| This page is devoted to my
hobby of reefkeeping.
I have been keeping marine fish and corals for several years now. I started with a small tank when I lived in England, and then before I knew it I had a tank the size of a small swimming pool and a second mortgage (well nearly) I sold all my stuff when I moved to the USA in January 1995. In Oct 96 I started a new marine tank. This was a minireef and was set up using the information I found at the Thiel Technologies page and from the members of the reefkeeping mail serve list. The photograph below was taken after 5 months. |
| Since then I have added lots of new stuff to this tank. Much to my delight, the various animals I have added have grown so well that I have ran out of space in this tank. The photo below is of the same region as the one above. The time between the two shots was about 6 months. All the livestock that can be seen here was purchased from Harbor Aquatics. |
| As you can see, the soft corals really grew well. So
much that I have had to invest in another larger set up. Over the next
few weeks I will chronicle the setting up of a new 70 gal tank. |
| Ok, to begin with, lets look
at the hardware I have for the new setup. I list the costs here for anyone
curious as to how much all this will damage the pocket... |
| ITEM | MAKE/MODEL | SIZE/FEATURES | COST US$ |
| Aquarium | Nature View | 48"longx19"highx22"wide. All glass with glass hood and a single NO light (48") | $180 |
| Powerheads (3) | Penguin 1140 | 310 gal/hour each | $41 each |
| Heater | Visitherm | 200 watts | $30 |
| Lighting | Icecap 660 VHO fluorescent retro fit kit | 4 110W bulbs. 2 actinic blue and 2 actinic white | $335 |
| Skimmer | CPR Bakpak | 75 gal rated | |
| Air pump | Whisper 400 | $28 | |
| Tank Stand | Unknown | 36" high, stained pine | $125 |
| Total | $821 |
| The above is the equipment I have purchased so far. With the exception of the lights, all of this is necessary before we can add any water to the tank. The skimmer is probably too small for this size tank, however it has been modified to make it more efficient. It now has, in addition to the venturi, bubbles created by a limewood airstone. This is driven by the whisper pump. This modification provides a drier foam and increases (in my opinion) the rating of the skimmer. If it doesn't appear to cope with the tank I will upgrade it later. |
| Lighting decisions were really the hardest with this setup. My choices were two 175W metal halides supplemented with actinic blue fluorescent or the above system. I chose the icecap VHOs really because they give off less heat, and to me this was a major concern. I had also heard from several hobbyists that some corals do not do well and lose color under MH. The fluorescent tubes also allow me to make a smaller canopy for the tank. The light in the completed tank is beautiful. I am also using the 60W bulb (Actinic blue) that came with the tank to give a total of 500W, or 7W/gal water. |
| So that is the set up. The stand was placed on a sheet of styrofoam, about 1" thick, on top of the styrofoam is a sheet of plywood, 1/4" thick. This makes a nice base that will cusion the bottom of the stand. The tank was placed on the stand and checked to ensure it was level. I then added 50 gals water. I have access to ultrapure water, and that is what I used. To this I added Instant Ocean salt to give a S.G of 1.023 at 78F. The powerheads and heater were turned on and the water allowed to mature for a week. |
| OK, so a week has gone by, and impatience is setting in. I really want to add something to the tank so nows the time for live sand and live rock. I looked around on the net and read several postings to the reefkeeping list and finally decided I needed 70lbs LS and at least 70lb LR. My other tank has a quartz sand, which I didn't want in this tank. The 30 gal tank also has 40lb LR in it. This I will definitely be adding to the new tank, it is from Fiji and is light weight and absolutely covered in beautiful coralline algaes. That was purchased from Harbor Aquatics. Gary and Joy Meadows (the owners) were great, and I have purchased all my live stock from them. So, anyway, back to the new tank. I finally decided to try out the LS and aquacultured LR from Tampa Bay Saltwater. I chose them since I had heard good things and had seen the web page, with it's associated graphics. So I called them up, spoke with Richard Londeree, and decided on 70lb LS ($1.50/lb) and 30LB of the cheapest LR ($2.50/lb). Richard also advised me to take a couple of serpent stars and tiger tail cucumbers. The order was placed and I spent the next day waiting... |
| Well, the shipment of LS and LR arrived. Following the instructions which came with the sand, it was drained of the shipping water and slowly added to the tank. A snowstorm ensued and, to my surprise, something swam across the tank while assorted snails and starfish climbed the sides of the glass. The LS was composed of large fragments of rock and shells and was absolutely full of life. Dozens of snails and hermit crabs have since been seen in the tank. When I opened the LR bags I was, once again impressed. The rocks were covered in fan worms, many had good sized stony corals growing on them. There were also sponges of many colors, lots of corraline algae, clams, spiny oysters, snails, sea squirts and other such stuff. Of course I didn't get to see most of this until the clouds settled overnight. The next morning I spent hours watching all the life coming out of the sand, and the rocks. The picture to the right shows one sample piece of rock. Although the corals look white in this picture they are a deep brown/red with fully extended polyp heads. I even spotted a pink sea urchin, about the size of a quarter. This stuff was great. |  |
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This shot is the tank set up with 100lb LR and 70lb LS from TBS. I have yet to do any aquascaping, or bring over any of the other corals from the other tank. The nitrites have peaked and dropped to zero, the nitrates are falling and soon all will be ready for the move over. |
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| These shots really do not do justice to the variety of life and color on the rocks. In the shot on the left can be seen one of the many sea squirts, or tunicates that came in on the rocks (it is the dark object center/top). For more pictures of these rocks follow this link |
| So its been a while and I have added some corals to see how things are going. The nitrates have not fallen all the way down so I have added a few mangroves to a hang on filter. Once they started to grow, about three weeks, the nitrates just dropped to zero!!. it is now about 2 months from setting up the new tank and it is time to move stuff over. This is the hard part, since I need to move the rock first and that is under the corals. I want to set up the new rock work to have plenty of spaces for water flow, but also a lot of flat areas for the positioning of the corals. getting this "just right" is really a matter of taste, but I am trying to acheive a natural look. Once the rock is in the corals can be moved over. I treated each coral as if I had just purchased it and slowly aclimatized each one. Once they were in I also had to allow them to get used to the new light intensity. I started with three hours of the VHO lighting for the first two weeks and slowly increased that by 30 minutes per week until it is now on for 10 hours per day. The actinic blue No lights come on and go off 30 minutes before and after. so if you do the math I have had the corals in the tank for 14 weeks. This photo is how it looks now. |
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| As you can see many of the corals have grown incredibly over the last few months. Here is another shot of the left side of the tank. |
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| This is a shot of the right hand side of the tank |
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| And finally, for this section, a shot of the leather corals in my tank. For those interested, on the very first picture of this page there is a small leather coral on the right hand side of the rocks. 18 months of growth has turned it in to the middle leather coral in this photograph. Previous photos on this page show some of the other corals in these last few photographs. It goes to show that with sufficient light, good water chemistry and patience, coupled with all the helpful advice of the people on the Reefkeeping list (especially Albert Thiel) anyone can have a beautiful tank. |
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| Thanks for reading this page, please let me know your thoughts on how to improve this document |
For information on mangroves, try going here
For more information on denitrification try going
here
To go back hit me HERE
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