First of all I would like to say thanks very much for anyone that voted for me. I was very surprised when I received a message telling me I had been nominated. I have seen and read TOTM since I joined ultimatereef, and never once thought my tank would ever be up there.

Originally I had no intentions of keeping a marine tank. It all started back in Jan 06 when I walked into one of my local garden centers looking to buy a tropical tank, as I wanted something to play around with and make a feature of in my lounge. Upon arriving I noticed they had on sale an Aquamedic Chromis tank, and it got me thinking..... "Hmmm I wonder how hard marines are to keep". After talking to one the guys that worked there, the deal was done and off I went tank under my arm (kind of).

Well within a few months I was hooked, had found a good LFS and was already planning an upgrade. August 06 I took delivery of my custom 5x2x2. Then 1 year 9 months later and I am still as hooked on this hobby as ever. There were a few patches during this tanks life I almost packed it in, one of these ill talk about later. The other was due to a change in job. Unfortunately I was told at the back end of last year my company was closing down, and my instant reaction was to close my tank down. I am now very glad that some of the local Westcountry club members talked me out of it.

Cheers guys.

The main display tank is 60" x 24" x 24", with a corner weir connected to the sump via a straight 2" pipe into the first chamber.

The sump is 48" x 15" x 18" although the water level only reaches 12". The extra volume is useful though while doing water changes as I don’t have to worry about the volume of water that back siphons into the sump when the return pump is switched off or if it failed during normal running.

When I had my tank built I paid a little extra to have the front pane made from Starfire glass. I was a little unsure what to expect, but from the second I started to add water I noticed the difference. It doesn't have the usual tint that glass has. I would recommend this to anyone getting a tank made, and I would definately use it again.

I have around 50kg's of live rock in the main tank, and it has been aquasquaped to form two pyramids at either end. All the rock is right at the back of the tank, to give a large open swimming space.

Until near the end of April, I had been using a giesemann 230 plus twin 250w halide unit. I was very happy with this unit, but after seeing and speaking to some local reefers about T5's and ATI Powermodules I decided to take the plunge and try something a little different. Since changing I can’t believe how much more colourful my LPS look and the SPS seem to look better too. I now don’t think i'd change back to halides. I am hoping with the coming summer heat isn’t such an issue either as this unit runs much cooler, you can actually keep your hand on it. Even though i have lost 116w of lighting my tank looks just as bright and i'd also say the spread of light is better.

My lighting period with the halides and now my T5's has been the same.

Actinics on at 11am - 11pm
Main Lights on at 2pm - 9pm

When using halides I was using 250w 14k lamps and now with my ATI Powermodule ( 8x54w tubes) I am using:

1 giesemann Actinic +
1 giesemann Pure Actinic.
6 giesemann Aquablues.

Until a few months ago I had been running my tank with only the flow from the return pump (Newjet 3000) and a Tunze 6060. Now though I have also added 2 Hydor Koralia No.2's too help with water movement, as i have found since my corals have grown the flow has been deflected and water movement reduced. One was added mainly to get more flow to where most of my SPS can be found, the other to disturb the surface of the water.

This tank is run as a skimmerless Eco-System, and relies upon filtration from the liverock of which I have around 50kg's. Also from the mud/algae sump.

The sump comprises of 3 main chambers the first being where the water enters from the display tank. In this chamber the water is pumped into my phosphate reactor, this is also where I run carbon for around 1 week in every month. The second chamber is the mud/algae bed, this is lit 24 hours a day and contains a mixture of various algae’s. I have used Mineral Mud at around 2" deep. The third chamber starts with a weir comb to stop any algae spilling over and getting into the return pump.

I love the simplicity of my system, and also that it seems to be working great. When the tank was a few months old I was running with nitrates of around 25-30. This didn’t seem to have any obvious effects on my corals and the SPS was still colouring up well. Now though as the system has been maturing my nitrates have steadily dropped to now a reading of 0.02 on a salifert test kit. This is without help from any external equipment and only the occasional water change. The drop in nitrates did surprise me at first because as you will see further on, I am heavily stocked. It did even cause me to take water samples to my LFS to make sure my kit was not faulty!

