What can I say! I get home and there's a message from Maidstone, congratulating me on Tank of the month. My tank is only a baby, compared to many other well established reefs, it's a real honour. I want to say thank you to everybody who voted for my tank.

It's strange how I got into keeping fish. My son Mobeen, who is now 7, had an acute type of Asthma from the age of six months. He was in and out of hospital for nearly 2 years. It was almost a second home at one stage.

On the children’s ward they had a tropical fish tank, Mobeen would sit there and watch the fish go up and down the tank. I bought a fish tank whilst he was still in hospital, it was welcome home present.

My first tank was tropical fish, I still remember walking into a LFS and seeing the marine section for the first time, it was instant. I was hooked and I new from that day that I had to have a marine setup.

My first real marine tank was custom built with a sump from MG marines, a 4x2x2 and a miracle mud setup. It consisted mainly of dwarf Angels, and softies.

I upgraded the lighting 2 x 400 watt spider lights, and only just got into keeping SPS when we sold the house and moved.

I kept majority of the equipment, I have a rule with my fish equipment always buy bigger and more powerful then you actually need, as you will sooner then later be upgrading to a bigger fish tank.

My current tank was a gift from my wife. She paid for all the equipment and 100 kilos of live rock, of eBay.

My brother and I left home at 6 o’clock in the morning and get to Norwich for 9 o’clock. I had told my brother that we were going to pick up the tank and be home for 2pm at the latest.

We get to Norwich, the tank is up and running full of water! It took 6 hours to empty the tank and transfer all the water into a large container.

The van had 100 kilos of live rock, 200 gallons of water, the tank, the stand, and all the live stock absolutely rammed to the hilt. We got back to Birmingham after 6, then set up the fish tank - I think I was up till 4 the following morning.

The tank has been running for 18 months and is a mixture of LPS, softies, but mainly SPS dominated.

The current system is 6x2x2.5 connected to a 4x2x2 for extra water volume and a 3 foot refugium The tank is situated in my office which is on the right side of the house. So as you enter the house providing the door is open to my office the tank is visible to every body and provides light to the hallway.

As the tank was bought second hand, it has some restrictions it has a double base and is drilled, but only has 2 holes each 30 mm. The returns come over the top of the weirs.

I run a mixture of T8's, T5’s and Halides. The T8 actinics are the first to come on, and are at the rear of tank and give the tank a very dusky but blue look, then the Deltec T5's come which are currently running Guiseman blues and are at the front of the tank.

The main lighting is 2 x 400 watt 14000k BLV bulbs, these are changed every 8 months. In the past I have tried 10,000k which I found were yellow but the growth in the corals was amazing. I found the 20,000k bulbs too blue so I have settled with the 14,000k bulbs.

The lighting is controlled via the aquatronica and comes on late in the afternoon as this helps with controlling the temperature, and the tank is on till later which I prefer.

One of the restrictions with this tank is that there is a brace bar in the middle, Ideally I would like to have 3 * 400 watt halides above it. I think this would give me an even spread of light and better coral growth.

Photo period
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T8's come on at 1:30pm and off at 11.30pm
T5's come on at 2:30pm and off at 11.00pm
Halides come on at 3.30pm and off at 10:30pm

I have a Tunze TS48 kit which runs 4 x 6100 pumps which is more than sufficient for the tank.

As the tank only has 2 x 30 mm holes the turnover is a lot lower than normally recommended. I use an Ocean runner 3600 and an Eheim 1262.

The Eheim has to travel approximately 3 meters to my titan 2000 chillier, then go up by 2 metres before re-entering the main tank. The actual flow after all that distance it is greatly reduced, the tank could not cope with the flow if it was connected directly as the holes are to small. The corals seem to be happy even without the turnover so I have not drilled bigger holes although I've definitely thought about it a few times!

Filtration is mainly achieved via 200 kilos of live rock. I have over 100kg in the main tank, and a further 100kg in the 4x2x2 which acts as a separate sump and gives me an extra 75 gallons.

I have a DSB with caulerpa with the light staying on 24/7 and this helps keep my nitrate and phosphate levels down.

I have recently upgraded to an AP901 and strongly believe the bigger the skimmer the better. I also use a Deltec’s Rowaphos in a reactor to contol phosphates.

I don’t have any heaters in the tank and in the winter the temperature will drop to 23-24 degrees.

I use a Titan 2000 Chillier. A piece of equipment I would recommend to any reefer as you need to keep your parameters as stable as possible. Keeping the Temperature between 24-25 degrees during the day and knight.

