What's New With the Softy Tank? Four Months In With the 90/10 Method
Four months is where a reef tank starts telling the truth — not the honeymoon phase, but when the method gets tested by real conditions.
The 90/10 softy tank is doing exactly what we hoped.
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What's New With the Softy Tank? Four Months In With the 90/10 Method
Four months is where a reef tank starts telling the truth. Not the honeymoon phase, but when the method gets tested by real conditions. The 90/10 softy tank is doing exactly what we hoped.
Would This Work as a First Tank? Absolutely. If a first reef tank looked like this at four months, most reefers would finally understand why people love this hobby. Compared to tanks from 20 years ago, this system is well ahead of where most of us started, a result that used to take 8 to 12 months of trial, error, and costly fixes.
The ongoing routine is simple: water changes, clean the glass, feed the fish, change the carbon. No elaborate plumbing, no constant tinkering. There was no visible diatom phase, no cyano, no ugly stage. A clean startup is not fantasy if the process is right.
This Is Now a Mixed Reef Some LPS corals were moved in temporarily, then stayed. The mix better represents what most newer reefers actually build, so it became a more useful teaching setup.
No Tank Is Pest Free Corals transferred from another system brought hitchhikers despite precautions.
Bubble algae survived the peroxide dip and is managed through manual removal with pumps off, plus a foxface being added. Aiptasia, just one or two, is being entombed with epoxy, with filefish and peppermint shrimp as backup. Lettuce algae is the most stubborn of the three. Snails, crabs, and the tang are not touching it, though direct 100% peroxide spray worked well locally.
The dip lesson: stronger concentrations work better, but not every coral tolerates them. Quarantine is still the gold standard, just a bigger commitment most newer reefers are not ready for.
Algaecides: Vibrant vs. API AlgaeFix Both have been used in the hobby with mixed results. Vibrant worked well on bubble algae in past experience. AlgaeFix is appealing for cost and similar active ingredients, but outcomes from other reefers have been inconsistent.
Why algaecides can go sideways: dead algae decays and stresses the tank, coral symbionts are also algae so treatments can affect them too, and smaller tanks swing harder and recover slower.
The smarter approach is to manually remove as much as possible first, treat as cleanup, then be ready with water changes and carbon. A decision on which product to use is still pending, waiting until the tank looks strong and newly added corals have acclimated.
Why the Pests Are Actually Useful These issues make the tank more valuable as a teaching tool. It shows how real pest management works through dips, manual removal, epoxy, biological controls, and chemical options as a last resort. That is more honest than pretending pests do not happen.
Where Things Go From Here The tank keeps maturing, pests get managed, and the 90/10 method continues holding up. At four months, this reef proves a beginner friendly approach can produce a stable, attractive mixed reef without overwhelming complexity. A repeatable path to a first success, not hype, not theory.
Next up is the SR150 build on an Innovative Marine 150, likely an SPS dominated mixed reef. A much harder challenge, and exactly why it is interesting.
