Josie's Tank

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

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The set-up

The aquarium is a 150g (60"long x 23"wide x 26"high), curved front panel with 2 corner overflows. (A video of it can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb3ETwkyx6Y) Connected to it is a 45g sump and a 15g refugium. It was started in September 2009 after the take down of our previous 265g tank.

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Our Bio

Aquariums have always present in our lives. My husband always had one or more freshwater tanks since he was 10 years old. When we moved to our house 9 years ago, we had a 90g freshwater aquarium with huge black angelfishes. In 2004, after reading a lot about the subject, we switched it to saltwater. To keep costs down, we got 2 33g reefs from 2 separate reefers that were closing down their aquariums. We ended up with approximately 100lbs of LR, 2 clowns, 1 cardinal, 1 leather for about $350. Joining many reef forums we started fill our 90g with fish and corals. We visited many reefers to get frags and soon our 90g was full..

Thinking about upgrading, we took a big step forward and decided to go with a 265g tank in 2006.

This new tank obviously could not be placed on the first floor of our 1938 house. So, we re-designed part of the basement for our new project. My husband, being a good handyman, built the stand with 4x4 cedar wood. But on the day our tank arrived we faced a big problem: it would not fit down the stairs. The only way it would make it to the stand was to cut the last 4 steps of the staircase. That was a real challenge, but we succeeded.

We learned a lot from this tank. We had installed two 33g tanks in the stand for the refugium and sump. But the small space made it really hard to do the maintenance. We had filled our sump with LR and we were not able to get to it... it resulted in an accumulation of detritus and made a nitrate nest. Soon our level of nitrate raised and we were never able to take it down.

Second big mistake we made with that tank was with the DIY stand. We built it in 4x4 cedar wood but forgot to put the 45 degrees cross angles. As a result the stand started shifting slowly.

In 2009 we took the decision to take this tank apart.

In September 2009 we started a 140g tank. After buying the 140g and set it up, we learned that a friend was closing down his reef. We agreed to buy all his livestock. On Labour Day 2009, we moved the LR, corals and fishes from our friend's place to our aquarium. 2 round-trips with 6 Rubbermaid boxes, and many 5g buckets later, everything was transferd. About 80% of the corals and fishes in our aquarium are from this buy.

Livestock

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Fish:

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Inverts:

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Corals:

SPS

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LPS

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Other

Calcium reactor

We are using a Koralin Denitrator transformed into a calcium reactor to maintain the calcium level required for a SPS dominated aquarium. The media in it is Korallith from Knop.

Kalkwasser reactor

We made a kalk reactor with a old canister and a maxi-jet 400 pump for swirling the media. In it is Seachem Kalkwasser powder.

Bio-pellets reactor

We started bio-pellets (actually bio-beads) in June 2010. We put them in a modified NextReef Monster1 canister. The modification we did was to replace the 1/2" ID fitting in the lid with a 5/8" fitting to have enough flow in the canister so that the biobeads don't clump. We are using a Mag3 pump on it. The pellets are moving around really well. Since we started the pellets, we noticed that our hair algae problem slow down and is nearly resolved. The cyanobacteria blooms also stopped. The corals seem to be doing better with bio-pellets too. We have more vibrant colors and good growth.

Controller

The aquarium is control by an Apex controller. We manage the lights, heater, auto top-off, calcium reactor. The Apex also controls if the top-off water intake comes from the ro-di tank, or from the kalkwasser reactor, according to the PH of the tank.

Filtration

Not having enough room in the cabinet stand we organized a little water-room under the staircase next to the aquarium. We thought a lot about the filtration set-up, not wanting to repeat our previous mistakes.

We arranged 2 tanks in the space we had; a 15g refugium and a 45g sump.

The refugium is full of cheato and small pieces of LR. The lighting is 2 T5 lamps. The lights are on during the night only to help maintain the PH in the main tank (by the photosynthesis of the cheato).

The DIY sump was designed based on the Berlin system. The tank is separated into many sections, letting the water decant slowly. There's no possibility that it overflows or empties the main tank.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3MPUSCRfb8

Skimmer

Our skimmer is a 25 years old 4' Marine-Technical-Concept PRO-6500. This skimmer is using wood air stones to produce bubbles. Wood air stones are one of the first technologies used for skimming. The air pump (O2 Max Air Pump, 65 Liters per minute, 885 Gallons per Hour, 3.9 PSI) pushes air into lime tree wood pieces. Water is pushed to the skimmer using a Mag18 pump.

We read many articles about how damaging fractionating can be for the microorganisms in a tank. Not having big pumps like more modern skimmers, the skimate produced by our skimmer is dense and smelly.

