December 2010 Featured Tank of the Month

Dez's Tank

Congratulations to Dez for being selected as Canreef's Featured Tank of the Month for December 2010. Thanks, Dez, for sharing your system details with us! Please click on the thumbnails to view the pictures larger.

The Technical Stuff

Overview: 150 gallon glass aquarium built into the wall to look like a picture frame on one side of the room and viewable from the other side of the room as a regular aquarium on a stand. Set up date - mid August 2009. Last running tank before this was 5 years prior.

Display tank: 150 gallon 5' x 2' x 2' (External overflow and external wavebox DIY). Standard glass bracing in center - DIY cut out of center of this brace for more light penetration)

Stand: DIY 2 x 4 and 2 x 6 construction (screwed and glued) with a custom maple surround/canopy to skirt it off.

Sump: 100 gallon - 48" x 24" x 20" tall Acrylic sump

Frag Tanks:

• 52 Gallon 48" x 18" x 14" tall glass. (Only about 40 gallons of water in it because I run the water level lower)
• 20 Gallon 30" x 12" x 12" glass

Water Change Tank: 75 Gallon 48" x 18" x 20" glass tank (no lighting or corals in this tank, it is simply hooked up to the main system for easy water changes)

Protein skimmer: Precision Marine Bullet 3 with a custom 16" height extension (Beckett Style)

BRS Carbon Reactor: Premium ROX carbon (1 cup) changed every 30 days.

Return pump: Reeflo Blackfin 6000 (This runs the main display, the skimmer, and the 2 frag tanks)

Water circulation:

• Sequence Dart (3600gph) - runs the closed loop to an Oceans Motions 4-way through 4 outlets through the bottom of the display hidden by rockwork. The intake is a custom made aragecrete rock built around a 2" "Y" fitting with many holes drilled through the rock for a hidden intake.
• Tunze Wavebox - Custom DIY glass wavebox built on the outside of the tank to avoid a visible wavebox in the display. I took apart a Tunze wavebox to use the innards of it for the project.

Lighting (Main Display):

• 3 x 250 watt hqi bulbs (14K cheap China no name brand bulbs) driven by IceCap electronic ballasts. The middle one is driven by a PFO Hqi pulse start ballast.
• 4 x 80 watt T5s (2 Gieseman Coral lights and 2 Gieseman Actinic plus)
• 2 x 54 watt T5s (KZ fiji purple)
• 2 x 1 watt blue LED moonlights

Lighting (Frag Tanks):

• On the 52 gallon I have 2 x 150 watt hqi halides with one 14K cheap China no name bulb and one 10K cheap China no name bulb
• On the 20 gallon I have one 250 watt hqi halide (20K cheap China no name bulb)

Lighting (Refugium): No refugium

Calcium/alkalinity/magnesium dosing: Reef Octopus dual chamber 5.5" reverse flow calcium reactor (coarse ARM media on one side - on this side I run KZ magnesium chips in conjunction; and fine media on the other)

Auto top-off: 75 gallon 48" x 18" x 20" glass tank with R/O DI water and float valve hooked up to it. This then gravity feeds to a Gap level-loc top off electronic float valve system.

Heating/cooling: Aqua-Controller III controlling 2 fans aimed at the sump for cooling, also controlling 3 x 200 watt glass heaters in the sump.

System control: Aqua Controller III controls Calcium Reactor, PH, lighting periods, heating and cooling

Water Circulation and Flow Summary and Objectives:

I went with a large return pump to run my entire system for a few reasons. First of all there would be less equipment to worry about. Secondly, the Reeflo Blackfin 6000 pump draws only 3 amps max and it powers my beckett skimmer and still delivers approximately 1500 gallons of water through a WavySea oscillating device from my basement all the way to the main floor. This is one part of the "randomness" of the flow in the aquarium. This is the only piece of visible plumbing in my display tank - the oscillating 90 degree PVC elbow near the water surface.

The other portion of my flow is the External Wavebox. This causes all the particulate matter to remain suspended and eventually settle into the sump. It gives general flow to all areas of the aquarium. Even the coral farthest away from the wavebox waves gently back and forth with the current.

The last portion of my flow is the closed loop fed by the Sequence Dart pump. The intake is hidden (custom made aragecrete over a 2" Y fitting). The intake is near the overflow - drawing water down toward the bottom of the aquarium. The 4 outlets on the bottom face away from the overflow. The outlets are hidden by custom made aragecrete rocks. I faced these outlets away from the overflow to hopefully cause a circular flow in the aquarium so that even when the outlets are not active, the circular motion continues. The Oceans Motions 4 way provide more randomness to the flow. Only 2 of the four outlets are active at any given time.

