| September
2001 Reef Tank of the Month
Simonh's
Reef Tank
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.
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 |
