You Won’t Believe the LPS in This Tiny Reef! Nano Tank Tour!

What's going on reefers? Blaine here. In today's video, we are hanging out with Jed and we are sitting right next to his personal reef tank at home. So, we're going to get right into it, Jed. This is an awesome tank. Really excited to finally check it out, show it off on the channel. But, let's talk about the tank itself. What kind of tank do we have here right next to us? So, this is a water box 20-gallon all-in-one. Pretty basic as it comes. A lot of the all-in-one tanks kind of fit in this 15 20 gallon cube size. Uh, the system's been up and going, I want to say close to 5 years now. It's gone through a lot of iterations between being stuck in the back of a like a closet basically with no light and no sand and just rocking a random clown fish in there to getting some corals in there and just going through the biggest hair algae bloom and aptasia field as possible to where it's at now. We're pretty happy with how it's how it's looking now. It looks like you have mainly LPS in the tank. It's definitely super LPS dominated. I would have to say we've seen a couple of LPS dominated system, but this one's definitely super LPS dominated. Let's talk about some of your corals. I see some softies, a couple of sticks in the back. Let's go over some of your corals you have. So, up front we have my colony of white zombies, which is probably the oldest coral I've been growing that colony. Not that specific colony, but I've had since the original piece. I probably had that colony about 6 years now. It's actually how I bought my first house was selling those out of my college dorm room. Um, and then I've had this rose petal gani over here. I've had that probably about the same amount of time. I' been grown that colony about 6 years now to where it's at now where, you know, when it's fully extended, it's almost I'm nervous it's going to get chopped off by the MP10 a couple times. Um, we got a bunch of ganis in there just kind of collected over the years. I like to stick with a lot of aquacultured pieces. They just seem to be a lot easier. Um, so whether it's, you know, the TSA Margaritaville, there's a glitter gani in there or glitter bomb classic or a red Ghani. Um, just a nice little collection of stuff. But, you know, they just seem to really be happy in here. And I don't want to go buy corals that are really testing stuff out. If I know it's happy in this tank, I'm just going to keep rolling with those. And another thing that really seems to do well in this tank is a cans. Uh, my colonies. I got like three mini rocks that I've had those colonies each probably about 2, three years each colony. Um, I got a couple new ones recently. Started out filling some of the gaps in the tank. Um, but a cans, you know, they're some of the fluffiest A cans I've really ever seen. So, just kind of again rolling with what's already working well. What else I got? I got a bunch of different zoas in here. Again, the white zombies. I got AOIs. There's some utter chaos, Daisy Dukes. Uh my personal favorite, the rainbow hornets. Got a little colony coming in the back. And then some exospheres. Um I started to get some sticks this week in there. Just kind of try some stuff out. Got Fruity Pebbles and Garf Bonsai in there. You know, just staple aquaculture pieces. You know, I don't want to test anything where it's, you know, whether it's a maraculture and you don't really know what you're getting, but these are pieces that have been in the TSA farm for, you know, years at this point where they can handle those swings. So, trying some, you know, beginner SPS out in this tank. Um, I had a very big leather, unfortunately. I went on vacation and it wilted down as, you know, leather sometimes do. They just don't stand up straight every time. And it was laying in the rose petal gani for about a week when I came home and it was just completely melted. But what's cool is the remnants of that foot are actually starting to spurt some pops on the backside and it had dropped a baby which is also on the back side of the tank. Other than that coral wise I think that's about it. We do have you know a couple euphilia with that gold hammer which if you've kept a gold hammer you know they grow like a weed and I think that started about two heads and that was probably about a year ago now. And then I had had to make this pillar up front because when you have a torch and they have good pulp extension, you never know where those pops are going to go and it's just going to cause issues and especially in a small tank, you got to make as much space as possible and take advantage of the real estate you have. So I had a pillar up a little bit. Uh so I'll probably end up putting some stuff to really cover up the rock on that pillar, but that's really made just so when that torch is, you know, fully extended, those p-ups aren't hitting anything. