September's
Reef Tank of the Month belongs to Simonh
Below is a
description of Simonh's incredible 250 litre reef tank.
Background
I first became interested in marine fish in early 1998. I bought a couple of
Nick Dakin books and started a small fish only set-up. Soon after I became more
interested in corals and keeping a reef tank, so I bought two popular books, The
Reef Aquarium and The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium, and started reading up. I also
started to browse the Internet where I have learnt most of what I practice
though online communities and the excellent articles in Aquarium Frontiers. A
big thanks to everyone who has helped me out through the forums!
Realizing my fish tank would not be suitable for keeping corals I set up a
separate reef tank. Since then I have progressed to my current tank that was
set-up in November 1999. I did suffer a setback about a year to the day (1st
September 2000) when I had a mass die off of red flatworms (I'm sure my panic of
the day is documented in the ReefCentral archives). Most of my Acropora sp.
corals bleached either due to the toxins from the flatworms or the aggressive
use of carbon to try and clear the water of the toxins. Sadly most of them
didn't make it through the event but most other corals, including Pocillipora
and Stylophora, did survive and are still with me today. After the event (and
getting rid of the flatworms) I kept all the same rock structure and sand bed
and refilled the tank with fresh saltwater, reintroduced the fish and the corals
and continued. I do have some flatworms back now but the population is keeping
small thankfully!
A top down
view of a gorgeous Acropora
Tank
The tank is custom-made, measuring 48 x 18 x 20 inches, with a volume of roughly
250 litres. I chose to have more front-back width than height as this gives a
much better visual impression and makes aquascaping more realistic. In the
right-hand corner of the tank is the 'in-built sump' that houses some of the
technical equipment (the tank is located in my office which also houses computer
equipment and I didn't feel comfortable with a sump).
A school of
Chromis among many hard corals
Filtration
The tank is run using Live Rock & Deep Sand Bed as the main filtration
components.
Depth of the sandbed is approx. 3-31/2 inches, using CaribSea Aragamax mixed
with about 5lbs of live sand. Due to the high circulation in the tank I had to
place a thin layer of CaribSea Seafloor on top in places to act as a rip-rap.
There is no plenum and the rocks sit directly on top of the sand. Also, because
we do not have access to the variety of critters available in the US to seed the
sand beds, all life in the sand bed has come from the live rock added to the
tank and from a small amount of sand collected from the LFS curing tanks. By
doing this I have been able to build up quite an active sand bed, with numerous
bristle worms, copepods, amphipods, ostracods, mysid shrimps, mini brittle stars
and all kinds of other oddities.
Aquascaping a reef tank is often a daunting task. Having built a few aquascapes
in the past I have learnt a few tricks and put them to good use this time.
First, I created an image in my mind of how I wanted the aquascape to look.
Second, I only had a small amount of Caribbean live rock and a few small pieces
of Fiji live rock from the tank I was upgrading. I evaluated these pieces of
rock and how they would be used in building my structure, and then I toured
around my local fish stores and purchased a few large flat pieces of rock that
would create the plinths that my corals would be placed upon. Although this cost
me considerably more than mail ordering a box of 25kg, I was able to choose
individual rocks that would achieve the aquascape I wanted. Small rocks were
placed directly on the sand as a foundation to minimize the contact area between
the rocks and the sand. Large flat rocks were then placed as bridges across the
smaller pieces, and the rock structure built up to form a flat pinnacle at the
right hand side of the tank. At the left I placed the few leftover rocks and
left a large open sand area in the center, where the fish could swim.
No mechanical filtration is used in the tank. Most of the fine particles of
detritus and worm larvae are good food for many of the invertebrates in the
tank. A TurboFloter 1000 hang-on skimmer is used as the main export mechanism.
I also harvest a small amount of Calurpa algae from the tank as a form of
nutrient export. One of the problems with Calurpa is it can often go sexual,
releasing many substances into the tank and reducing the oxygen levels. By
keeping the amount of Calurpa low, and harvesting regularly, I have avoided
these problems up to now. Calurpa racemosa has turned into a real nuisance
recently in that it tightly adheres to the rocks where it has spread to making
it difficult to harvest, I spent about 2 hours one weekend picking out most of
this and am now trying to get rid of the remaining pieces of it. Just recently
the Calurpa isn't growing a rapidly and Halimeda seems to be my main export
algae at present.
