: blastomussa, favia, acanthastrea, hammer
-Softies: star polyps, assorted mushrooms
-SPS: red & green monti plates, assorted acropora

FTS: 1/24

 

[thebookshark]

Well, some sad news and some happy news, gang.

One of my banggai’s bullied one of the smaller ones to death and (we think) startled/attacked my mandarin while she was doing her weird night float at the surface and we found her dead on the counter yesterday morning. I know it’s just fish but I’m so sad. I loved my mandarin so much, she was the reason for the upgrade, and I am just devastated. As far as the other banggai goes, I realized he was getting bullied and quarantined him in a separate container in the tank with holes so he could eat and rest but he only lasted 24 hours after that. The remaining two banggais seem okay but honestly this experience has really put me off the species. I talked to the LFS and they agreed to take the two back for store credit, but I don’t know what to get. I considered another mandarin but I’m not sure. Firefish would look nice but they are known jumpers and it’s open on top (hence the mandarin’s tragic counter-surf). What do y’all think: a couple blue-green chromis, maybe? I don’t want a clown and I can’t really do a wrasse because of the sexy shrimp. I thought about a Tanaka wrasse perhaps. Anything that wants to cruise/perch on the rocks is a no-go because of the nems, I think. But drop a comment with suggestions please!

Now for the good news: sticks are in! Picked up some nice montis and acros and everything is doing great, fantastic polyp extension and no signs of stress. Couple pics for ya:

 

[aquaworld75]

Sorry to hear about the fish loss. Great aquascaping with the rocks. I recently started a 14g Biocube (w/ stock hood lid) and got a firefish goby and a tailspot blenny (likes to perch on rocks and explore). Other options could be yellow watchman goby / sand dwelling gobies. Hang in there tank looks great!!

 

[thebookshark]

I did order a DIY screen top kit so that should expand my stocking options a bit. I’m considering a red firefish and a two spot blenny, they’re so spunky and always look startled

 

[project1004]

Your tank looks amazing and looks way bigger than a 20Gal. X.X It’s really cool. Great selections on coals too.

Possum wrasse would be a nice fish addition. They are more docile than other wrasses.

Sand shifting goby’s are great. I just got be a sleeper goby. They do kick up some sand dust but fun to watch.

I have open top rimless tank. Only had few jumping (1or 2 I think) in last 3.5yrs. Currently have 9 fish in a 48G and 2 in a 24G.

 

[thebookshark]

Thanks! I think I’ve decided on a royal gramma, a red firefish, and another Biota blue mandarin. Once the mesh top is in place I can’t bear the thought of anymore escapees!

 

[nshepler]

Awesome tank! What are your plans for flow? I've never attempted a peninsula from what I understand flow can be a challenge.

 

[thebookshark]

Awesome tank! What are your plans for flow? I've never attempted a peninsula from what I understand flow can be a challenge.

Thank you!! I upgraded the return pump and so far that seems to be doing just fine. It’s not even on the highest setting. It’s a TMC* 1500.

 

[thebookshark]

Some updates! Tank is doing really well and I added my new fish. I got a YWG and tiger pistol (they’ve been hiding all week but I see them briefly once a day-ish), a royal gramma, and added a red firefish today. I’m concerned about jumping but my screen top comes tomorrow so if they can just stay off the counter for another 24 hours…



Also picked up a pincushion urchin to help with a bit of GHA, although so far it seems to be eating everything BUT the GHA hopefully it’ll run out of other snacks and get to work soon. I named it Mowses because it mow-ses the grass!



Finally I also added some additional frags. I don’t care about/can’t keep up with designer names so sorry if I’m not specific enough but the current coral list is below. Also before anyone asks I’ve kept NPS gorgonians before and I am feeding the tank daily so it should be fine. Food is a mix of frozen mysis, NLS pellets, and Fritz Coral Max. I am also dosing Quantum Bio-Enhance daily. No ammonia no nitrates and I just threw in a bag of PhosGuard a couple days ago so my phosphates should be close to 0 (hoping to starve out the GHA).

