January 2010 Featured Tank of the Month

Fkshiu's tank

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

I am both honoured and humbled at being selected for Canreef's Featured Tank of the Month. As many of you will no doubt be well aware of, a lot of blood, sweat and tears has gone into what it is today.

History and Philosophy

I was working in Asia in 2000 when I wandered into a saltwater store on Hong Kong's famous (to aquarists anyway) Tung Choi Street and was mesmerized by their show tank full of LPS and soft corals. The thought of having a reef was finally realized in 2002 after returning to Canada.

I cut my saltwater teeth with a 46-gallon bowfront eventually moving up to six-footer in 2005. That tank ran fine until it developed a nice crack along the bottom pane about a year later. I was fortunate that what sounded like rain coming from my basement woke me up and I didn't lose all 100+ gallons onto the floor.

I've always taken an “Aww, what the heck" approach to reefing. If not for this philosophy I probably would have made the logical decision and left the hobby right then and there. However, like any good reefer – and somewhat to my wife's chagrin - I took the lessons I learned from that mishap and saw the opportunity to upgrade!

Tank and sump

The display tank is a custom Seastar (72"x24"x18") with a single external corner overflow. I've always loved the look of shallow tanks and hate getting my t-shirt sleeves wet.

A Herbie overflow gravity feeds into the external skimmer which then dumps into a standard 55-gallon I use as the sump. The sump is divided into three chambers: return, refugium and additional display. The final chamber is a recent addition because the main display simply ran out of space!

I actually designed the entire basement renovation around the tank. I had two dedicated 20-amp circuits and an exhaust fan over the tank installed. A brand new concrete slab was laid over the old moonscape and covered with porcelain tile to ensure a perfectly flat and true base.

Flow

The live rock is arranged to enable Gyre flow throughout the tank. This means that very little rock actually touches any pane of glass including the back pane. This allows water to freely flow around the entire rock structure reducing the need for extra flow. A side benefit to this rock structure is that it allows me to keep the rear pane completely clean and free of coralline.

I initially started with just a single Tunze 6000, but coral growth over time has thwarted the effectiveness of the Gyre somewhat. This necessitated first an upgrade to a Tunze 6100, then the addition of both a Tunze 6055 and Wavebox, and recently a Sureflow-modified Maxijet 900. A 7095 Multicontroller controls the Tunzes.

An external Eheim 1260 serves as the return pump. As per its reputation, I have found the Eheim to both bulletproof and underrated in terms of pumping capacity. Via a manifold, the 1260 powers the calcium reactor, two daisy-chained media reactors and provides flow to the refugium in addition to pushing water back into the display tank.

Nutrient control

The heart of the nutrient control system is a badass Warner Marine RX200 re-circulating skimmer that is gravity fed directly from the display overflow. It's not as phallic as a six-foot Beckett or a Bubble King would be, unfortunately.

I've housed the skimmer in its own foam-lined cabinet for maximum sound control. The skimmer sits in a Rubbermaid bin which has its own drain into the sump thereby making the setup as flood-proof as possible.

High-capacity granular ferric oxide (GFO) and ROX carbon percolate away in two daisy-chained media reactors next to an ever-expanding ball of chaetomorpha macro-algae. If I feel up to it, I change the carbon monthly and the GFO bi-monthly. I also supposedly do a 25% bi-weekly water change (DD H2O salt) although it often becomes tri-weekly or even monthly.

I've recently begun dosing with sodium ascorbate (Vitamin C) as a carbon source. So far with a conservative dosing scheme (1/2 tsp twice/day) results have been encouraging. I am cautiously optimistic about the long-term viability of this technique. Similarly, I dose my children with Gummi Vitamins (2 gummis/day).

Lighting

Main lighting consists of two 15,000K SE Iwasaki metal halides driven by 175w Vertex electronic ballasts with Sunlight Supply (SLS) Lumenmax reflectors mounted sideways. I chose to go with two MH pendants rather than the usual three over a 6-footer in order to create more shadowed areas necessary in a shallow mixed-reef. No one has ever mentioned anything about the tank appearing underlit.

Supplemental lighting includes 2 x 80w SLS T5HOs (Geissmann Actinic+ and KZ Fiji Purple), 2 x 160w PFO VHOs (UVL Super Actinics) and 3 x 1w LED moonlights. After much tinkering and experimentation I've found this to be the perfect combination.

A 5000K CFL spotlight from Rona sits over the refugium. The world's fugliest DIY 3x24w T5HO light lights the supplemental display (no name 6700K, KZ Fiji Purple, UVL Super Actinic).

Supplementation

A GEO 612 calcium reactor supplies the basics. I had manually dosed Randy's Two-Part for years. It worked very well, but had always wanted more toys to play with. It was either a doser or a calcium reactor – I pretty much flipped a coin and haven't looked back.