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be curious, how do you get your Ghanis to be so happy? Your gnies look super super happy. crazy extension. I know some people really struggle with that at home in their systems. I I'm curious, how do you get your Ghanis to look this good? They look amazing. I think honestly consistency is probably the biggest thing. I think a lot of people spend too much time and stress stressing over chasing numbers. Like, oh, this is what the book said and this is what this piece of paper said. My numbers have to be this. I always got to chase it. Um, and I kind of let the tank talk to me. You know, I can tell when the tank's pissed off, stuff isn't as open. Um, but honestly, like it it's always flowing. I use all free in the tank and that's been a staple of mine honestly since the product first came out. I had like the coolest 5gallon you've ever seen. I had five torches in there, a bunch of ganis in there and just consistency of doing water changes with you know tropon pro reef salt and then the all for reef and just keeping it as simple as possible. I think sometimes people get a little too complex and a little kind of overdo it. They're like oh salt was so difficult. Now I think it starts with buying of course aquaculture pieces that have been around for a while. The TSA rose petal which is the big one here. you know, we've had that colony forever now. So, starting with pieces that are already healthy and used to synthetic water, synthetic light, I think is a big thing. But I think just really the consistency and letting your tank kind of talk to you instead of chasing numbers. Now, seeing it now, your fish are crazy, man. I think you have, you know, shown off on the channel. You really like fish, right? Fish is definitely something you really enjoy. Let's talk about the fish you have in the tank. You've got some beautiful specimens in here. So, obviously the the showstopper of the piece is going to be the Bell's Flasher ass out front. Uh, Super Male Bell's Flasher comes from the Marshall Islands. Was a big staple coming out of Hawaii, so it was kind of tough to get it, you know, for a while, but now they've starting to get a lot of ramp production out of the Marshall Islands. Um, I've sold the fish countless times, but, you know, never really had the chance to own it myself. It was one of those ones like I'm never going to spend that on a fish. Um, but we got a good deal one week and I was like, "All right, I'll try it." This tank has always just kind of been clown fish and I I'm just so over it. If you watch my YouTube channel, you'll know that my clowns have cost me exuberance amount of money and killing other fish that I've tried to put into this tank. Um, and I just kind of got over it and I had ended up losing a fish and what I call my jail tank. I had like all my real bullies in that tank and I realized now I can take the clown fish out of this tank and really do what I want in here. So, went with the Bell Splasher. And then I also got this pair of line dart fish, which I've only probably ever seen come into the store three, four times. We had this trio for probably about a month now, which was amazing that no one scooped these things up cuz they're a stunning fish. And they were always eating fantastic. And I was like, "All right, if we're going to go for it, we're taking the clowns out of this tank. I can't just have one rass in here." So, I pulled the trigger on them and they've been eating like monsters. They've probably been in this tank now a little over a month now. Um, and they're just another cool fish. super unique dart fish. They're not super big active swimmers, so I don't feel bad. You know, they're a little bigger fish, but they don't need a super amount of, you know, big space. Um, this tank is getting upgraded eventually. So, again, longterm, they'll be in a bigger tank, but they don't need a lot of swimming space. So, I thought, you know, it was good to put them in this tank. You know, just another showstopper fish. And then I saw you have a neon goi as well. That's pretty much has been in there for, I want to say, a year maybe now. Um, kind of always been hanging around in there. just had to throw something in there cuz it was just clowns and again they were just killing everything I was throwing in there. So I threw one in there and uh he's lived through the chaos of the clown fish and just kind of always been hanging around. Definitely kind of gets forgotten in this tank just because you know you go from like a $30 fish to you know a couple thousand for sure. And so obviously probably the only utility fish you have in the tank. So you don't have a bunch of utility fish in the system. Let's talk about your cleanup crew. It seems like you have a very extensive cleanup crew. As I'm kind of looking around, I see a bunch of, you know, hermits. You got Kongs. Let's talk about the cleanup crew you chose and why you went with them. Um, I'm always for airing on the side of, you know, extra cleanup crew. It's really there to help you out. Um, yes, you're going to lose some here and there and it's just kind of part of the hobby to always kind of replenish. Um, but I always like to get a little extra. And doing a bunch of different varieties stuff. So, I probably have three or maybe four different species of snails in this tank between the uh trocas are probably my go-to honestly because they can breed in the tank. I've always had a good, you know, reproducing population of trocus in my tank. Astria are just the cheap one you can get in bulk. So, even though they might not be the most efficient cleaners, you can get a lot good bang for your buck. Um, I don't think I have any turbos left. I might have one or two kind of hanging around, but they're just kind of more workh horses. Um, I don't love putting them in small tanks just if they ever were to die, you know, they they can cause some issues with, you know, them dying off and the ammonia they can cause. Got a bunch of conchs in here. I always like to keep a nice white sand bed. Probably still two