LPS: Duncans, two favias, acan lord, purple/gold hammer, blasto (two mouths, hopefully about to split!)



SPS: Red and green plating montipora, red digitata, rainbow encrusting montipora, highlighter yellow anacropora, two frags of acro milli, two other acros (Ferrari something? idk), and a red branching cyphastrea



Softies & NPS: red mushroom, green & purple hairy mushroom, star polyps, and a yellow gorgonian



Fish & Inverts: YWG/Tiger pistol, royal gramma, red firefish, a bunch of sexy shrimp, 9 RFA’s, ~8 sexy shrimp, porcelain crab, pincushion urchin, fire shrimp, assorted snails n’ hermits



Only other thing I want to add is a crocea clam!

 

[aquaworld75]

Tank and inhabitants look great! Now sit back and enjoy the coral reef.

 

[thebookshark]

March updates! Some good some frustrating, as always Overall the tank is doing well. I managed to get rid of the red bugs with a Bayer Advanced dip; it did seem to stress the affected acro a bit but it’s recovered and has no more bugs and good PE. I haven’t fully eradicated the monti-eating nudis but manual removal when I see them plus my very vigilant possum wrasse is keeping them in check sufficiently to avoid major damage to any of the montis. Have a few small (1/2”) areas where they’ve eaten but they seem to be growing back. I’m finding that healthy corals do seem to be able to hold them back a bit with their ‘irritation mucus’.

I’ve added a lot of new livestock! Got great acro frags from @billyocean (TY!!!), a small (1.25”) crocea clam, and a mated pair of Pederson anemone shrimp! The female already has eggs .

As far as the ich- PolypLab Medic was both ineffective and irritating to my corals. The royal gramma unfortunately died but my YWG and possum wrasse have remained healthy and unaffected. I added a clown 2 weeks ago and currently it seems to either have ich or brook (I think brook) but I’m treating it with daily formalin baths and it is slowly helping. Hopefully it makes it. I plan to add a neon goby soon to hopefully help with parasite management.

Finally, I had what I think was a brief dinoflagellate outbreak because my nutrients had totally bottomed out. I managed to clear it up by removing all my filtration media (ChemiPure Elite, PhosGuard, and Purigen) and dosing phyto.

Some pics!

 

[billyocean]

Nice! Ive been thinking about adding a couple clams too. Ive never had them in a tank.

 

[siege]

Nice! Ive been thinking about adding a couple clams too. Ive never had them in a tank.

I've always wanted a blue crocea or maxima. It's on my list, I just don't think my tank is quite ready for them yet. Soon™.

 

[thebookshark]

I've always wanted a blue crocea or maxima. It's on my list, I just don't think my tank is quite ready for them yet. Soon™.

Nice! Ive been thinking about adding a couple clams too. Ive never had them in a tank.

I’ve had one other crocea before in a 6G pico reef about 15 years ago. It did okay for a couple months but LED’s didn’t have the power they do today and had it on the sand bed (rocks were covered with maxi-mini nems) so ultimately it probably starved. I had a single Orphek pendant bulb over that tank and it worked for the couple SPS frags i had at the top of the rock but given how much PAR my current crocea is enjoying in this tank, it def wasn’t sufficient.

Inverts have always been my special interest over the years. I’ve kept multiple anemone species, urchins, and a joubini (coconut) octopus that lived about 5 months which isn’t bad for captivity as they naturally have short lifespans. But shrimp are a bit of an obsession for me I’ve had 10+ species (fresh and saltwater) and I’m even thinking about getting all of them tattooed on the empty areas of my arms to fill them out as sleeves, ha. The tiny worlds of the reef have always been fascinating to me; it started on a family snorkeling trip to Hawaii as a kid. I have terrible eyesight and had glasses at the time which I couldn’t wear under my mask so the only way I could see anything was to get really close to the rocks. But there were these complex and vibrant little micro-ecosystems of small animals and I remember just floating in one spot for a long time watching all the little critters go about their lives. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always kept smaller tanks and never had much interest in the typically-popular large fish species.

