John's tank
Congratulations to Lobsterboy for being selected as Canreef's Featured Tank of the Month for March 2010. Thanks, John, for sharing your system details with us! Please click on the thumbnails to view the pictures larger.
This is truly a honor of being selected as TOTM, many Thanks to canreef for making this possible. Hope you enjoy.
The memory for a young boy fishing and fish keeping with his father is one that remains close to the hearts of many men. My first memory was setting up a 33 gallon fish tank in my room complete with the plastic plants, treasure chest and diver with the bright colors of my first tropical fish. I was fascinated by the water and the excitement that the underworld we can bring into our homes.
The fascinating colors of the clown fish are my next memory of influence for the fish. I was living and working in Switzerland when I stumbled upon a find that has now become a full time hobby and at times an obsession. It was in Switzerland that I was cruising some local markets when bright lights attracted my attention and my curiosity. This would become my first introduction to the stunning colors of the ocellaris clown.
In my return to Canada, a few years later, these little stunning fish had left an impact on me. I was in the midst of wanting to set one of these neat underworld of my own. Without knowing the ins and outs of the fish business, I started with a shop in which saltwater fish was their not specialty. My experience grew as these neat creatures brought me relaxation and joy. It was not long before I wanted to expand on my successes. The success evolved with the size of the tank and wanting a challenge of keeping more the difficult variety of fish; angels and tangs.
Another impacting image that created new goals in my fish passion was upon seeing Iwan Lasser’s fish tank in a coral magazine. Lasser’s dedication to creating his underworld gave me the drive to create something that I was challenging to my capabilities. I reinvented my tank with a new skimmer, more power heads and the addition of the zeovit system, with additional research to create the best system for my fish friends. The devotion to my underwater gems resulted with improved health, color, growth.
The underwater world brings many memories of the past, creating memories of now, and looking forward to challenging my capabilities and the human technology that can be brought to this unique underwater system. My passion has come full circle from the goldfish of a child to the grown-up pursuit of having the most dramatic beauty of underwater ocean reef to my living space. My fish and coral have brought joy, hard work, passion, and the realization that I can achieve goals with hard work and research but have also brought people. The people in which I have created valuable friendships that extend far beyond the underworld to the human world through the possibilities of being involved with TOTM and the privilege to use the title of “reefer.”
The details of my underwater world for the fish enthusiast.
125 gallon hagen, 72x 19x 24. Drilled on the back for the return and drilled on the bottom with a wacky granite overflow. the sump is a standard 33gallon tank with three chambers, first is a 100micron filter sock, followed by a tunze 9005 DOC skimmer, the third chamber holds a zeovit reactor, carbon reactor, 150wt ebo jager heater and quiet one 4000 HH return pump.
Flow:
- 3 vortech mp40
- 1 tunze nano stream 6045
Lighting:
- 72in nova extreme pro by current USA
- 2 double 39wt hagen glo fixture
Current front to back lighting combo.
- KZ super blue 11:30am-10:30pm
- KZ Fiji purple 12noon- 10pm
- KZ super blue 12noon- 10pm
- KZ coral light 10k 11:30am-10:30pm
- KZ Fiji purple 12noon-10pm
- KZ super blue 12noon - 10pm
- KZ coral light 10k 11am-11pm
- KZ super blue 11am-11pm
Supplemenation
I use a wide spread of those little blue bottles from Germany. Dosing is done on a small scale as less is more with this system.
- Zeo Start
- Zeo food
- ZeoBak
- Sponge Power
- Amino Acid
- coral vitilizer
- stylo pocci glow
- B-Balance
- k+ Balance
- Phols Xtra
- Jodi complex
- Eisen concentrate
- Macro Elements
Feeding
Fish are feed new life spectrum marine fish formula and two little fish sea veggies.
Chemistry:
My tank being 99.9% SPS consumes one kilogram of each KH and CA every 3 weeks. Testing is done daily on these elements. Testing of MG, K+ done weekly.
- CA-400-440
- Mg 1180- 1250
- Kh 6-8.5
- K+ 400 mg
- Salinity 34.5 ppt
I would like to thank canreef, its staff and all its members for this privilege as TOTM.
Special thanks to Zeovit guru’s Alexander Girz and Aged salt as these guys have been an invaluable source of information during and continuing my transformation into a zeovit reef. As well big thanks to my sister and her car for taking me to get my SPS fix.
Thank you.
John