First of all I would like to thank you for voting my tank! How surprised was I, when I recieved a message from MaidstoneMarine that my tank has been voted for this months tank of the month.

This is my first reef tank after keeping discus/tropical for several years. A friend suggested why not try marine, so this is where I am now. The tank has now been running for 3 1/2 years and I'm really pleased with how the tank is taking shape.

The tank is 60 x 28 x 28 fitted into my lounge wall, which backs on to an integral garage which I have partioned off. Everything is in this room, Quarantine tank, Breeding tank, R/O unit, Water Change tank etc. Having all the equipment this side means all the usual tank noises of pumps, skimmer, water, etc remain that side & the lounge is silent.

The sump is 48 x 20 x 20 with a 28 x 20 6" deep sand bed.

Lighting is provided by 2 x 250w 14k halide lamps in lumenarc large reflectors, powered by coralvue electronic ballasts. Twin 24w compact actinics & 15 blue leds.

The Lumenarcs are fitted to upside down TV wall brackets, so I can easily swing them to one side to get access into the tank. They are controlled by digital timers which are plugged into a contactor.

Lighting times are;
Start of day	End of day
Blue LEDs on at 12:30 Twin actinics on at 13:30 Metal Halides on at 14:30 Blue LEDs off at 14:35	Blue LEDs back on at 22:25 Metal Halides off at 22:30 Twin actinics off at 23:30 Blue LEDs off at 00:30

I use two Eheim 1262's for the return pumps. I prefer to use two smaller powered pumps than one large, just incase one fails the system will still run on the other.

I also use another two 1262's for closed loops, one side feeds two outlets at the front hidden behind ricordea rocks and the other side feeds a further two at the rear of the tank hidden in the rocks.

For extra flow I also have a Tunze TS24 kit. The Tunze 6100's are hidden behind live rock suspended on pipework which is resting on the brace bars in the rear corners.

The filtration consists of around 120kg of living rock in the tank, drilled & cable tied to egg crate/pipework structures and a further 25kg in the sump.

The sump is 48 x 20 x 20 with 6" deep sand bed (28" x 20") with caulerpa lit 24/7 with a 24" T8 arcadia original tube. All pumps are external to help reduce heat. An Eheim 1260 is used to feed a Deltec AP851 which returns over the DSB through a 400 micron filter sock filled with a little carbon for the ozone. Ozone is a certizon 50mg used with a timer for 3 hours a day. The same 1260 pump is tee'd off to feed a Deltec FR509 & proficiensea rowa reactor each filled with Rowaphos. The Rowaphos is changed out alternatively between the two reactors. A final tee-off supplies the Korallin 1501 calcium reactor.

A reefresh20 block sits in the sump but can't honestly say whether it has help reduce nitrates or not.

Heating is done by a single 400w Visitherm, plugged into an external thermostat.

The garage is cool in the summer, so I don't really have problem with heating issues as the tank never goes over 27c. I do have a fan blowing across the top of the tank / halides which I use on a timer when the halides are on. If it's a very hot day there is a fan above the sump I can switch on manually.

The only supplement I dose is TMC Bio-magnesium, but to be honest since changing salt to D&D's H2Ocean over a year ago now, the need to dose with magnesium is becoming less.

The evaporation top up is gravity fed using a 24x18x18 glass tank, which is bolted high on the wall using steel brackets. It is bottom drilled which connects R/O tubing to the Ratz kalk stirrer that sits on the floor. The return R/O pipe from the Ratz stirrer is connected to a kent marine float valve thats fitted in the sump. It's a simple set up with no electrics that has worked a treat now for well over 3 yrs.

The R/O unit is plumbed to the top up tank and the water change tank that sits directly underneath. Both tanks have float valves on so I can turn the r/o unit and not worry about any flooding. When the bottom tank is full and the float valve shuts off, the top tank will then start to fill. The R/O unit with booster pump is fitted with shut off valve and pressure switch, which safely turns of the booster pump and water.

I do feed quite heavily, an eheim autofeeder 3 times a day filled with new life spectrum pellets. A home made frozen mix of mussels, squid, prawns, scallops, flake, etc put through a mixer and frozen. The fish and corals go crazy for my home made mix and I am probably guilty of overfeeding as most of my fish need To go to weight watchers!!

As with every tank there are plenty of maintenance tasks to complete, these are mine;

• Clean the front glass every other day & the rear once a week.
• Skimmer cup emptied & cleaned every other day
• 30 gallon water change fortnightly
• Change the 100 micron filter socks from the overflows into the sump approx every 3 - 4 days. And every now & then run it with no socks
• Top up the Ratz kalk stirrer with kalkwasser once a week
• Ensure the gravity fed top up tank is full with R/O

Thankfully there have not been too many problems with the tank. Early on my biggest problem was being able to keep the parameters stable. I was forever struggling with Magnesium & Calcium levels. The corals / coraline algae just seemed to be soaking them up. I added the Korallin 1501 calcium reactor, and set it up so the effluent out of the reactor passes through a refillable R/O pod which is filled with mag chips. This combined with switching to D&D salt has kept my levels stable now.

I could never keep SPS early on, but now the tank is mature and stable they are thriving.

Powder Blue Tang	Yellow Tang	Purple Tang
Bellus Angel	Potters Angel	Pair of True Percs
6 Bartlett Anthias	Scotts Fairy Wrasse	Yellow Breasted Wrasse
Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse	Flasher Wrasse	Neon Goby
Scarlet Hawk	Pair of Mandarins

My favourite corals would have to be LPS, the colours & wide selection that have been coming through the last few years are simply amazing. The tank is mainly LPS / SPS dominated which I will try to list :

Bubble Coral (Plerogyra sinuosa)	Bubble Coral, Pearl (Physogyra sp.)	Frogspawn Coral (Euphyllia paradivisa)
Trachyphyllia (Trachyphyllia geoffroyi)	Hammer / Anchor Coral (Euphyllia ancora)	Duncan Coral (Duncanopsammia)
Elegance Coral (Catalaphyllia jardinei)	Brain Coral, Wellsophyllia (Trachyphyllia radiata)	Acans (Acanthastrea lordhowensis)
Echinophyllia	Orange Plating Montipora	Green Plating Montipora
Various Acroporas - Pocillopora - Millepora - Staghorn	Gorgonian	Ricordea florida

Cleaner shrimps x2	Blood shrimps x2	XL Brittle stars x2
Orange serpent star	Sandsifting starfish	Red legged hermits
Snails-Nassarius vibex/Cerith/Turbos

I am always looking at ways to improve things and my only regret is that I wish I went bigger, but like so many other reefkeepers didnt realise just how addictive this hobby is.

If I were to do it all over again, I would definately go with 7 - 8ft in length and make full use of the width, 4 ft would be ideal. My ideal tank size would be 96 x 48 x 36............maybe one day.

The tank does take up a lot of time (of which I enjoy) but it's definately worthwhile, especially when you see the reaction of people who see it for the first time.

First of all I would like to thank UltimateReef and its members for giving me the opportunity to show my tank here. This is a real honour.

Thanks to all the fellow reefers / LFS who are there at hand for advice etc. And a special thanks to those people who go that extra mile to help you out when you need it the most, Cheers Glen (a24udi) your help / support is much appreciated.