Water Parameters:

• Temp: 79.5 day/80.5 night
• pH: 8.0 day/8.1 night
• Specific gravity: 1.026
• NO3: 0ppm (The last time I tested)
• Ca: 380ppm (The last time I tested)
• Alk: 6 dkh (The last time I tested - target is more like 7 dkh)\
• Mg: 1350ppm (The last time I tested - it's probably a lot lower now as I just dump magnesium in whenever I feel like it now)
• PO4: 0.04ppm (The last time I tested, might be more now, but I'm still doing the same zeo dosing and my livestock hasn't changes, so hopefully it's still the same)
• Ammonia and nitrites: None known of (according to the last time I tested)

Lighting Summary and Objectives:

Photoperiod:

• Display tank: 10:30am (Actinics turn on), 11:30am (10K T5s turn on), 12:30pm (Fiji Purple T5's turn on), 1:30pm (3 x 250 watt halides turn on), 8pm (Halides off), 10 pm (10K T5's turn off), 11 pm (Actinics turn off), Midnight (Fiji Purples turn off). Moonlights run 24/7.
• Grow-out tank: 52 Gallon - 2 x 150 watt halides (4am on, 10:30am off), 20 Gallon - 250 watt 20K halide (10:30pm on, 4am off)

Filtration and Water Quality Summary and Objectives:

I chose the zeovit system as it fit my lifestyle and was fairly easy to operate. The ultra low nutrient system appealed to me because I like having a heavy bioload. I have a 3L vertex zeovit reactor. I pump it twice a day (once when I get up and once in the evening. This "forces" me to go into my fish room in the basement where the sump is located at least twice a day to make sure everything is operating properly and check up on my frags in the grow out tanks in the basement. I chose not to use filter socks or any mechanical filtration mainly out of laziness, I like to enjoy my aquarium and not feel like I have to "work for it." I will summarize my routine for you so that you know how I maintain my water quality.

Daily: Feed the fish. I feed the fish approximately 3-4 times a day. Lately my wife has been doing the feedings and I just feed them at night because my work schedule has gotten a lot busier. I use pellets and flakes as a main source of food. I've also been trying the Instant Ocean gel foods too (supposed to be a replacement for frozen food). This has been really convenient as I hate feeding my sun polyps but they take this form of food. I hate waiting for the defrosting process of frozen food so I hardly feed that anymore. I am quite surprised actually because I caught my wife defrosting food for the fish a little while ago because she realizes that I just don't care that much anymore and have stopped defrosting fish food. Once in a while I will feed frozen food when I feel like defrosting some (not very often). If I do defrost frozen food then I'll soak the food in vitamins and garlic, although I'm not too concerned with disease because I have been done adding fish for a long time.

Daily Dosing of Zeo - Morning:

• 5 drops amino acids
• 8 drops coral vitalizer
• 8 drops sponge power
• (lately I've been playing around with iron, pocci glow, and potassium to see if the coral colours change). I've found that the iron brings out the greens, and the pocci glow works - the pinks go pinker)
• 0.4 mL of zeostart2

Twice a week:

• 10 drops Zeobak
• 3 drops Zeofood 7
• Clean glass with magnet - although this chore is getting more and more difficult to do due to all the corals growing and almost touching the glass. I had to custom make a thin magnet to clean specific areas where the corals grew too close to the glass. I was recently forced to frag my purple monti cap as the custom 3/16" magnet was rubbing against this coral as it has grown closer to the glass. Almost all of those corals of concern are almost touching the custom thin magnet now so I'll be forced to frag all of those corals very soon.

Weekly: change 40 - 60 gallons of water. I designed the water change system to take a total of 7 minutes for a full 40 gallon water change from start to finish. It would go faster if I had a bigger pump.

Water changes:

Step 1 - close valve to 75 gallon tank hooked up to entire system.

