Fooser's tank

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

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It is my honor for my tank to be recognized, appreciated, and made tank of the month. Although I currently have nothing fancy aesthetically or hardware wise on this system, I would be happy to share the specification of my system.

I have had an interest in saltwater since as young as I can recall; however, my father would not let me get any because of the maintenance and the cost compared to freshwater. My father had been keeping freshwater African fish since before I was born so I was born into the wonderful world of fishes. As I got older I decided to start my own salt water system. I began with a 5 gallon to house a small maroon clown, some gobies, mushrooms, zoas, GSP, and other softies. After not even 2 months, I came to a realization that this tank would be too small to do what I want. Since then I have changed tanks to 20 gallon, 60 gallon, 75 gallon and 100 gallon. I am now running a total of 5 saltwater systems consisting of a 5 gallon, 24 gallon, 33 gallon, 60 gallon, 100 gallon, and have a 300 gallon being built. As it would be impractical to discuss all of them here, I will only provide details pertaining to the 100 gallon system.

The 100 Gallon System

Sharing a common addiction with most reefers, I was unable to control my spending when it came to corals. I found myself waiting in the LFSs every new shipment watching as bags were being floated and cherry picking out everything I liked. This of course resulted in my tanks never having adequate space and needing to be upgraded.

Like all good things in life, I found myself with a good deal on an unused 100 gallon tank and free sump. The tank dimensions measured 60” x 19” x 19” with dual corner overflows and eurobracing. I knew already that this tank would only be good enough to accommodate for 1 year at most until I found myself out of space again. I set my goal to buy a new house and have a basement with a fish room dedicated to an in-wall tank as the next upgrade before the year ended. With this in mind I skimped out on anything fancy and stuck to only having what is necessary at the cheapest method possible. In other words, ghetto style.

I went out to have a black metal stand constructed and layered it with Styrofoam and a ½” panel of wood with the 2 back corners cut to accommodate the tank overflows. Under the tank sits the 40 gallon sump and a 12 gallon auto top-off. Next to the Top-off reservoir, a small fan hangs directing a cool breeze towards 3 250 watt electronic ballasts. An older EVC ballast and the other 2 brand new Icecap ballasts.

The sump does not boast anything outrageously special within. Upon inspection you would find a Vertex IN 280 skimmer, and a pump pushing water through a Turbotwist UV sterilizer which then feeds into two 2Littlefishes reactors containing active carbon and Rowaphos. The last thing you would see is a Quiet One return pump hiding in the back. This is what makes up my simple, yet workable low maintenance system.

Above the tank, 3 double ended metal halide pendants running a combination of 14k EVC and 20K Ushio bulbs are suspended by some chain hanging from a light stand made of wood.

The last of the equipment is responsible for the flow in the tank. I am running four Koralia 4 power heads and a Koralia 3 which seemed to work very well until many of the SPS inhabitants began to grow and block flow from some areas.

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Rockwork

I have seen so many amazing examples of rock work and unfortunately I have not been able to produce as brilliant of results as some others I have seen. It started out with some interesting shapes, caves, and fun mazes for the fish to swim, but as corals were acquired and real estate became limited, the rockwork took the shape of a table to maximize the usable area.

The Good Part

Now we finally get to the interesting part, what livestock dwells within the tank. What started off as a mixed reef containing Zoas, LPS, and mostly SPS, quickly turned into an SPS only reef as my SPS addiction took root. Most of my LPS were relocated to a designated tank of their own and zoas another tank of their own. Of course like any other indecisive individual, I still find myself changing my mind about where to put what, so I will still move some chalices and zoas back and forth between the main display and the “specialized” systems.

Besides my self sustaining population of snails that seem to reproduce new baby snails weekly and faster than I can remove them, the next most heavily represented group is SPS. I started off with a small yellow acro, then a green digi and purple rim green cap, and it exploded from there. It has been awesome meeting some other reefers who share the same passion to sell and trade with. It has also been a blessing to have good friends that help out and also have some very nice livestock. The LFS selection in Calgary has also presented some great finds.