starfish in this tank as well, which you can't even tell, but you know, there's probably a dozen conchs in this tank, which for a 20-gon seems like a lot, but I think, you know, the white sand bed really speaks for, you know, what they do. Um, we got a bunch of cleanup crew. I never really do redle hermits. I always just find them too aggressive. So, I always do a mix of scarlets and blue legs. Probably got a dozen scarlets in here. And then probably 20 blue legs cuz blue legs are just tiny. Yes, they're not aggressive, but they don't do as good a job as some others. But again, kind of similar to the Astria snails, just getting a lot in bulk. And then for the numbers, are we shooting for numbers in this tank? I know you talked about consistency. You're looking at your tank, kind of making those decisions on changing things when you see things aren't happy. Are we testing actively? What are the numbers in the system? So, when all three first came on the market, I was very skeptical. I was like, no way they can get everything into one product. So when All three first came out, I was probably testing my tank and this was my other tank, my five gallon. I probably tested, you know, calcium, alk, magnesium, everything, probably every single day cuz I was just there's no way that that product is doing everything. Now that I'm very familiar with it, I'm comfortable with its consistency, I probably maybe test this tank once a month, honestly. Um it's just really my routine is, you know, I get my every other week water change. Once the algae starts to build up on the glass, that's when I know it's kind of that time for that water change. Um and I'll test it once a month, kind of just make sure we're in line. you know, if I had a bunch of coral that's, you know, going to change the consumption rate, that's maybe I'll up the uh the testing there. But for the most part, I kind of just let it ride. Um it, like I said, you know, a lot of people stress themselves with testing stuff and I'm so worried if I test something that it's like that doesn't seem right and I'm going to change something and that's what's going to make the whole tank go wrong. I have a bunch of customers that their parameters make no sense at all, but it's like the most stunning tanks ever. It's the tank just needs consistency. The corals will adapt to what your environment is. And as long as you're consistent and you're doing kind of a similar routine and as long as you have a general idea, like obviously like I know the nitrates aren't like 60 in this tank. Um they're actually pretty low from every time I've tested it, they're usually less than five, honestly. Um which again, as long as it's in that kind of range and they're not spiking, which I know they really aren't, then I don't see the need to kind of stress myself out testing. I get my once a month in there, just check in, but other than that, that's about it. Made a great point. Every tank is going to be completely different, right? No tank is the same and no coral really is going to act or look the same in every single system. You mentioned water changes. Let's talk a little bit about your maintenance schedule. Are you do you have a schedule for maintenance? What are you doing for maintenance in here? So again, like the glass kind of starts to get that algae film every, you know, every other week is probably about what I'm doing right now. I can kind of tell like, all right, that that water change is coming up here soon enough. Um, scrape down the algae, do the water change, suck out everything. I just kind of scrape down. I have sea gel in the tank which I find is a great, you know, product for smaller tanks to get some, you know, phosphate remover and some carbon in there. There's poly filter in here, which I think is honestly a big thing in this tank. You know, if I'm lighting candles ever, you know, I have a lot of aerosol stuff in this tank. It really helps with that and I think it helps with the water clarity as well. Um, but really again, keeping it as simple as possible, doing that water change every other week. It's about, you know, five gallons and that's really about it. Let's talk about now the equipment in the tank. I love the fact that you've kept it super minimal. That's something I usually harp on people about is get all that equipment out of the tank. Let's enjoy the tank itself. Let's talk about some of the equipment now. So, yeah. So, again, I've, you know, on my YouTube channel, I like I think I have a lot of beginners that follow. Um, so trying to have something they can reproduce in their own tank. So, I again, they're all free. It's one product dosing. It's about 5 mls a day. There's a hydros minnow on here. Um, and then we got a radon and that's it. Like there's there's nothing too crazy. We have an auto top off which I think is, you know, pretty stable at this point. Um, but I don't have any real super testers, you know, nothing too crazy. We have an MP10, so you know, it's running off the same app as the the uh the Radeon, but you know, again, not going too crazy with it. You know, sometimes equipment, you know, on these big systems, for people who travel a lot, yes, I travel a lot. Um, but because the tank is consistent, I don't mind not having that kind of testing where I'm going, but for people who are putting, you know, tens of thousands into their tank, that makes sense. But a take like this, it's just more stuff that can go wrong, honestly, at this point. So, I got one doser head