One of the main reasons why I added a 4x2x2 to the system was to help keep the tank cool. The idea was to have live rock in it for filtration with 1 T8 over it. I’m currently using it as a frag tank and have moved my resident pair of Clarki's in there. Seriously these 2 could be on TV soon staring in Fish from hell. Since moving them out of the tank the rest of the fish are using the whole tank where as before half the tank was for the clowns and the other half was for the rest of livestock.

I add 2 supplements to the tank, I have a calcium reactor and a kalk reactor. The calcium reactor is on all the time and I add kalk (1 heaped teas spoon every night) to the top up supply, this is how the tank has run for the last 18 months.

I have recently started on other trace elements Magnesium and Iodine.

Majority of the tank is contolled by Aquatronica that includes my top up, calcium reactor and lights.

I feed the DSB one frozen cube every other day and fish get fed Flake, pellets and 2 cubes frozen food, including Brine shrimp, Mysis and Krill. Fish are fed 3-4 times a day and very rarely I will add some coral food frozen plankton.

Tank glass gets cleaned every day or sometimes every other day. I normally put aside time to clean the pumps every 3/4 months.

With the Tunze’s white vinegar on a rotation pattern. Changed the media 3 times in the calcium reactor since it has been running. I am quite proactive but there is no real set agenda when things must be done. I change the bulbs every 7-8 months I use 14000k BLV when supplemented with actincs look brilliant on the tank.

Until recently I had not done a water change for nearly 6 months. The plan is to do regular water changes, 20 gallons every month.

I've had my fair share of problems, from pipes coming off and almost flooding the room to getting fried!

I nearly gave up about 6 months into the tank I got cyano and diatoms all over the live rock. I would clean it before going to bed it would be back by the time I would get back from work the next day. I started using ozone and this helped break up the problem also invested in TS48 kit.

One the most natural thing any reefer would do if there something wrong inside tank, is to put his hand in and sort it out. Be warned a pump can be water tight for a long time and suddenly it goes. Electricity and salt water are lovers they will give you a shock of your life time.

I speak from experience and I can sometime still taste the electricity in my mouth. To protect myself I have installed a tunze current alarm. If the water goes live the alarm goes off.

My biggest problem at the moment is that the tank only has 2 30mm holes which really restricts the amount of flow it can handle, I’m in the process of convincing the wife in having a bigger tank. (I'll let you know how I've done soon)

My tank has a mixture of everything my initial plan was to keep a very diversified tank, as you can see from the pics I've started leaning towards the SPS side. I've travelled up and down the country to try get the colours that I want.

All SPS in my tank started of as frags, most pieces were between 1-2 inches long. The green stag-horn on the left hand side of the tank, a piece about 2 inches long was given to me by a friend in London.

I prefer to buy frags as they do a lot better than the larger colonies they can adapt to your lighting very quickly.

If I like a fish I will always research it first. I find out what its name is and whether or not it will be compatible with the rest of my reef.

I have bought 3 favourite fish on impulse, I always wanted to keep these but I wished I had researched them first.

1) Clarki's
2) Sohal Tang
3) Queen Angel

I believe in a reek tank the Clarki is to aggressive and territorial and my advice to anybody wanting a pair be warned. The Sohal needed a bigger tank and I just hope the queen leaves my SPS alone!

My current fish stock includes;
A pair of Percs
5 Anthias (there were 6 but 1 jumped out of the tank found DOA)
Foxface
Regal Tang
Yellow Tang
Nassa tang
Scooter bleny
Regal Angel
Juv Queen Angel
Sohal Tang (housed in separate tank until collection)
A pair Clarki's (housed in separate tank will add to new frag system)

I have Softies including a large Leather, Zooanthoids, Kenya tree, mushrooms and ricardios.

Hard coral include Pavona, Porites, Euphyllias, Favia, Seriatopora, Pocillopora, various Acroporas/Motiporas and 2 clams.

Bottom half the tank is for all the softie and the top half for SPS

I have a mixture of inverts crabs snails and 2 boxing shrimps, sand sifting star. I need to add some more variety though.

I enjoy winding down the day by sitting in front of the fish tank in a reclined chair watching the fish move around. Getting the Clarki's out has settled my tank again with fish now able to travel the whole tank distance.

My plan is either to strip the tank and start again by going all SPS, or get a bigger tank.

The plan for a new hole in the wall tank is in the process, I've spoken to Keith at Windsor for a 8x3x3 with a 200 gallons sump to give the extra water volume. I want the tank to be viewable from the 2 sides so rock work in the middle and SPS corals all the way round.

Firstly thanks to my wife who paid for the tank and most of the system.

I’ve posted many questions on the UR and had excellent advice so I just want to say thank you to all Ultimate reefer's for there help and support. The forums members have amazing amount knowledge that you just can’t get any where else and makes life easier.

All comments and feedback is welcomed, and thank you for reading.