Can I start by saying how honoured and shocked I was to have been chosen for Tank of the Month this month and I would like to thank everyone who voted.

I have been keeping marine fish since 1986, over those past years many upgrades have taken place. Some have been wise purchases, others have been more impulse buys but I'm sure you can all relate to that in your own experiences.

My knowledge of marine keeping has improved two fold since I came across Ultimate Reef. The knowledge levels of the members on the site and the standards of their systems have been a real inspiration to me. I've ended up with the setup that I have today because those tanks past and present have made me want to do better with what I have had at the time.

I do like to try things out for myself to make my own judgment and this has at times I admit, lead me to buy something I did not need or was never going to use but I do like to play with a new toy now and again.

My current setup is custom made, the tank was made with no brace bars and has 19mm thick glass on all the sides and a 38mm base. This make's for one heavy tank but it means I lose no light from brace bars being dirty and allows for an open look to the top of the tank. The cabinet and surround were all made by the Classic Cabinet Company.

The tank dimensions are 60" x 26" x 30" which allows me to just about reach the bottom of the tank and the sump area is 72" x 24" x 24" giving me over 200 gallons of water volume to play with.

The system currently has two Lumenarc reflectors with 400 watt 10k Reeflux bulbs that are on for 9 hours a day. It also has one 54 watt KZ Fuji Purple T5 bulb and one 54 watt D&D Blue which are on for 11 hours a day.

The sump area has a Lumenarc reflector fitted with a 250 watt 10K Reeflux bulb, this is on for 10 hours a day but in reverse to the tank lighting times.

I have recently added two sets of Wave LED Blue lights for night time use, these are on for 8 hours through the night.

I have to thank Rob at Marine Lighting for offering me his advice and visiting my home to play with the right setup that suits my corals.

My setup has a closed loop design but the tank has not been drilled, instead the pipe work goes up and over the tank and lays across the base. This is hidden from view with clever placement of the rockwork and is fed by a sequence 15000 pump that offers an adequate output to the four outlets.

The return from the sump is supplied by two Ocean Runner 6500 pumps that pump back to the tank via split outlets, one pointing forward and one across so with the four outlets there is a lot of water movement around the water surface.

Further water movement is created by two Tunze Nano 6045 pumps, one at each end of the tank pointing down and across the corals offering flow lower down in the tank.

Finally, a recent purchase is a Wave Polario pump for additional movement and at this early stage the corals appear to love the extra flow.

The sump has further pumps to offer movement and flow within these sections and around the frags that are housed in the sump area.

Although I am currently running a full ULNS setup I still use other equipment to aid my filtration. I have a very large skimmer, namely a Fauna Marin Ultra Skim 3 unit which I rate very highly, I also have a Deltec PO4 reactor filled with Ultraphos P to help keep my PO4 levels low and a Korallin Nitrate Reactor keeps the Nitrate levels down.

I have filter socks in the sump area to catch any muck that may be flying around the system that is missed by the skimmer and this helps to keep the water much clearer.

With the lighting that I run I don't really need to worry about heating the tank apart from right in the middle of winter when a 400 watt heater helps to keep the temperature at 26 degrees.

Cooling however is another issue. Like most, during the winter my tank is generally fine. I have three banks of Azoo fans over the sump that are activated by my Aquatronica should the temperature probe read too high but come the hot summer months I also need to run a chiller to help. In the office where the tank is situated there is a professional air con unit that keeps us cool, combined these keep the temperature really stable.

I currently use KZ Coral Snow and when needed K-Balance to help keep the ULNS in balance. I run some carbon and a little Ultraphos P just to help keep everything in check, I would like to stop using PO4 remover all together but at present this is not possible. I also dose a little iodine once a week.

The whole monitoring of the system from day to day is done through my Aquatronica that keeps an eye on temperature, redox levels, Ph in the tank, Ph in the calcium reactor and salinity. Should something be too low or too high it will switch on one of many items, Co2 for the calcium reactor, Heater or Chiller/fans for water temperature, or warn me if the tanks ph or redox levels are out.

I have a professional 4 stage RO unit from RO Man that runs when the water level in the sump gets too low. It automatically switches on via a solenoid valve and tops up the system with fresh RO water, this means that the water level in the system does not drop much at all. I know that some people say you should not use the first liter or so from the RO unit when it first switches on but mine seems to run so often that when I have measured the TDS output it is not so high to start with, maybe 2, or 3 at the most and this is for a very short period of time, perhaps a liter or two before the level drops down to zero.

There is an in-line TDS monitor so I can keep a regular check on the levels and when needed I replace the DI Resin to ensure levels are kept at their best.

Having some large Tangs and not being a great fan of underfeeding, the system does get fed well. At least three times a day the fish get fed two different types of Flake, Brineshrimp and Spirulina and also get a varied mixture of frozen foods and the occasional treat of Nori.

The corals get fed not only the food for the fish but also from the KZ Ultra Low Nutrient System setup. Additionally I fed PhytoFeast Live, Phytoplankton, live Copepod and Rotifers so they are offered many different types of food.

I carry out a 10% water change every couple of weeks since starting to use the KZ method of ULNS and I prefer to use KZ Reefers Best salt for this.

Apart from cleaning the skimmer every two to three days and cleaning the glass as and when required I don't do too much to the tank itself.

I do try to keep my hands out of the setup as much as possible as I have seen documented many times I believe this can cause water chemistry issues.

Like most people I have experienced problems and if someone says in over 20 years of marine keeping that they haven't then they are not telling the truth. I have suffered from overheating of the tank, whitespot, corals bleaching, fish jumping out the tank and sump as well as equipment failure! However I think it's all part of marine keeping and you just have to keep your chin up, learn from any mistakes, correct these issues where possible and move on.

I love a tang or five and this is why I currently have five tangs in my setup. My current list is a Regal Tang, Yellow Tang, Purple Tang, Atlantic Tang and a Tommi Tang; with these I have a Cleaner Wrasse, Banana Wrasse, Six Line Wrasse and also a Leopard Wrasse. I also have a Common Clown and a pair of Chalk Gobies that do an excellent job of moving the sand on the bottom of the tank around and keeping that white sand bed look.

The system currently has nearly fifty different types of SPS corals and five LPS corals but this will need to be adjusted as the SPS corals are growing and room is running out for them all, some fragging is planned very soon to keep everything in check.

My current list of SPS corals is Acroporas, Montipora, Seriatopora, Hydnophora, Millipora, Stylophora, and Pocillopora.

LPS I currently have are Duncanopsammia, Catalaphyllia, Caulastrea and Lobophyllia.

My tank has all the usual suspects that you're likely to see in a modern day reef system. There are a wide variety of snails as well as red and blue legged hermits. The combination I have seems to keep everything in check.

Future plans are to make the system as automated as possible so that all conditions are as stable as possible.

I may have to look to remove some corals or certainly cut them back as they continue to grow, maybe another rebuild could be on the cards but who knows.

I don't see the tank being replaced with a bigger setup in the very near future as I feel the size I have is just about right for the time I can give to maintaining a marine setup. However, if in the future I have more or less time then I will have to re-think the size of my setup.

A lot of thanks has to go to members of UR who have advised and guided me at times in the wrongs of my doings, as well as those Local Reefers who have donated a frag or two along the way.

A big thanks goes to Jason Aquatics and also to STM for my SPS Corals. And again I must say a big thank you to Rob at Marine Lighting for his time and advice that was offered when I was looking at my lighting.

And, of course, a huge thanks to my wife who, without moaning, puts up with my endless spending.