going. I got a light that's got a schedule. And again, just keep it simple. You are the guy that's setting up a lot of the custom installs at TopShelf Aquatics. So, if you guys are looking for a custom install, Jed will be one of the guys you're definitely going to be working handinand with. Now, if people know that, I'm curious. People are probably going to want to ask, right, why a small tank now that you've gotten your own home, you've gotten this house. Has there been the idea? Have you flirted with the thought of doing a custom tank here in this home? Uh, I don't know if I'm going to go custom recently. I've kind of been going back and forth what I'm feeling. Uh, obviously this is about a 15t wall here and it kind of dwarfs on this tank. Um, but I've gone back and forth whether I want to there's a bedroom right on the other side of this room or right on the other side of this wall. whether I'm gonna move my fish room to that bedroom and maybe do a picture frame on this wall, which I think would be cool, or just do something kind of standard on here. Um, a lot of my money goes into the house itself. And I love the hobby, but you know, you work in it every day. Sometimes it can be like not the priority when you get home. So, again, I don't want to overdo it. Um, so maybe I'm looking at like a reaper 700 right now. Like a solid like 150 gallon. Nothing too manageable or nothing too like out of the ordinary. Something pretty manageable. Um, or we might just go crazy. I I don't really know yet. Um, but it's it's within the next couple months, I think, is when the upgrade's going to happen. You said something I said similar to everybody in the video when it was my home tank tour. I think I mentioned the fact that, you know, you're at TopShelf Aquatics. You're around it so much. You know, originally before I was working there, we were, you know, I was super super involved with my reef tank. I was, it was the love of my life. And I'm not saying like you said that this tank isn't the love of my life, but it, you know, you kind of fall out of love with it a little bit and it becomes something you just want to be able to enjoy. Not something that becomes super tedious, gives you a lot of work. And so it's nice to kind of hear the same thing. Obviously though, you're doing an amazing job. The tank is truly beautiful. I want to circle back with your fish. I didn't ask you, what are you feeding the fish? What's going to be feeding these fish? So, I actually have uh started defrosting some stuff this morning. Um, I'm a little different. A lot of people like to defrost their frozen food in tank water or I actually defrost mine in fuel. Um I don't really specifically feed my corals out of the ordinary. It's, you know, they get fuel in the the reef food or in the fish food and uh it seems to be working. It's really just that some mices and some row and that that's really about it. Every once in a while I'll get some vitamins in there for the fish, but nothing too crazy. The coral seems to enjoy what's going in there. Now I will say I feed pretty heavy in this tank. I got fish in here that are on the more delicate side, so they do got to kind of eat a little bit more. So, they are getting fed twice a day. Um, but with, you know, little consistent water changes, the tank never gets too crazy out of whack. Like you can see there's there's not a drop of algae in this tank really. Um, and it's really just, you know, the consistency of the food as well. I'm not letting it sit for five or six days. You know, it's every 3 days it's getting defrosted out. Um, but again, nothing too out of the ordinary. Just some mice, a shrimp, and some row. That's it. a a huge testament to your cleanup crew. You you kind of nailed it there. I don't see any algae in here, which is kind of crazy cuz I feel a lot of time people have this conception that you have to have tangs, you have to have algae blies to really keep your system clean. I know I lean on my tang gang quite a bit at home. They do a ton of work for me, but it's cool to see that, you know, going above and beyond the normal thought of cleanup crew is going to help out, too. You also mentioned that cleanup crews you have to replenish, right? It's not something you just buy and it's like a fish. It's just there forever. You have to replenish it. How often do you see yourself replenishing the cleanup crew in here to kind of maintain less algae? Every other month honestly it's a cuz again I like to shoot on the higher side. Like it pains me when someone comes in like I have 120 gallon tank and it's full of algae. What should I get? I was like well you're going to need like at least 100 her blue legs. Okay, give me 10. like that that's it's just not going to do anything. So like most people would say with the amount of cleanup crew I have in here is like solid for like a 50 gallon. Um but you know it limits my work. I work pretty much six days a week at this point and if not on that I'm filming or doing something else my day off. So I don't have the time to really get in here and clean all the time. Um but it's you know keeping the parameters in line. The phosphates aren't through the roof and uh just you know again good cleanup crew. If you were to go back and change anything for this tank obviously it's an older system right? This is a tank I don't even think is in commission anymore. I don't even know if Waterbox is making this exact tank anymore, but what would you change with this system? Would you