Wow. Firstly I feel surprised to be selected for TOTM, secondly I want to say thanks to all those who voted and thought my tank worthy.

I started in the hobby a little differently from most people, as my first tank was set up to house native marines. I managed to keep a number of British fish and anemones’ successfully for about a year, until I could no longer resist the colours and diversity of the tropical species that I kept seeing at my local fish shop. So I eventually returned the natives back to the sea, bought some live rock for my Jewel 240 and started my first reef tank. The bug bit hard and It didn't take long before I wanted to move onto bigger and better things, so I decided to knock down the dividing wall between my kitchen and lounge and rebuild it incorporating a 5' x 2' x 2' mixed reef, viewable from three sides.

This tank was going great for around a year, I was getting nice colours from my sps and good growth all round. I was very happy. Then, one evening just before midnight, we were sat watching tv when I heard an almighty BANG. My first thought was that the lights had exploded, that was until my partner pointed to the 2ft high split that was spraying saltwater all over the floor - it had cracked from top to bottom, but thankfully somehow stayed together. I lost about 25% of the water before I managed to seal the crack from the inside, with milliput of all things. This held up fine until the next day when I had a glass patch cut which was siliconed to the outside.

I seriously thought about giving the hobby up, luckily my partner was very understanding and even said that I could use the money we were saving for a holiday, to buy a new tank! I took this opportunity to iron out the mistakes I made on the first tank. Firstly, I had it built by a different tank builder. Secondly, I really wanted more width (TonyB-insert joke here). I had found it quite difficult to aquascape a three sided tank that was only 2 ft wide, so the current tank was built wider and longer. After kindly being lent a koi vat (cheers Paul) the transfer of all my stock went smoothly and my new reef was born.

Main tank: 66" long x 33" wide x 24" high - viewable from three sides.

It has a full width weir at one end which is fitted with a durso style standpipe. The weir also houses two closed loop pumps.

The skimmer also pulls out water straight from the weir.

Sump tank: 48" long x 15" wide x 18" high based on a standard eco-system mud sump with caulerpa.

My Lighting consists of 10 x 54w T5's on a homemade plywood board with individual Arcadia reflectors. The board lifts up on a crude pulley system which is too embarrassing to show pictures of! I have someone with far superior DIY skills kindly making me a better system soon.

I use a combination of Giesemann and Korallen Zucht bulbs as follows

• Aquablue
• Actinic +
• Aquablue
• Fiji purple
• Aquablue
• Actinic+
• Aquablue
• Fiji purple
• Actinic+
• Aquablue

The lights come on in 3 stages, with 2 actinics at 10.am, the other actinics and Fiji’s at 11.am and rest at Midday. They go off in reverse order with the last actinics going off at 11.00pm.

I chose T5's over MH due the heat issue and energy costs. However, that said, when all costs are added up, i.e. bulb replacement then I think the difference is minimal. When visiting shops or other reef keepers I do feel envious when I see the shimmer from MH but I feel the overall coverage gained with T5's and the ability to easily tweak the spectrum/colour of the tank, for me, tips the balance in their favour.

Circulation is provided by 1 x Tunze 6060, 1 x modified Tunze 6025, Eheim 1260 (return pump) plus 2 x 3000lph NewJet, these sit in the weir and are hard piped back up and along the brace bars, re-entering in the opposite corners from the weir.

The NewJet outlets sit just under the surface providing the tank with plenty of top water motion which suits the SPS fine whilst leaving lower areas with less flow for the LPS etc. I would like to get a little more flow in certain areas without adding more pumps inside the tank which I am finding difficult due to the tank being 3 sided.

Originally this tank was first set up as skimmerless Eco system using mineral mud rather than the more expensive miracle mud. The sump is 48" x 15" x 15" filled with Caulerpa lit 24 hrs. As I increased the number of fish I thought more and more about adding a skimmer and although I never saw any rise in nutrients I finally took the plunge when I could not shift some red cyano which has plagued me since I set the tank up. The skimmer I use is a Deltec Ap600 which is kindly lent to me by a fellow UR member. (Thanks Trev!) After seeing how much gunk even this skimmer pulls out, I don't think I will ever run without one now.