One thing I do find is due to having a large mud/algae bed, the pod life in my tank is very very high. You can spend a long time just looking in my sump at all the life in there without getting bored (or is that just me?)

One problem I have had is keeping my temperature steady. I have found with heaters in the sump the temp can swing a few degrees through out the day. This may be due to not enough flow through the sump, but as I am running with only a mud/algae bed the water has to pass slower than you would a normal tank. To overcome this I have now settled with having a single 300w heater in the tank next to my weir and this seems to work fine. I would really like to get the heater out of sight, but I find it does not really stand out that much.

For calcium demand I use Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium, which I dose every other day, along with testing once a week to make sure I am not adding too much or too little. I find this very good as it raises CA and Alk at the same time. I did toy with the idea of getting a calcium reactor but then decided I like the simplicity of just adding powder every few days, and it also helps me stick to my minimal equipment approach.

I also use Tropic Marin Pro-Coral Mineral once a week as was recommended from a local reefer who spoke highly of it, and since using I must say I am happy with the results.

Over the last few months I have also started adding 100ml of Phyto a day (If I remember). I had never done this before as I couldn’t source a constant supply, and I thought there is no point just doing it now and again. Now my LFS who are a sponsor on Ultimatereef (Southwest Marines) culture their own phyto, so now it is easy to obtain. Again overall I have seen an improvement in my tank since doing this.

The only control I have on my tank is in the summer, I fit and use a habistat cool control along with a fan to help with the heat.

I do not directly feed any of my corals, but normally once every few weeks I add a cube of rotifers or cyclops.

The fish get fed a mix of Mysis and Brineshrimp of around 3 cubes a day. Along with a small pinch of pellets and flake daily. The tangs also get nori ever few days.

I do not do water changes very often or even at any set frequency. The shortest period between water changes has been around 2 months. When a water change does take place I change around 100 litres in one go, using Seachem Reefsalt.

I monitor my phosphate levels every 2 weeks, and change the media in my reactor once I see a rise. The tank runs at 0 phosphates shown on a D&D Phosphate test kit.

Luckily I do not get much of a growth of algae on my glass, so I can get away with cleaning the glass once every week or so on average. This also suits me as my Chromis quite regularly spawn and lay eggs on the glass which I don’t like to clean off.

My pumps have been cleaned once so far since setting up the tank so, I am aiming for once a year for a strip down and clean of pumps and powerheads. (Damn that means I have to do it soon again).

There have only really been two main problems with this tank. The first one was a fairly large one and nearly caused me to shut the tank down. This was after the tank had been running for around 4 months; I had a really bad spell of dinoflagellates. I couldn’t believe how fast this took over my tank. It was heart breaking and the tank looked a mess. Everyday I siphoned the sand and rocks, but by the following day it was back just as bad as before. This went on for weeks, I even had local reefers come and offer help to clean the tank. On one occasion we got the tank spotless you could not see any slime anywhere!!! Yet again the following day it was back.

In the end I decided to try one more solution which would make or break my decision to keep the tank or not.

I started a 10 day dose of a chemical called Poly-ox, I also fitted a skimmer and a UV unit which I borrowed from my LFS. Once the 10 days were up I did a 50% water change as per instructions and within a few weeks the tank was clean. I still am not sure if it was the Poly-ox or a mixture of all three that cured my problem but I was so relived it was gone. The skimmer and UV were then removed from the system within a week.

The second problem that’s worth writing about, and I still never found a real explanation, was during one of my holidays. I left my tank to be looked after by my parents for 2 weeks and during this time all my clams died. Upon testing my water, everything was found to be normal and nothing else looked to have any ill effects. I lost 4 clams one of which was an 8" Deresa. The only explanation I could find from talking to various people was I may have brought in a disease, as I had added a new clam to the tank a few weeks before leaving for my holiday. I now have another clam that’s doing great but it took me a long time to decide that I wanted to keep another.

Buying fish has been a real addiction for me. I am heavily stocked due to the "Just one more" syndrome. The system is holding up nicely though and all the fish seem to be happy and healthy. Gobies and blennies are probably one of my favorites due to their characters and how interesting they are to watch.

