October 2001 Reef Tank of the Month

Therman's Reef Tank

Read below to find out how Therman created this awesome tank.

Hardware and Setup:
My tank was set up in June of 2000, with some new LR and sand, and some I obtained from another reefer tearing down his tank. It's a sumpless 40 gallon breeder, with about a 3" sandbed of a mix of oolithic and larger diameter sands and ~100 lbs. of Fiji LR. Filtration is mostly natural, with abundant Dictyota sp. in the main tank, and dense stands of Caulerpa spp. in the 5 gal Rubbermaid wastebasket refugium and a 20 gallon prop tank tied into the system. This tank was set up to be functional, and pretty on the inside, not on the outside :) I have a Remora Pro protein skimmer on the tank, but I keep switching pumps trying to find an alternative to the Rio that will power it, and I've had no luck, so most of the time its been circulating water and not producing skimmate.

Lighting consists of one 400W Iwasaki and 4x110W VHO actinics suspended over the main tank. The refugium is lit on a reverse cycle from the main tank with a 65W Lights of America power compact fixture, the prop tank is lit by a single 250W 10,000K double ended HQI.

Topoff is accomplished by float switches from Grainger mounted on the rim of the tank, wired to turn on a power head when the level falls. The powerhead then pumps RO from a Rubbermaid reservoir into the tank, maintaining the level within about 1/8".

For circulation, an Aquaclear 500 gph HOB filter is situated at one end of the tank, with media removed and replaced with LR rubble. The supply pump for a single chamber calcium reactor (George Weber antique model) sits in the filter as well. Three MJ 1200s are positioned around the tank, and are run on a Red Sea Wavemaster Pro for better circulation.

Here is one of many awesome SPS corals

Livestock:
This tank is a mixed reef, but dominated by SPS. All corals were grown from fragments with the exception of two heads rescued from my LFS, one of which later died of an RTN-like infection. Plating and encrusting Montipora spp. are my addiction, with 34 different species/forms in the tank. At its peak, I'm guessing I had about 75 different Acropora in the system, mostly fragments of course with a few grown into good sized heads. Other SPS include Seriatopora, Pocilliopora, Porites, and Psammocora.

Is this a picture from Therman's tank or the ocean?

An amazing purple SPS coral

I'm an advocate of low fish-loads in reef tanks, the sum total for my 40 gal reef was 4 fish. A pair of Psychedelic Mandarins (Synchiropus picturatus) were extremely fat and happy, and did the courtship dance just about every night when the halide kicked off, although I never witnessed an actual spawning in the 9 months I had them. Also in the tank was one Firefish (Nemanteleotris magnifica) close to 2 years old and one Kickass Blenny (a.k.a. Caribbean Sailfin Blenny, Emblemaria pandionis). A pair of Fire Shrimp (Lysmata debelius) also hung out side by side in the tank. The tank contained 2 Tridacna maxima and one 6" Tridacna derasa grown from a little 2.5" clam. Various snails including Ceriths, Nerites, Astrea, Stomatella, Nassarius, Tiger Trochus, and one very cool cowrie helped keep down the microalgae, along with about a dozen Scarlet Reef Hermits. The tank was and still is absolutely riddled with microfauna, mysids, amphipods, copepods, hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of tiny brittle stars of a few different species, thousands upon thousands of bristleworms of a number of species, ranging from a few millimeters to well over 14" long.

Sailfin Blenny

I get a lot of questions about my growth rates and coloration. I am sure there's a number of factors at play here. First, the 400W Iwasaki provides excellent light spectrum and intensity. The combination of the 6500K with such a high proportion of actinics plays a big role. In my opinion, actinic bulbs do far more for a reef tank than just make it look pretty. They give a serious boost to the blue range that zooxanthellae use most efficiently, and in conjunction with the very high PAR of the Iwasaki, I don't think that there's a better lighting setup readily available to reefers today.

Look at the coloration of this coral

Secondly, the large quantities of Dictyota in the main tank provides an excellent shelter for microfauna. I fed fairly heavily with three sizes of Golden Pearls and Tahitian Blend when my tank was at its best. This obviously gave the microfauna quite a boost, and all the macroalgae both in the main tank and the refugium made it darn near impossible to overfeed. The low fish load contributed to the microfauna populations, which in turn kept the SPS with a constant supply of live natural food. The strong water circulation also made sure every coral had a constant supply of nutrients and oxygen.

Incredible!

I showed a few people out there that there are exceptions to every rule. A nice SPS tank doesn't have to be huge, and doesn't have to take years to become established. Most of what I did with my tank was common sense. Just think about the animals you're keeping, try to keep everything in a balance naturally, don't spend all your money on additives. I barely added anything to my tank besides food for the corals, and was able to leave for over a week at a time without touching the tank.