The biological filtration takes place on around 50-60kg of live rock and the sandbed, which is between 1" and 5" thick, whatever the damsels decide to make it that day...

I use filter socks only during a water change when I give the rocks and corals a clean off with a small powerhead or turkey baster. I try to run a small amount of carbon all the time and change it about once a month.

Phosphates are taken care of by a FR509 reactor and RowaPhos. I change the RowaPhos as soon as P04 is detectable.

Heating is taken care of by two x 300w heaters, one in the weir and one in the sump. In the summer I use a clip-on fan controlled by a habistat. I'm lucky that I live in house that seems to stay cool through summer and have had no high temp issues that couldn't be sorted by the fan.

I add Magnesium and Calcium when needed and occasionally Iodine. I also add Kalk to my top-off water.

I use Tropic Marin Pro-Coral Mineral once or twice a week. I have recommended this to a few reef keepers now who are very happy with the difference it has made to their tanks with increased growth and colouration.

I have no control or monitoring on my tank apart from plug-in timers for the lights, the habistat for the fan and a cheap digital thermometer. Evaporation is taken care of by a Tunze auto top-up.

The fish get around 4-5 cubes a day of Mysis, Krill and Brineshrimp. I only use Gamma frozen after reading somewhere about the amount of pathogens detected in non irradiated frozen food.

I also use flake, usually Ocean nutrition formula 1 and 2 or New era. I feed this a few times a day or whenever I pass the tank and the fish beg enough. I occasionally add nori for the Tangs.

I also add phyto when I remember to buy some.

I do a 20 gal bi-weekly water change using Seachem ReefSalt, I usually have to clean the glass every day and I also empty the skimmer cup every 2 - 3 days.

Every few months I will give all the pumps a clean.

I test my Alk every couple of days, Calcium and Magnesium once a week and No3, P04 usually every 2 weeks.

Where do I start... well, about 8 months ago I decided to go on holiday, (well, actually 2 x one week holidays, less than a day apart) I’m sure most reef keepers know that holidays usually means the kiss of death. But if I can explain my stupidity, naivety or whatever you want to call it, and it can help someone else avoid a similar situation, then it will make me feel a little better.

The day before I was due to go away, I decided to give all pumps a quick clean and check over. Whilst doing this I managed to upset my calcium reactor peri-pump, and I spent my last few hours before I had to leave for the airport, trying to fix it but to no avail, so I just switched it off...

I thought the tank would be ok; I would be back in a week anyway. One week later I arrived home from Portugal, unpacked my shorts and suntan lotion, give the tank a quick inspection, everything looked fine. So I packed my wellies and raincoat and set off for the 2nd part of my holiday, a week in Cornwall...

I had grossly underestimated how much and how quickly my KH could and did drop. The calcium reactor always worked perfectly from the day I purchased it and I used to test KH fortnightly to always find it between 8.00-8.6. When I got back from holiday it was in the lower 5's and I was starting to see stn at the bases of all of my Acros.

I slowly brought the KH back up over the course of the next week, and got the reactor back online, however the stn continued. At the time I had two jobs, including one that took up all my weekends, and this meant I was either tired or spending any free hours with my other half. Alas I didn't have much time for the tank and I slowly watched my Acros dying, hoping every day the stn would stop. It didn't and I lost around ten colonies over the next couple of months, saving only three. I did manage to frag most of the dying and pass them to local reefers, albeit with limited survival success. I also had base damage to all the Montipora. I finally managed to bring a halt to the decay with a series of large water changes. This is the one thing I now wish I had done earlier. I wasn't convinced at the time if the problems were just down to the KH issue as I had some other theories. Just before my holiday I replaced my RowaPhos, but this time I used twice as much as usual. I was unaware at the time that this could, apparently have a negative effect on the PH. I also wondered if the Acros may have had some sort of bacterial infection, which possibly could have stemmed from the low KH? I welcome any thoughts on this.

I now test my KH virtually every day, and have learned that without my reactor and adding Kalk to my top-off my dKH drops 2 points in 24 hrs. I guess this is due mainly to the rapid growth of the Montipora’s.

