This is the story of my 20 gallon reef. I will note any additions or removals of animals as well as any changes or problems with the tank. I may not bother to note weekly temperatures, salinity, cleaning, etc. as they are usually the same.

I emptied the bleach water on 6/25/25 and refilled with water with dechlorinator. I drained that on 6/28/25 and dried the tank. The next morning, I added silicon to all the seams. I didn't remove the old silicon because I knew it would leak if I did. It wasn't leaking so far so why chance it. While silicon doesn't stick to silicon, it does stick to glass and its wet self so the new silicon spans the entire area. Most of the old silicon was good except the two front vertical panels where various plecos and other fish had chewed it off over the years, and there was algae and java moss under the silicon even after the bleaching and dechlorinating. It won't do any harm and hopefully will keep the tank leak-proof the rest of my life.

7.9 pounds of Nature's Ocean Aragonite gravel, rinsed twice with saltwater. I have had this for years. It was a 10 pound bag. Yes, I weighed it.
20 pounds of Caribsea Arag-Alive live reef sand.
~15 gallons of saltwater I made all week using RO water and Coral Pro salt. Final specific graveity of 1.023. Yep, a 20 gallon tank only holds 15 gallons! Well, my 12 gallon nano reef only took 9 gallons. If the 6 gallon took 4.5 (I didn't leave a note for it so I don't know for sure), then that's 13.5 gallons total so 15 gallons will be 1.5 gallons more. So, still better! Of course, once the live rock is in, the volume will go way down.
Aqueon Pro 100 W heater set to 80 degrees F for now to be close in temperature to the other tanks.
Penguin 200 filter with biowheel, floss/carbon pad they sell, and additional filter floss in the other spot (I put another one in the 12 gallon tank to accumulate good bacteria until I can move everything).
Discard-a-stone for aeration run by half an Airpod (which has battery backup when the power is off), bleeding some pressure out a gang valve as it is too much.
Aquaneat 80 gph skimmer.
Marineland Maxi-Jet 600, 160 gph. I could not get this to do what I want so I am still working with it.
Glass lid from before.
Fluval Sea 25,000 K, 32 W, 24-34" saltwater lighting system with time control and night lights for part of the night (no light while I am asleep so the fishes can sleep!). This is a new light for me, and it gets hot! I thought LED's are supposed to be cool?
Aqueon Modular LED 30" aquarium light with three removable "bulbs". This light I had on the 20 gallon when it was freshwater generates no heat that I can feel. I changed the five year old bulbs with two day white and one beauty max. I kept this light as well because the new light only spans two-thirds of the width of the tank, and the color looks so much better with the Aqueon on too. Corals need light!

I started at 8:57 am. I tested the specific gravity of the 20 gallon tank and 4 containers of saltwater (made from RO and Coral Pro salt over 4 days). Buckets 1 to 4 were 1.0225, 1.023, 1.023, 1.022 and the 20 gallon was 1.023. I turned everything off the 20 gallon tank and removed the lights and lid. I bailed down 3.5 gallons. I was so nervous that I spilled saltwater all over. I used metal tweezers to pick up the crabs I could see in the 6 gallon. Then, I put all the shells into a container with saltwater and saw no crabs in them. Later, I would discover that two did have crabs so I eventually found all 7 crabs in the 6 gallon. I couldn’t find the one Astrae snail until everything was out of the tank, and he was hanging his guts out, not happy in the filth. I pulled the live rocks from the 6 gallon, shook them off in buckets of water, and used a metal zit popper tool to scrape green star polyps off the main rock but not the others. I had to wear gloves due to bristleworms.

For the 12 gallon, first I removed the three snails and then caught Nemo with a net and set them aside in saltwater. Then, I tweezered out all the shells. I couldn’t see Scarlet (Scarlet reef hermit crab) but she later appeared in that bucket of shells moving around! How did she vanish so easily? With each rock, I scraped off green start polyps (GSP) and Aiptasia. I clipped some long pieces of GSP to two magnetic clips on the wall of the 20 gallon. I topped off the 20 gallon with the water I had put aside and used 2.5 gallons so the rocks only took up 1 gallon? How? Lots of holes in them? Everything was in the 20 gallon by 11:30 am. I didn’t finish cleaning up until 1:30 with lunch break. I put all the extra shells, GSP, and a plastic cave in the 12 gallon to quarantine new fish and topped it off with the water I had set aside. I had to hand collect all the old gravel and throw it away. It was SO dirty!! Nemo seemed upset and confused. The crabs had a field day going all over! The snails were lethargic. I decided to go ahead and move them so they and I didn’t have to go through this twice.

I got one small black Oscellaris clownfish, captive bred, named Nori! He is hopefully male due to the small size and being quarantined in the 12 gallon. Nemo is about 18 years old and large so likely female. I will try to use the plastic fish breeder box to introduce them once quarantine is over.

I got two peppermint shrimp who were drip acclimated into the 20 gallon and named Crystal and Grotto (my brother's idea).

I paid for three corals but they accidently gave me a small fourth one for free. I dipped those in Coral Rx and then drip acclimated them into the 20 gallon and used reef epoxy to affix them to the live rock. The four corals were a green Ricordea mushroom with an extra big vermetid snail attached, a zooanthid with green middle and red edges, and two different zooanthids with green middles and brown edges.

A few days later, I discovered that the Ricordea mushroom not only had the vermetid snail but it looks like three green zooanthid polyps! They are pretty much the same color as the ones I bought but technically hitchhikers.

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