To lower costs, we started making our own air stones from lime-tree plank.

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Lighting

Our light is a Odyssea 3x 250W DE MH with 4x T5 and 3 LED moon lights. We bought a 6' light that originally had 3x MH and 4x PC lights. We cut it to 5' long and modified the connectors to replace the PCs with T5s.

We experimented with many brands of MH. From XM to Ushio passing by Radium, we finally choose to go with Arthemis bulb sold on ebay. We are using 14k MH.

For the T5 we are using Korallen-Zucht. 2 are Fiji and 2 are 20k.

Water Circulation

Here's a drawing that shows how the water circulates. Our return pump is an Eheim 1262.

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To reduce the noise we made DIY Durso pipes for the overflows.

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Water movement

In the tank are 2 Tunze 6101 and 4 korallia 1 pumps. The Tunzes are controlled by a 7095 controller, set to alternate power to each pump.

The water return from the sump passes in a Vertex Mocean 2000. This rotation device turns 180 degrees so that there are no dead spots on the surface of the water.

Water parameters

Water changes

Each week we do a 35g water change, and every 3 months we do a 70g change. We use Instant Ocean salt. We mix in Rubbermaid Brute containers with a small water pump and in winter we also use a heater to get the water to room temperature.

Pictures of a 70g WC here:

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Feeding

Fish

We usually feed the fish dry foods every day or every 2 days. The frozen food is given once a week. I place Nori dry seaweed twice a week on a clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8haXXhTDOPM

Corals

We give frozen coral food once a week.

Additives

I do water test every 2 weeks. If the alkalinity or calcium is too low we use Seachem Raise Alkalinity and Raise Calcium. Other than some Purigen to help with water clarity, we don't use any other additives in the tank.

Reproduction

Our clownfish couple lay eggs every month. Not having the space required for breeding them properly we don't intervene in the process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRIgJFOwjPk

From the 3 green clown gobies a mated couple has formed. They lay eggs in the center of a staghorn colony many times a year.

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Fragging

Since the SPS are growing fast we decided to install a frag tank. It's a small 15g tank, connected to the main system, lit with a 14k MH mogul bulb.

Selling and exchanging frags let us meet other reefers and share experiences and thought on the hobby. Many of those saltwater hobbyists became our friends.

Worst moment so far

The worst moment so far in our reef adventure happened December 23th 2009.

At 7pm we are cleaning the house for our 12 guests Christmas Eve party. My husband is cleaning the front panel of the tank with the magnetic brush... and hears a "crack"... to our horror, a 1 inch crack appears in the inside glass, without piercing through...

PANIC IN THE HOUSE!

After many phone calls and getting in touch with my brother for his mini-van, we drove quickly to our LFS and got a new tank.

At 10pm we returned with the new tank, a 150g (our present tank).

We get more then 20 plastic Rubbermaid containers on the floor and start transferring water, LR, fish, corals...

At midnight we moved the old tank, put the new one in place... get started on plumbing, the previous tank did not have overflows!

At 2am we start transferring the sand in the new tank, adding 70g of new saltwater.

3am: start putting water, LR, corals and fish back in the aquarium...

Panic: we found our female swallowtail angelfish on the side on the bottom of a container. Not breathing. I decided to do like fisherman who release their pray: I move her under water to revive her... and it worked!!!

4:30am we finally get to bed but I have to say that I did not sleep much.

In the future

We plan to sell some colonies to get other kinds of SPS in 2011. We don't have plans to introduce other fishes in the near future. We want to use the Apex to make daily automatic small water changes.

Conclusion

This hobby is one of the more challenging and fulfilling one we know about. Think about it: Maintaining marine life by trying to replicate the ocean in a glass tank. Seeing corals growing, fish spawning, founding little creatures in the sand we never heard about and just relax in front of the aquarium after a bad work day is the best way to feel happy.

Yes there are other moments less interesting but we quickly forget them a little in front of a real life HD saltwater tank.

We heard many sad stories about couples splitting up because of this crazy money and time consuming hobby. Being both reefers, sometimes we need to control each other big ideas or ambition for the set-up.

For the beginners we can't insist enough that you read books or magazines and visit forums before starting you set-up. We never know too much.

To the reefers: Always get information from different places to make your own opinions and be humble by learning from your mistakes.

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank the Canreef staff who nominated our tank for FTOTM.

Also thank you to all the members of the forum that posted in our tank journal thread, we always appreciate your comments. Canreef helps us learn many things about the hobby, and share great information.