 

[The Quilted Reef]

Your tank is beautiful!

 

[thebookshark]

Your tank is beautiful!

Thank you!

 

[siege]

I’ve had one other crocea before in a 6G pico reef about 15 years ago. It did okay for a couple months but LED’s didn’t have the power they do today and had it on the sand bed (rocks were covered with maxi-mini nems) so ultimately it probably starved. I had a single Orphek pendant bulb over that tank and it worked for the couple SPS frags i had at the top of the rock but given how much PAR my current crocea is enjoying in this tank, it def wasn’t sufficient.

Inverts have always been my special interest over the years. I’ve kept multiple anemone species, urchins, and a joubini (coconut) octopus that lived about 5 months which isn’t bad for captivity as they naturally have short lifespans. But shrimp are a bit of an obsession for me I’ve had 10+ species (fresh and saltwater) and I’m even thinking about getting all of them tattooed on the empty areas of my arms to fill them out as sleeves, ha. The tiny worlds of the reef have always been fascinating to me; it started on a family snorkeling trip to Hawaii as a kid. I have terrible eyesight and had glasses at the time which I couldn’t wear under my mask so the only way I could see anything was to get really close to the rocks. But there were these complex and vibrant little micro-ecosystems of small animals and I remember just floating in one spot for a long time watching all the little critters go about their lives. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always kept smaller tanks and never had much interest in the typically-popular large fish species.

A woman after my own heart!

I started an entire thread on Reef2Reef entitled "Why I’m Going “Invert-First” in My Reef Tank (And Why You Might Want To)". Big, small, cryptic, or right out in the open, I've always loved inverts. I never got to go scuba diving as a kid growing up in Savannah, because the water just wasn't clear enough for that unless you went ~4 hours offshore to Gray's Reef... but with a mask and a snorkel, if you got close enough, there were always crabs, snails, starfish, sand dollars, jellies, feathers, and all the rest of those little worlds tucked into the rock and shallows. My glasses were thick, too, but fortunately I could find masks that fit over them... usually.

I think that's what grabbed me early on. Not just the animals themselves, but the tiny ecosystems... the little behaviors, the niches, the feeling that an entire busy world was going on inches from your face if you slowed down enough to notice it. Reading Dune young probably didn't help either, because Herbert's ecology angle absolutely got its hooks into me. Even later, when I finally got back into fish tanks after years away, I found myself spending more time staring at the shrimp, snails, pods, brittle stars, and all the other small life than at the fish. Then again, I was the kid who could spend a day following ants around and stacking rocks in streams to make little habitats.

That's a big part of why my own reef is built the way it is. I like fish too, sure, but I've always been much more interested in designing around the inverts and the broader ecosystem than in chasing a traditional fish-heavy reef. In fact, my tank is about a year old now and still has no fish at all for exactly that reason - I wanted the microfauna, biodiversity, and all the little supporting life to really get established first, and I wanted any future fish choices to work around that rather than bulldoze over it. Clowns will be, by far and away, the largest and most aggressive fish in my tank, and much though I love their look, I'm not choosing maroons because they're far too aggressive for all the little fish and shrimp.

So yes... I completely get where you're coming from. There is just something uniquely fascinating about the little critters and the tiny dramas of reef life. Honestly, I'd rather watch a shrimp doing shrimp things or a porcelain crab filtering the water than a lot of the bigger, flashier fish people build whole tanks around. I've got multiple logs in my Apex just from micro-brittle starfish sightings in my tank, lol.

While I'm looking forward to finally getting some nems, too, as well as the clams... I've basically built my system around sexy shrimp, a mandarin dragonet, and electric scallops. Pretty much everything to this point has been in pursuit of those long-term goals.