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* January 2011 TOTM *
* TOTM - January 2011 - Hazey *
I have known Hazey for a good few years as I went to primary school with Dave. I seem to remember him being a bit of a goalkeeper for the school. Well the goalkeeper turned fish keeper!
Dave's tank is a gorgeous tank I have seen many times in the flesh and it just goes to show you don't need big systems with sumps to have a healthy thriving system.
Congrats to you mate on the tank of the month for Jan 2011
I had my first tank when I was 12 & that was just a 2 foot tank in my bedroom with goldfish & that is where it all started. I then moved onto trops, just the usual mixed trop set up. I had a break from keeping fish whilst at college. As soon as I bought my 1st house I went out & bought my Jewel Vision 180 tank. I wanted to keep marines but knew i needed a lot of researching as I knew nothing. Trevor at Oasis talked me into keeping Malawi Cichlids. Well I had them for 6 years before I finally turned to the salty side.
I have now had my reef set up for almost 3 years & basically cannot see my house without a marine tank...ever. It is the best move I have made going from trops to Marine.
Tank
My tank is still the Jewel Vision 180 running with no sump. I took out the internal filter box & cut out the black centre brace bar & replace it by siliconing a glass brace bar due to the light unit.
Lighting
Single 150w Aquamedic halide unit which is held in place with the hanging wire kit. The bulb is a BLV 14k. I change my bulb every 12 months
I have fixed to the front fin of the halide unit my all blue aquaray. Around the whole inside on the tank, just above the water line are 6 all blue LED water proof strips.
My lighting period is as follows:-
Blues on 11am-13:30
Halide on 13:00-21:30
Blues back on 21:00-23:00
Auto top up
This is taken care of via my Tunze Osmolator 3155 auto top up. I had a custom made reservoir tank made from glass to just fit inside one of my stands cupboards
Heating & Cooling
x1 200w heater & a twin azoo fan. Both of these are connected to an ATC800 unit. My ATC is set to 25 degrees C & my tank only fluctuates 1 degree either side of that at most. I made a box & connected up 2 plugs to it so it made it easier to just plug the heater & fan into the socket than having to hard wire them to the ATC unit
Here's the wiring diagram
Put it all together & tested it
Circulation
When I first set up I had a Koralia 2 & 3 powerheads. My Eheim external filter with the spray bar breaking the waters surface. I then removed the external filter within 6 months of my startup. I replaced my Koralia's 12 months later & put in x2 Tunze 6055 and connected them up to a Tunze 7091 single controller with a 7092 Y-adapter so it can control both powerheads. I also fitted a 7094 phto cell.
Filtration
35kg of live rock
2 little fishes Phosban reactor with Rowaphos (changed every 6 weeks)
Hang on Cleartides 360 Refugium. In the regugium I have Miracle Mud, 3 small pieces of Live Rock and on top of that cheato. Lighting is taken care of by an Arcadia 11w arc pod. I use the reverse lighting method so 30 mins before my main tank lights go out the arc posd turns on and visa vera in the morning.
My Refugium
Skimmer
Deltec MCE600 with media basket. In the basket I have Rowa Carbon (changed every 3-4 weeks)
Water changes
I do 25litre water changes every 7-10 days using Tropic Marin pro reef salt
Water parameters
SG 1.025
Temp 25
Calcium 440
Mag 1400
Ph 7.9
Nitrate 4ppm
Phos zero
Feeding regime
I feed the tank several times a day. I have no set timings for when I feed the tank. When I am on my days off they get little & often & then when I am at work (long hours) my tank is only fed once or twice.
Foods
New Era Marine flake, Herbivore flakes, Aegis flakes & Marine pellets
Gamma dry enriched dried natural seaweed
Aqualabs nutrition polyp+ LPS
Coral Frenzy
Frozen foods:- Cyclopeze bar, Marine feast, PE Mysis, Lance Fish, Lobster eggs, Ocean delight Phyto (I have a whole drawer in the freezer just for my fish food)
Inhabitants
Fish
Yellow Tang
Leopard Wrasse
Pair of Wild Ocellaris clowns
Female Mandarin
Pair of purple firefish
Pair of high fin goby's paired with a pistol shrimp
Corals
Yellow sun
Many Acan Echinata's
Elongatus Xenia
Red sea pom pom xenia
Ricordea's
Frog spawn
Hammer head
Zoas
Trumpet
Scolly
Green star polyps
Blue star polyps
Yuma mushroom
Blastomussa Wellsi
Goniapora
Inverts
Cleaner shrimp
Red Blood shrimp
Pair of Harlequinn shrimp
Turbo snails
Nassarius snalis
Deresa clam
Flame scallop
In time I would like to upgrade to a 4 foot tank & definately have a sump. My main aim is to have a tank with mainly SPS corals but until I get a tank with a sump I do not want to tackle it.
Now for some more pictures
This is my Malawi set up just before I stripped it down ready for the conversion over to the salty side
My tank now emptied I took it into my kitchen ready to butcher it.Take the internal filter out & cut out the brace bar
the new brace bar
This is the the moment I added my live rock & old tank water that I bought 2nd hand off a fellow reefer
the morning after
The first inhabitants
This is the tank 12 months on
I had a problem with an orchid dotty back fish, evil little devil fish, attacks everything. I tried for a month to catch it with a fish trap, everything else went in it except the dotty back so I had no option but to strip the tank apart
All of this because of this little fellow
This is it after the dramatic fight to catch the dotty back.
For some unknown reason I got it in my head that I wanted to open up my tank to create more swimming space for my Tang so I set about building 2 towers of rock work, drilling the rock & inserting acrylic rods
I found the fish had nowhere to shelter/hide so I only had my set up this way for 6 months & then added more live rock
This is where I am now with my tank
Some people might think my tank is a little too blue & I'd agree but I love the way the corals glow
must go to The Salty Box for all the members help with guiding me along my way. I have made many friends from the forum. Also a massive thanks must go to a very understanding wife
Dave
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Re: * January 2011 TOTM *
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