change anything about the tank itself? Would you change about the stock? What would you change about the system? Honestly, there's not much. I think flow is a big thing in this tank. Obviously, with the Ghanis, like when I got some new Ghanis this week, I was like, where in this tank can I really put them? Cuz even if you look at the two Ghanies up front, like they're not really whipping. They're kind of reaching. They're flowing, but they're not really whipping. The ones up top are. So, I think that lock line at some point is going to get changed out. this random flow generator on it, but it's probably too big of a size. I think I'm going to reduce that down to get a little more spray and push out of it. Um, but that's really about it. I have a dryer like the AI the AI was orbit, you know, the Orbit 2 I have in a closet, so I'm thinking maybe running that off the back wall or something, but other than that, there's not much. I did recently change this Radeon. It was an AI prime for a very long time. Uh, then I did some renovations of the house and the the fan got coated in some dust and it just burned through every lens in that thing. Um, so the Radeon has probably only been on this tank about 3 weeks, maybe a month now. Um, what's the schedule for the lighting, by the way? Yeah, so it runs from about 8 to 8. Um, but I ramp the whites up. They get about 4 hours of solid white from about 11 to 3. Um, so this is what it looks like. So unfortunately, when I get home from work, it's already pretty blue at that point. So I don't get to enjoy it like this uh too much. But you know, all the A cans, the Ghanis, the Zoas, they really have a nice color pop to them. So when I get home and the tank's just straight blue, like it's kind of unique because, you know, it's not, it's dark outside. It's just blue popping coral. So that's pretty cool to see always. So I don't get to enjoy it too much on the white side. Um, but again, I think it's, you know, people really like to blast the whites. And I think that can be a lot of people's algae issues having their reds and greens turned on. Those are 100% zero. Um, it's really just, you know, whites for four hours, blues for the rest, and that's it. Nice. A little bit of Gucci mode at the end of the day to enjoy, right? That's something I always bring up is that all blues. Now, a question I ask every single time into whenever I do these tank tours is, if you could give a piece of advice to a new coming reef keeper, a reef keeper in general, what would your piece of advice be? I think Jake Adams really coined that question in all of his tank tours, and it's something I'm trying to bring from his content into our content here at TopShelf. What would you do? You know, what would be your little tidbit of advice? Um, you're going to have some painful mistakes, and I think you're just going to have to roll with the punches. You're going to lose some fish. Like if I wanted to, I could do just leathers and some damsels in this tank and never have stress at all. But obviously that's not why we get into this hobby. We get into it cuz we want to kind of push the boundaries sometimes. And I think understanding that you're going to have some losses, you're going to have some trying times. Um in that first year, you know, I think statistically that first year is when most people drop out of the hobby. The tank is still establishing. you're creating an ecosystem and it's just you're going to go through some trying times that first year where you're going to want to take a jackhammer or some hammer to the front of your glass and say, "I'm done with this reef tank stuff." Um, but I think letting the tank kind of do what it's meant to do. You're creating that ecosystem. Don't be afraid to add a little extra bacteria. Let it go through the ugly phase. I really think people like get afraid. Oh, I don't want to deal with it. Keep the lights off for months at a time. I mean, I'll pop up a photo of what this tank looked like probably 3 years ago now. It was disgusting. But I think honestly in the long term it helped out because I let the tank kind of go through those trials and tribulations and just kind of rolled with the punches and understood that, you know, you're going to lose some stuff here and there, but I think longterm, you know, let the ecosystem do what it needs to do. I used to always say one year is kind of the goal for you to get past. Once you can get past one year, I'd have to say it's almost 2 years, right? If you can span, time to really let your tank develop and matur. I want to say thank you Jed for having us over here letting us check out your reef tank. If you guys are looking for any custom tank installs, if you have specific fish you want Jed to source for you, be sure to reach out to him. Reach out to TopShelf either by email, phone, Instagram. You can hit up Jed on his YouTube and Instagram any way possible. Reach out to him, make them work for you. But this has been a lot of fun. I really enjoyed this one showcasing another reef tank that's achievable, right? I think sometimes we showcase these really lavish systems which are amazing to see. No, no problem with that. But not everyone is a multi-millionaire. They can do a system like that, but this is achievable for everyone. If you guys have hung out all the way throughout the course of this one, I want to say thank you very much. Be sure to like, subscribe, and hit the bell notification so you don't miss out on any future uploads. [Music]