It always looks like there are a lot of fish on show due to the way my rockwork is arranged, but if you take some time to look into the tank you see all sorts of little surprises pop in and out of view.

One fish I will be sad to loose unless I upgrade to keep him will be my Vlamingi tang, I have had him just over a year. He is still at a good enough size to stay for now (around 5"), but one day he will have to move on. I also have 2 chromis that I have no real love for, but don’t have the heart to take them out as they were my first ever marine fish so have been with me since the start.

My showpiece fish have to be my Gem Tang and Flame wrasse though.

My stock list is as follows.

Fish
Gem Tang	Salifin Tang	Vlamingi Tang
Regal Tang	Lyretail Anthias x6 (1 Male/ 5 Females)	Chromis x6
Common Clownfish x2	Hawaiian Flame Wrasse	Mystery Wrasse
Peacock Wrasse	Laboutie Wrasse	Royal Gramma
Pair of Splendidus Mandarins	Red Scooter Blenny	Starry Blenny
Tail Spot Blenny	Yellow Headed Jawfish	Yasha Goby + Shrimp
Randall Goby + 2 Shrimp	Banded Pipefish	Bluestripe Pipefish
	Orchid Dottyback

I would definately say my favorite type of coral has to be LPS. The tank was set up mainly as an LPS tank, but over time I have sneaked in various SPS. I have enjoyed many an argument with local reef keepers over tanks of "twigs" being told one day I will start to see my wrongs and start keeping more SPS. As much as I hate to say it, my tank defiantly now has more SPS than I thought I'd ever keep, but I am still confident I will stick with my LPS as the main coral.

One thing I have tried to make an effort to do is get as many different colours into my tank. I am pleased with the outcome so far and don’t really have much more room to fit anything. But I am sure if I really had to I could.... Does everyone think this way?

My favorite pieces have to be my Bubble Coral, this was bought from a member on Ultimatereef that were stripping their tank down. (Thanks Valleyboy). Also my Scollys and Cynarina, and my large colony of Duncanopsammia axifuga.

Corals
Various Acan's	Duncanopsammia axifuga	Lobo's
Scollys	Cynarina	Blastos
Catalaphyllia	Bubble Coral	Octo bubble
Torch Corals	Hammer Coral	Echinophyllia's
Echinopora Mammiformis	Red Goniopora	Favias
Hysterix	Blue Millepora	Green Millepora
Orange Montipora Digita	Purple tipped Montipora Digita	Red Plating Montipora
Purple Plating Montipora	Green Plating Montipora	Acropora nana
Christmas Tree Rock	Zoanthids	Pulsing Xenia
Mushrooms	Ricordias

My tank contains various snails from Mexican turbos, Dove snails, to sand sifting nassarius. The dove snails seem to breed and multiply quite quickly. My shrimps are rarely seen, unless it is feeding time.

Invertebrates
Rose Bubble Tip Anemone	Fire Shrimp	Peppermint Shrimp
Conch x2	Pom-pom crab	Purple Urchin
Mexican Turbos	Turbos	Trochus
Dove Snails	Nassarius

For now I do not plan on changing much about my system if anything at all. In the near future as I have already said I may have to re-home a fish or two due to growth, but until then I'm happy.

If I started all over again, there isn't much I would do differently except make it bigger !!!!

Firstly I would like to thank my girlfriend Tyne, for putting up with endless trips to fish shops and having to stand around for hours while I decide what I want to buy. Also for pretending to sound interested when I talk about fish and corals to her all the time.

My parents for being brave enough to look after my tank when I go on holiday.

I would also like to thank a few shops for their help and awsome stock that I've managed to fill my tank with. The first being my LFS that is Southwestmarines. Matt who now runs the shop has been a constant help to me on the phone, and someone I regard as a very good friend.

I'd like to thank Taunton Aquarium Centre too. I never come away from there disapointed and Mark is a great help and always has time for his customers.

Also I have to give a big thank you to all the members of the Westcountry Club. I always enjoy all the meets, beer and food!