It was hard lesson to learn, amongst my losses were the first two Acros I had ever bought, these were bought for ten pounds each as they were brown and half dead, a year later one was 8" tall and 10" diameter with bright purple tips, the other was solid purple. It was particularly heartbreaking to see these two die. I also lost a solid blue Millipora which I grew from a frag and lovely tabling red Millipora.

Apart from that I've had the usual floods, cyano battles, my old 5ft cracking and a couple of rather expensive fish jump.

Oh and the usual empty bank balance...

Although I am quite happy with my stocking levels, there are a few I'm thinking of removing, firstly the Bluethroat trigger, this was a bit of an impulse buy, it was the brightest coloured one I'd seen and just couldn't resist. Secondly; the rabbitfish because it’s growing far faster than I expected and will grow quite large.

The Allens damsels would be next (if possible!) I loved these fish when I first put them in, they would swim high in a nice shoal giving a great splash of colour but now they're fully grown they seemed to have paired off and hang around near the base of the rocks, where all they do is constantly kick up sand. PITA is an understatement...

Once these are gone then I would really like a small shoal of Bartlett's, Dispars or Tukas.

I'm also seriously thinking about removing the Potters too, as it tends to bully any new fish I put in.

Fish List
Yellow Tang Zebrasoma flavescens	Convict tang Acanthurus triostegus	Orange spot rabbitfish Siganus guttatus
Blue throat trigger Xanthichthys auromarginatus	Mystery wrasse Psuedochellinus ocellatus	Exquisite wrasse Cirrhilabrus exquisitus
Lineatus wrasse Cirrhilabrus lineatus	Pylei wrasse Cirrhilabrus pylei	Leopard Wrasse Macropharyngodon meleagris
Royal Gramma Gramma loreto	True Percula Amphiprion percula	Scooter blenny x2 Synchiropus stellatus
Green Mandarin Synchiropus splendidus	Allens damsels x6 Pomacentrus alleni	Cleaner wrasse Labroides dimidiatus
Orange spot flymo Istiblennius chryospilos	Randalls goby Amblyeleotris randalli	Yellow Watchman Goby Cryptocentrus cinctus
Banded Pipefish Doryorhamphus dactyliophorus	Janss' Pipefish Doryrhamphus janssi	Blue stripe pipefish Doryrhamphus melanopleura

This tank has had a mix of corals but predominantly houses SPS now. I really like the Montipora and their rapid growth, although I had to remove the bottom tier of both the large red colonies as they would have been touching the sides of the tank. This unfortunately spoils the overall look, but had to be done as they were also shading out other corals.

Even with the bottom tier removed, both colonies are in excess of 15" at their widest point.

I have a selection of Mexican turbo, Astrea, Spiny Astrea and Nassarius snails, Halloween hermits (Trizopagurus strigatus)

Some small random conch and a huge Abalone which must be around 5" long. I also have a few large Mithrax crabs.

I haven't really any plans to change much in the foreseeable future, although I have toyed with the idea of ZEO and ULNS. I really need a much better understanding of the method and pitfalls before I take the leap. I also would like to plumb in a nice and easy water change system, in fact I think that is going to be my next project. Also when funds allow, I wouldn't mind buying a control system, but it does worry me the amount of posts I see about the associated problems. Overall I'm happy with the way the tank is going but can't help thinking how it would have looked without the KH disaster. Still this hobby wouldn't be the same without its challenges; at least I get to go coral shopping again, which for me is probably the best part.

Firstly I would like to thank all UltimateReef members for making this forum my first port of call when my laptop gets switched on and secondly for the wealth of information I have learned in the 3-4 years since I joined. Thanks to Snowsurfer for coming around and taking some great fish photos, despite the Damsels sabotage attempt by turning the tank into a sandstorm. Oh sorry for my awful photo editing.

Not forgetting the West Country reef club for the great meets, food, frags and beer.

Lastly and most importantly I want to thank my partner Jemma, who has put up with numerous floods, "reefgeek" meets, losing part of the kitchen and also giving up a holiday so I could have this tank.