A
small amount of carbon is placed in a small Fluval 1 internal filter and changed
at monthly intervals
Full tank
view from left
Water
movement
At peak my tank has about 10,500 lph circulation (around 50 times taking into
consideration the net water volume). I use a Tunze electronic 2400 lph and also
2 external mounting IKS Turbo 3500 lph variable speed power heads. Although
these are very expensive compared to most power heads, I am very pleased with
the results. Flow produced by these powerheads is very soft compared to the jet
like current produced by most popular small powerheads. Acropora located near
the have developed much thicker and more natural looking branches. All the pumps
pulse from around 40% of output to 100% every 5 seconds. They are also
programmed so that they operate for random amount of time to create very random
currents.
Many SPS corals
Lighting
Lighting is provided by a dual 10,000 Kelvin, 250-watt, metal halide pendant
system mounted 5-6" above the water surface. Photoperiod is 12 hours. I am
currently experimenting with my aqua-computer using Bali sunrise/set for the
main lights and have also added a 25W blue bulb that is simulating the
moonrise/set and intensity.
Control
Monitoring and control of the aquarium lighting, heating / fan, pumps, dosing,
and calcium reactor is performed by my IKS AquaStar computer.
Water Parameters
| Temperature: |
83-83.3(F
(open topped tank and English weather helps out here) |
| Salinity: |
35-36ppt |
| pH: |
7.9-8.1 |
| Alkalinity: |
21/2-3
mEq/L |
| Calcium: |
420ppm |
| Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate: |
less
than detection limit of test kit (SeaTest test kit) |
| Phosphate: |
<0.03ppm |
Top down view
Maintenance/Feeding
4 litres of Lime-water (aka Kalkwasser) is added by means of dosing pump at
night only. I also use a Korallin C1501 calcium reactor to maintain calcium and
alkalinity.
10% water changes are performed every four to six weeks or so, using Instant
Ocean. Just recently I have done a 40% water change all at once, after this I
notice really rapid of growth of the tips of many Acropora just a couple of days
after. All make-up water is processed with a reverse-osmosis/deionisation filter
due to high levels of silicates in the tap water.
The fish are
fed daily with a variety of frozen and dried foods. I also use Golden Pearls and
SeaFarm's Nanochropolis Cryopaste Phytoplankton for feeding the sand bed to
encourage reproduction of the detrivores, and also filter feeding invertebrates
such as small clams, tubeworms, and other corals that may benefit such as
Goniopora.
Look at this
amazing Acropora growth sequence
Tank Inhabitants
Stoney Corals
| Trachyphyllia
geoffroyi |
Turbinaria
peltata |
| Favites |
Pocillopora
damicornis |
| Platygyra
pini? |
Pocillorpora
verrucosa |
| Leptoria
phygria? |
Seriatopora
hystrix |
| Calustrea |
2
Stylophora pistillata |
| Goniopora
stokesi? *See note below. |
2
Monipora capricornis |
| Merilina
ampliata |
Porites
porites |
| Turbinaria
reniformis |
Porites
cylindrica |
18
Acropora spp (most unidentified, some frags from other aquarists).
|
|
note: Gomipora
stokesi? - currently 2 years old and produced about 7 offsping, 3 have been
given away to other reefers.
Clams
| 2 Tridacna maxima
(gold) |
| 2 Tridacna crocea
(Blue/Green) |
| 1 Tridacna deresa |
Worms
| 3 Sabellastarte sp.
(tube worm in soft tube) |
| Spirobranchus
giganteus (porites rock worms) |
| Protula bispairalis
(tube worm in hard calcareous tube) |
Algae
| Various coralline
algae |
| Calurpa |
| Halimeda turf algae |
| Miscelanous others |
Fish
2 common clowns
(have had big momma clown over two years, small male clown just recently
introduced and paired up) |
| Purple tang (18
months and looking forward to a bigger tank to house it in) |
| Firefish (over two
years) |
| 6 green chromis
added a few days ago |
Snails +
other inverts
| 6-10 astrea snails |
| A few stomellata
snails |
| 1 red leg hermit
crab |
| Blue tuxedo urchin
(Mespillia globulus) |
| Blue Linckia
laevigata |
Middle view
For more information about
Simonh's incredible tank please email him here. | 