SPS

Although my main interest is SPS, I still cannot resist the LPS every so often. This probably started when a friend helped me acquire 4 polyps of dendrophyllia about 3 years ago. I grew these 4 polyps of non-photosynthetic LPS into over 60 polyps and captured by the vibrant coloration, I began looking out for other bright LPS. I started to eye brighter acanthastraea, but soon found that euphyllia is where my LPS interest lay. The coloration that some of the nicer chalices offer adds such a vibrant splash to any display.

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LPS, SOFTIES and ZOAS

Like everyone who has ever attempted corals, I have had my phase of softies and of course, zoanthids. No one can ever let go of the corals they started off with so here are some of the softies I have held onto.

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FISH

Since I find my tank is too small to have any larger fish that I like and am looking to keep in the future 300 gallon, I kept the fish count smaller. This was also to avoid any unnecessary coral moving and knockdowns until I moved everything to the larger more permanent home. Now that I think about it, the 100 gallon system really serves as a temporary holding area until my major plans of building the 8’ system were complete. As another reefer put it, “it is great how you are building a new house around the tank.”

The fish list is as follows:

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Parameters

I started off using Instant Ocean salt and the first bucket, have switched over to Reef Crystals. I have not been the best at keeping up with water changes. Those who know me believe that my water changes once every 3 months or so are outrageous. I have experimented with dosing Randy’s 2 part for about 2 months and while finding it difficult to keep dosing on schedule stopped dosing completely. After a few months of not dosing I recently started again to prepare for the big tank move. There is a noticeable change in coral vitality and growth when parameters are kept in check. Branches grow thicker and faster, polyp extension increases. I am planning to have some sort of automated dosing in the future to maintain the vitality of my corals while freeing up more time for myself to not have to do things on a schedule to maintain the tank.

As far as supplementing goes, a trial of Pohl’s Extra, Coral Vitalizer, and Coral Snow have kept me going back for more. Although I am not running Zeovit, these products have produced considerable effects. Coloration and polyp extension, as well as growth have all showed improvement.

My other parameters are as follows:

Conclusion

For my next reef system, I will do a few things differently. One problem that I find I consistently run into is that I did not plan for something that eventually comes up, especially cost wise. I know I will never have a solution for this even if I was a millionaire; however, for my next build, I will try to leave lost of areas open for new technologies or innovations in products to apply to my tank. I will also leave space to make things more easily accessible since I will have an entire basement to work with. With all the water we go through in this hobby, avoiding mess, clutter, and spills and moving buckets is not the most enjoyable part. I will attempt to avoid clutter by designating a fish room with organized shelving to keep things organized and out of view, leaving only a clean tank to be admired in a clean room. I will also put in a laundry sink behind my tank and automate water changes and mixing so that the only need for a bucket is to hold my unused salt reserves. Getting some sort of automation for the daily maintenance will also be a priority on the to change list. I love my reef, but I dislike routine dosing and even feeding. If finances allow, I will add in controllers as well. Lastly, since I know my tank will never be big enough and I will never think I have enough, I will try to only buy livestock I REALLY want and do more research on all livestock and products before purchasing to avoid impulse buys…..and become rich in order to afford sustaining this hobby for the rest of my life.

Reef keeping has brought much enrichment to my life. Different emotions of excitement, anger, sadness, and calmness makes reef keeping a rollercoaster ride. In general I find it is a great hobby that is stress relieving and teaches you patience. It is a hobby where there is always more to learn and one you want to keep learning and strive to improve your tank everyday. Thanks to all the great people I have met in this time, and all of those people who have helped me in my struggle to imitate the ocean’s beauty. Thanks to Canreef for providing a place where we can all interact and learn from one another and help each other. Thanks to God for putting so much detail into each design. I would really like to thank my parents and fiancé for putting up with all my craziness and mess, and always supporting me and sharing my appreciation of the hobby. I hope that my quick profile was enjoyable. Thank you for reading.