My 20 Gal Waterbox

[Starganderfish]

Haven't updated for a while but it's all going nicely.
Things are pretty stable, I've ironed out the kinks with automation and my routine is now:
Feed every day or two - I don't like to over-feed because I want the fish healthy but don't want to encourage too much growth
Scrape glass every three or four days
Change the filter floss maybe once a week or so
Refill the reservoir every fortnight
I splash in a little Red Sea Reef Energy AB+ maybe once a week, and have a doser lightly dosing All-For-Reef
I've never siphoned the bed - I've stirred it up maybe two or three times since starting the tank in Feb and seen no sign of any debris in it, just a little algae growth on the glass under the sand line - I have a lot of snails in the tank now as well as two sand sifting gobies.
I've pulled most of the chaeto out and installed a Santa Monica Slip 7 algae scrubber. Nitrates remain low and even after two weeks, there's hardly any algae growth in the scrubber. I think I may need to pull most or all of the chaeto out and let the scrubber take over - I was trying to ease the transition between them but I don't think nutrients are high enough to sustain both.
I still don't run a skimmer but as long as the return flow keeps up and I change the filter floss, the water stays clear and clean

Current stocking:
2 x Ocellaris Clowns
1 x Rainford Goby
1 x Bullet Goby
1 x Lawnmower Blennie
2 x Coral Banded Shrimp
1 x Hermit crab
Loads of snails - Trochus, Turbos, Ceriths, Nassrius, a couple small Strombs

I had an Abalone in there for about 3 months but it eventually died - I think it starved. Pulled its carcass quick and did a 50% water change and everything was fine.

The Maxima Clam has probably doubled in size, I have a small but happy Rose Bubble Tip that the clowns have recently started to host, and an assortment of mainly softies and LPS - though I stuck some encrusting LPS and SPS on magnets on the back wall a couple of months ago and they are slowly filling out. Had a few small corals die off and there's now a bit of a graveyard in the front right corner of snail shells, coral skeletons etc, but that's part of the life cycle.
I have a small orange and green Bernardpora in the front which almost never emerges, but it's still alive, so I'm just letting it do its thing. And I recently got a bit of a reddish algae growth at the bottom left. It's a bit different and kind of cool looking, and I've contemplated leaving it, but it's growing a little too fast so will need to be removed.

The only issue I'm having is that every couple of months gunk builds up in the Seachem Matrix in the rear chamber basket and slows flow, and water levels fluctuate. I need to rinse it out and then it's all back to normal. It's barely a handful of Matrix and there's plenty of rock and sand so I'm thinking about maybe just pulling it completely. Frankly the amount of gunk that builds up in the media bag and chamber back there is probably way more detrimental than any small biological filtration the Matrix is providing.

I probably need to count snails and work out how many are still around and maybe do a restock.

 

[Starganderfish]

Tank continues to soldier on. I pulled almost all the media out of the back chamber and just run some filter floss I change once or twice a week. The Santa Monica Algae scrubber is going alright - not a huge amount of algae growing on it. I've only cleaned it once in the month since I installed it. I tend to feed quite lightly and daily small water changes are keeping everything nicely balanced.
I pulled out the reddish algae at the front of the tank and after about three weeks it has grown back just as big. I yanked it out again and did my best to remove all traces, but I know it will keep returning. There was a lot of sand caught up in the base of the algae (this is the spot where my Bullet Goby dumps a LOT of sand on and around the rock). The Lawnmower Blenny or single hermit don't seem interested in eating it so it's going to be manual removal for now.
The sand-dumping from the Goby is also doing a real number on my Green Gonipora and the orange Bernardpora. The Berny has still never emerged fully and I suspect it's not long for this world. The long green Goni is basically coral skeleton with hints of green buried deep in the crannies. After I blast all the sand off, it starts to emerge a little but the Goby almost immediately starts dumping sand on it again. Moving it does not seem to have helped.
The other big change is the anemone. The female clown (Judy) happily hosts it while the male (Punch) tends to roam a little more freely. It's happy and fairly nicely bubbled though the tentacles are a little more elongated than I would like. Still, it's a gorgeous piece with a nice bright green at the base of the tentacles. We went away recently for a week and the automation handled everything without a hitch. Even the glass was almost spotless when we got back. The only noticeable difference was the Anemone had migrated down from it's usual spot and was hanging out right down near the sand bed. It was still extended and looked fine though. We've been back for about a week and it's migrated back to its usual spot and looks great, so maybe it just missed getting attention from me and the kids? However this morning I spotted a couple of waving pink tentacles on the back of my rock pile. A quick inspection revealed a new little Anemone growing back there. dang thing must have split while I was away and the offspring has settled in right on the back of the rock, where no-one can appreciate it, and it's basically in the middle of the cross-flow from my two powerheads. I knew that the anemone would split eventually - it's almost inevitable - but I was hoping to get a few years first. Given the small size of the tank, I can't really afford to let it grow too large or split too often.
On the bright side, it's a lovely pink and green cultivar and I'm reasonably sure my LFS will be happy to take it off my hands.