I also have a kalk-filled media reactor hooked-up to my Tunze Osmolator. It acts as a passive kalk reactor adding kalk whenever the automatic top-off kicks in. I use it mainly to keep pH up.

Since I'm a sucker for fancy German things in blue bottles I dose Pohl's Coral Vitalizer (3 drops/day), Sponge Power (1 drop/day), LPS Amino Acid (2 mL/day), Amino Acid Concentrate (3 drops/day) and Coral Snow (5 mL every other day) in addition to phytoplankton (1 tsp every other day). Bad things happen if I dose anymore than these amounts. I'm not anal enough to go full Zeo. Anyway, I'm not actually sure all this dosing does much, but at least it makes me feel better.

Feeding

I feed once daily on an alternating dry food/frozen food schedule.

For dry food I am currently using a mix of NLS Marine/Ocean Nutrition Formula 2 pellets. On frozen food days I feed PE mysis mixed with Cyclopeeze and Selcon. I also toss in masago and tobiko (smelt and flying fish roe, respectively). I find that even the most finicky eaters (corals included) go nuts for the sushi garnish. It's quit cheap to boot.

The tangs knock back a sheet of nori each day as well.

Chemistry

I don't do much testing mainly because I'm lazy. I find that carefully reading my corals is an easier way to judge if the levels are off.

Anyhoo, the last time I checked:

• pH: ~8.2
• Ca: 420 ppm
• Alk: ~8 dKH
• Mg: 1400 ppm
• SG: 1.025
• NO3 and PO4: as close to zero as Allah wills it.
  

Livestock

I didn't realize how much crap I have in my tank until I started a cataloging of everything for this article. And this is not counting all the stuff I've managed to kill over the years. Geez!

Swimmers

• Regal tang (Paracanthurus hepatus)
• Purple tang (Zebrasoma xanthurum)
• Blond naso tang (Naso lituratus)
• Pearly jawfish (Opistognathus aurifrons)
• Canary wrasse (Halichoeres chrysus)
• Ocellaris clownfish (mated pair) (Amphiprion ocellaris)
• Six-line wrasse (Pseudocheilinus hexataenia)
• Clown goby (Gobiodon okinawae)
• Helfrichi's firefish (Nemateleotris helfrichi)
• Swissguard basslet (Liopropoma rubre)
• Flame hawkfish (Neocirrhites armatus)
• Diamond goby (Valencienna puellaris)
• Lawnmower blenny (Salarias fasciatus)

Crawlers

• Blue tuxedo urchin (Mespilla globulus)
• Abalone (Haliotis sp.)
• Pom pom crab (Lybia tessalata)
• Skunk cleaner shrimp (x2) (Lysmata amboinensis)
• Fire shrimp (x2) (Lysmata debelius)
• Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni)
• Sexy shrimp (x2) (Thor amboinensis)
• Pistol shrimp (Alpheus sp.)
• Cocktail shrimp (just kidding)
• Tiger tail cucumber (Holothura sp.)
• Porcelain crab (Porcellana sayana)
• Acro crab (Xanthidae sp.)
• Fighting conch (Strombus sp.)
• Green bubble tip anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor)
• Red-legged hermit crab (Paguristes cadenati)
• Astrea, trochus, nassarius and cerith snails

Sitters

SPS

• Acropora austera
• Acropora millepora
• Acropora valida?
• Montipora danae
• Montipora capricornus
• Montipora peltiformus
• Montipora digitata
• Pocillipora sp.
• Hydnophora sp.
• Seriatopora sp.

LPS

• Euphyllia spp.
• Trachyphyllia geoffroyi
• Lobophyllia sp.
• Galaxea sp.
• Turbinaria sp.
• Echinopora sp.
• Blastomussa merletti (my favourite)
• Blastomussa wellsi
• Acanthastrea lordhowensis
• Favia spp.
• Dendrophyllia sp. (Balanophyllia grandis probably)
• Platygyra spp.
• Cyphastrea spp.
• Caulastrea sp.
• Duncanopsammia axifuga

Softies/Zoas

• Sarcophyton elegans
• Xenia sp.
• Rhodactis spp.
• Clavularia sp.
• Cornularia sp.
• Zoanthus spp. (a lot of them)

Clams

• T. crocea
• T. maxima
• T. squamosa (the big mutha up front)

Thanks

Many thanks to Anthony (Seahorse_Fanatic), Tom (TomR), Jason (Jason_McK) and the rest of the Reef Network for their invaluable help and support. It's so nice when you can find a group of people who can discuss skimmate like wine snobs discuss old grape juice.

Finally, a special thanks to my wife and family for putting up with all of this reefer madness on my part.