Step 2 - put large hose to hook onto drain (aka toilet bowl) from the 75 gallon tank. (I have a pre-made "U" hook to hook onto the 75 gallon tank and the toilet bowl)

Step 3 - start siphon and siphon out 40- 50 gallons of water from my 75 gallon

Step 4 - switch on pump to premixed salt water from 40 gallon drum (I usually put salt in the night before the water change and I know exactly how much to put)

Step 5 - Turn valve on to run the 75 gallon tank back into system

Step 6 - refill the 40 gallon drum with fresh water (turn on pump) from 75 gallon R/O DI reservoir

I usually do the water changes at 6 or 7am before I go to work. My family doesn't even know I do water changes cause they never see me do it. I use all kinds of different salt. I have used Reefer's Best, Seachem's Salinity, Instant Ocean, DD H2Ocean, and Brightwell. I tend to mix salts and rotate them. My theory behind this is that each salt might have a really good feature and a really bad feature that we don't really know about. If we use the same brand of salt all of the time then the "bad" things in the salt might tend to build up over time. My theory might be totally out to lunch but it has worked for me. I think that my dedication to frequent water changes has been one of the main reasons this aquarium has been a success. In the 15 or so months that this aquarium has been up and running, it has only ever gone 12 days without a major water change. We have been on vacation twice now for 12 days. Other then that, the aquarium gets a weekly water change no matter what. I may be super lazy in the testing and fragging and other maintenance of the aquarium, but I will not compromise this area of tank maintenance.

Another area of maintenance I won't compromise the the magnet cleaning. I make sure to do it every few days because I hate cleaning the coraline algae. Also the main point of having an aquarium is to enjoy it - you can't enjoy an aquarium without being able to see through the glass clearly. It is a pet peeve of mine when I go to peoples' places to see their aquarium and the glass is dirty. I have only every cleaned the coraline algae from the glass 3 times and I use the razor attachment for the magfloat to do this. That works very well.

At first the zeovit system was over my head and seemed complicated. The zeovit forum really helped me out and now it is very easy to use. I just get up in the morning, do my dosing and then go to work. Most of the time I just enjoy my aquarium. I actually enjoy dosing the aquarium a lot and look forward to doing it in the mornings even though it's usually super dark. I get to enjoy the super polyp extension of the corals and their shadows before I start my day.

One very important thing for me in keeping my water quality up is that I try to never put my hand in the aquarium cause I don't know what kind of oils and garbage are on my hands/arms. I like using long tongs if I need to get at something. I am past the stage of "rescuing" fallen corals because pretty much all of my corals have attached to the rockwork and/or each other. Lately I seem to just let nature take its course as corals are growing into each other and killing one another or encrusting onto one another. It is a battle that I will have to leave to them as I am tired of fragging them to "save" them.

Calcium/Alkalinity/Magnesium Summary and Objectives:

I am really bad for testing any parameters at all. I haven't tested any parameters in over 3 months since this writing, and if I do test, it will be Alk because it's just one reagant and counting # of drops for the test (this goes back to my laziness).

I use a Calcium Reactor to maintain my parameters. I go through a jar of media every few months. I use magnesium chips inside the reactor to try to keep my magnesium levels up. Although when I typically test my Mg few and far between, the Mg is typically low at about 1200 ppm. I have probably dumped about 60 lbs of Mg into my aquarium since I started it 15 months ago. I just use bulk stuff that I order from Littlesilvermax. have run out of his stuff so I've been using Seachem's stuff now.

Tank Inhabitants - Fish

I have had all of these fish for at least the last 8 months (31 total).

• 2 Yellow Tangs
• Powder Blue Tang
• Majestic Angel
• Flame Angel
• Coral Beauty Angel
• Flame Hawkfish
• Falco Hawkfish
• 2 x Blue damsels with yellow tops
• Blue Green Chromis
• Bar Goby
• Spotted Mandarin Goby
• Purple Pseudochromis
• Purple Firefish
• Twin Spot Hogfish
• 4 Bartlett Anthias
• Fathead Anthias
• 2 Blotched Anthias
• Blue Shiny Damsel (unknown species)
• Percula Clownfish
• False Percula Clownfish
• Bicolor Blenny
• Orange Spotted Blenny
• Yellow Coris Wrasse
• Scooter Blenny
• Chaulk Bass

Other Invertebrates:

• Yellow Brittle Star
• 10 Strawberry Conchs (have had these about a year)
• 10 nassarius snails
• Various hitchhikers
• 6 clams - Squamosas and Maximas (I used to have 9 but they have been growing so fast that I have sold 3 in the last few months)

Tank Inhabitants - Corals

Unfortunately I don't get technical in remembering the names of all the corals. As long as they are happy, I'm happy. I have 11 colours of montipora digitatas. I have tons of different varieties of other sps. The only LPS I have are plate corals, candy, frogspawn and hammer corals. I have an orange sun coral and a tiny colony of pink zoas (hitchhiked on an sps frag). I have a small colony of orange ricordea mushrooms as well. I also have a blue sponge that I've had from the beginning that seems to be thriving.

