u/FartmanBreaux

Hope to share my journey and check in after 1 year. Daughter wanted a Nemo and I had experience with cichlids as a teenager. Always wanted saltwater but was poor teen so stuck with freshwater. I’m glad i committed and live the hobby and get to watch my daughters curiosity grow.

Bought a 25 gal all in one from the LFS - thought this would be manageable and less costly (lol). Current inhabitants:

Two clowns, lawnmower blenny, blue damsel, cleaner shrimp.

Blue leg hermits, snails, and etc. Got some hitchhikers like tiny starfish, stomatella, amphapods, and more.

When starting out I thought I could get by on water changes only, I struggled with Phos and NO3 reading anything at all for the longest time. I felt with some hair algae and cyano. I think water changes and cleaning the rocks did great with keeping things stable and consistent. Pulled out and finally read phos/no3 and the water quality improved and the corals seemed to do better. But what really helped was just testing regularly and learning the tank. I thought I could just do water changes but testing really helped me learn so much. I still don’t know what I’m doing but I have a better sense of direction for sure. My next goal is to make things thrive, I feel like my coral just exist but don’t grow. I struggled with any sort of zoa or acans, they never make it. I have hammers and torches and they exist but again not seeing any growth besides slow gsp on the wall.

My only first coral to survive are my Duncan, toadstool mushroom, and Xenia. The Xenia has never been the same since I tried using chem treatment to take care of algae. It’s slowly withering away, I should probably just pull it out.

Since this tank I got another 25gal tank in my office that’s close to a year but no where near as nice as this one. I’d like to upgrade and consolidate into a 40-50 gal all in one but know I may like a sump set up.

The one thing I live that I didn’t expect was watching the micro fauna. I love finding new critters that come from nowhere, it’s cool to see the ecosystem.

Next focus is dosing to get ideal parameters, currently at:

Phos .25, NO3 6.7, mag 1290, cal 400, kh 8.6.

I dosed mag for a month or so but it never increased, calcium is never past 400 - I tried adding some reef a, then I tried all for reef but my alk increased to like 11. I wish there was a simple solution to just add because the more I do the more I worry I’m going to blow up the tank.

What should I dose for a smaller 25gal tank? Should I just continue 25% weekly changes and call it a day? I think I need my Calcium higher and mag but now understand they all interact with each other.

Hope you enjoyed the read, let me know if any feedback or thoughts on my parameters!

First monti, is it okay to see some skeleton or is this an indicator it’s not happy.

Found this guy in the glass, should I remove?