Wow, First off I'm really gobsmacked about getting TOTM, I've been telling anyone that will listen all about it since hearing the news. I think the wife's sick to death of me talking about it already.

I started keeping marine fish due to my older brother buying a fish only marine aquarium when we were young. I followed suit with a tiny 10 gallon plastic tank and a damsel. 22 years later and I'm typing this out. It's been a continous learning curve, I still class myself as an amateur today. There's always something new to learn about this hobby, and I usally hear about it from the wonderful members of UR. Over the years I moved from fish only, to softies, and finally settled on SPS corals. This is the tank I have now.

After outgrowing a very packed AquaMedic Chromis tank, I sneaked a new tank in past the wife and setup a custom built braceless 36x18x18, Optiglass with a durso standpipe setup in a corner weir. Initially there was a lot of empty space for my existing SPS colonies to grow, but just over a year on an I'm now hitting capacity again. No plans to upgrade, I'm happy with how the tank is right now so I'll cultivate the colonies to keep them seperated and leave as it is.

Lighting has always been a major key for me when it comes to keeping SPS. Soon after adding my very first Acro frag, I moved on to a 400W Arcadia compact, a year ago I upgraded again to a Series 4 400w Arcadia with twin actinic T5s.

I use reverse lighting with a 125W Maxigrow in the sump for chaeto.

Photoperiod being:
09:00 2x 39w Actinics ON
10:00 Marine Lux 14K 400W MH ON
19:00 Marine Lux 14K MH OFF
22:00 2x 39w Actinics OFF
20.00 Sump 125W Maxigrow ON
09.00 Sump 125W Maxigrow OFF

The sump runs an Eheim +5000 compact back into the display. Accompanied by a Tunze stream 6065, Tunze nanostream 6045, and a hidden Seio at the back of the tank pointed down into the hollowed out eggcrate that supports the LR. Lots of surface agitation and a constant flow around the live rock. All powerheads are left on 24/7.

The cabinet holds a small sump with a Deltec MCE600, DSB, chamber of chaeto, phos reactor, and carbon/floss chamber before returning back to the display tank through the Eheim Compact +5000.

The tank runs pretty warm through summer due to the lights, so I keep the temperature slightly high through the night to save any temp swings. One 200w heater in the sump and one 300w hidden in the display, keep the temp at a constant 28C. I also use a set of fans for Summer to blow across the surface of the main tank and there's a 120mm extractor fan drilled into the sump cabinet.

I've tried them all! But I've never found one supplement that really has worked for my tank. So I now dose very very rarely. Zeovit Amino Acid and Sponge Power are dosed a couple of times a week. Purely to use them up!

AquaMedic PH computer to an AquaMedic CO2 solenoid for the calcium reactor. Tunze Osmolator for top ups. Cheap digital thermometer reading the sump temp. 3 timers for lights/fans.

If I go on holiday I set an Eheim auto feeder up to drop flake in.

Half a block of frozen brine shrimp per day, sometimes mixed in RO water with cyclop-eeze. Keeps all my fish happy and healthy and I think the SPS benefit from it, too.

I do a 15% water change every 3 weeks. Besides that, I keep my hands out of the tank. I think a key to healthy SPS growth is to leave it alone. Moving frags around constantly isnt good for their well being. Putty them in, leave them alone. I try not to move or alter anything in the tank, when the colonies collide, they work it out themselves. If one really is taking a battering, I'll intervene and cut some of the offending branches away, but that's a rarety.

Equipment, I clean the skimmer cup out once every 2 or 3 days. Rowaphos replaced every 6 weeks. Floss and carbon replaced every 2 weeks. Calcium Reactor twiddled with every night! I seem to be constantly fixing the Korallin due to a build up of CO2 in the calc chamber. I really do need to fix that for good. :D

Over the years, hundreds. Nowadays, not so much. Yes, the Koralin Calcium reactor is evil, and needs maintenance every day. But that's my only issue right now, so I'm thankful.

I try to keep livestock low so there's less pollutants in the water for the corals to deal with. Having said that I still have a few fish.

I have a 5yr old Yellow Tang, 16yr old Common Clown, 2 x 1yr old Leopard Wrasse, and a shy 4yr old Mandarin Goby.

I'm borderline obsessive about SPS and growing colonies from frags. So that's pretty much all I keep in the tank.

My coral list is:

Fire coral (Millepora Dichotoma), bird's nest (Seriatopora Hystrix), yellow staghorn Acropora, orange Montipora Digitata, purple Millepora, pink Millepora, purple w/green polyp tri-colour acro, orange slimer, blue tipped acro, vivid blue acro, green acro and various mushrooms that have sneaked into the tank.

2 x red banded hermit crabs (Ciliopagurus strigatus), brittle starfish, various snails.

It was quite a shock to think back to when I started this hobby, where the time has gone I dont know, but it's been a fantastic journey keeping reeftanks. There's always hardships but the rewards of watching your tank grow and mature outweigh the bad times by a long long margin.

I suppose my words of wisdom to any potential reefkeeping newcomers would be, read up on every aspect of the hobby that you plan to pursue. Ask for as much advice as you need on such wonderful forums as UR. Plan, take your time, take onboard advice, and the tank will come along and mature into something to be proud of.

A massive thank you to UR and for the people that put my little tank forward. It's an honour to be featured and something I shall be smug about for the rest of my life! I want to also thank every person that's given me advice on UR over the years. An invaluable forum full of wisdom & knowledge. :D

Huge thanks to my wife for pretending not to notice expensive fish aparatus being sneaked into the house, and another big thank you to my brother for getting me into marine aquariums in the first place.

Thanks again!

Martin