Coral Feeding: I don't feed my corals with the exception of whatever zeo products I have mentioned in my maintenance routine. I am a strong believer that my heavy fish load feeds the corals (fish poop). I have almost 30 fish in my display aquarium.

My Story

Well, I don't really have a huge story of how I got myself into this ridiculously expensive hobby. I was always into little pets. As a teenager at one point I have a total of six 5 - 10 gallon aquariums on my desk with pets ranging from newts, to goldfish to guppies to mollies. These were all fairly simple systems. I then went to college and never had another aquarium until after I got married.

I would say that my wife was responsible for getting me into the reef keeping hobby. We were bored one evening so she suggested that we get a small aquarium. We went over to PJ's pet centre and talked to one of the teenagers there and he suggested that we start with at least a 50 gallon because BIG was easier (at least this was the theory back 8 years ago). That teenager that we met at PJ's is now one of our good friends and the owner of one of the local fish stores here in Edmonton.

Well, our first reef aquarium ended up being a 90 gallon system that we found in the bargain finder. We set it up on cinder blocks and had a wet/dry filter and one piece of rock (because this is all we could afford at the time). We didn't even have enough money for livestock, so we sat and stared at this piece of rock for weeks.

Since I'm the kind of guy that wants to do everything to the best that I can, I went ahead and did all the research I could and the hobby escalated from there. I found Canreef and bought "used" livestock and learned more and more from all of the seasoned members on the board. Many of you are still on the forum after all of these years.

After the 90 gallon aquarium we sold our piano to buy another aquarium - a 180 gallon aquarium because we liked the predatory fish. The 180 gallon aquarium was a softy/predetor tank. After that we bought a 46 gallon bowfront hooked up to a sump in the basement. We also ran a little 7 gallon nano at that point. It got to a point where we had about 600 gallons of water in a 600 sq foot space. There was so much humidity that the windows would constantly be dripping and the baseboards would start to mould - not a great scene. After about 2 years of being in the hobby my wife and I decided to move. We had our house builder put an opening into the wall between the living room and den for a 5 x 2 x 2 aquarium (I had bought this aquarium used for $150. There was a separate circuit just for the aquarium and the framers beefed up the 2 x 6 stub wall to support the weight of the aquarium. While the house was being built I went and cut out an opening in the floor so that I could easily run piping through later. We sold all of our aquariums and kept various pieces of equipment for the new tank.

Well, after we moved we had our first son, and then a year later we had our daughter. Priorities shifted in our house from hobbies to children. We were without an aquarium for 4 years. Well that's a lie, we had a 5 gallon nano at one point that never got a water change in 2 years and houses one little clownfish. Finally last year in the spring my wife said to me "Desmond, you better set up the aquarium or get rid of it." The aquarium had been sitting in our garage for 4 years. I am glad that my wife urged me to set it up. The aquarium is definitely a defining feature of our home and it beats having a TV. Many people come over for the first time and ask whether we even own a TV. This has been great for our children as they have been exposed to this now and understand a little bit more about nature. We are surprised when some adults that come into our home don't even know what coral is.

I have no future plan to upgrade as I'm happy with the system. Maybe next year I'll tear it all down and sell all of the corals and start over. The corals have grown so fast and it's too crowded now. Most of my corals in my aquarium were started from frags. This is the joy I see in the hobby - seeing God's creation grow and seeing the amazing colours and growth patterns based on the water quality, lighting and flow. I might look into LED lighting at some point, however, for now I'm pretty happy with the set up. The only regret I have is not starting with a brand new aquarium. By having a used cheap $150 aquarium, I have to live with the existing scratches in the aquarium.

First and foremost I would like to thank God for creating all of these wondering living animals that I can enjoy in my own home. The design and colours of corals will always amaze me and cause me to awe at His creation. I would secondly like to thank my family for putting up with this hobby, as you all know it does take up family time. I am glad that I'm past the "setting up stage" of the aquarium. It was at this stage that it took up most of my time. Now fragging seems to be the most time consuming aspect and It annoys me that it's something that I HAVE to do or else it will kill the neighbouring coral. I would also like to thank all of the amazing friends that I have met through this ridiculous thing we call a hobby. I would lastly like to thank Canreef as you guys have been my main source of information (and social activity) for the duration of this hobby.

If any of you have any questions about my system or anything else, I am open to answering them. Thanks so much for allowing my little slice of ocean to be displayed here.

Growth Sequences

Editors note - Dez sent a number of these awesome growth sequence photos. For each, the inline image depicts the original frag(s). Click on the photo to see the current view of the colony/colonies they've grown into now.