I was going through my mountain of PM’s one morning and stopped dead, read it twice, checked who had written it, read it again. Whooped, frightening the dog, read it again. I know everyone starts their TOTM thread like this but it’s true, it is a shock. The membership of UR think YOUR tank is worthy of TOTM. That gives you one heck of a jolt. Being selected is especially gratifying because I, and my tank, are still recovering from a heart attack I had a year ago.

I have been keeping marine tanks for some 40 years, and before that tropical fish. My wife bought my first marine tank for my 21st birthday and probably regretted ever since. I have kept FO, FOLR, soft corals, I have had set-ups using undergravel filters. I have seen the hobby change from ‘Marines, Oh! They are impossible to keep’ to what it is today. I have seen equipment come and go, methods change for the better and sometimes worse.

I like fish, as an ex-diver I have always enjoyed watching that group of fish hovering over a coral head or playing in the current. I especially like watching the interaction between them, which is why in this incarnation of the tank I made the decision to have groups and pairs wherever possible. I also like SPS corals so I need to have a balance between numbers of fish and nutrient levels in the tank, fortunately having large tank means I can indulge myself and keep larger groups without compromising the balance.

The tank is in a garden room which we had built when we moved into this house. It is a Fit Filtration built 2m x 1m x 1.15m deep (this gives me a metre depth of water) and holds 2000ltrs. The stand is built with concrete blocks, which sit on a concrete base which would withstand a nuclear blast, the structural engineer had a nervous breakdown when he was told the tank was just stuck together using bath sealant! The tank has a side weir with 4 x 1 1/2" UPVC pipes feeding the sump. Two go straight to the sump, one is used to gravity feed the skimmer, and the other to gravity feed the phosphate reactor. I use 2x Ehime 5000s as the return pumps from the sump, each pump delivers about 3000 ltrs per hour up the 2m head back to the tank, this gives me a 6x flow through the sump, allowing the DSB in there to work efficiently.

The sump is probably the most unusual part of the system, it is 1.5m x 1m x 600mm deep all glass tank and is set into the floor of the room to make a marine pond, it is sited at the side of tank and is part of the display. The idea was to grow Red Mangroves in there but unfortunately at the moment it has just one plant and a number of seeds, just before I had my heart attack I pruned them and most of them died. But every cloud has a silver lining and the algae are now thriving in the extra light.

Lighting choice is fairly limited if you have a 39” depth of water and want to grow SPS- Halides and 400watt halides. I tried 250watt and they just don’t have the ‘punch’ to get the light to the bottom.

I now run 4x400w 14kk BLV halide bulbs driven by Coralvue electronic ballasts, the reflectors are the large Luminarc units. I have added 2 x 80w Actinic T5’s to increase the blue and to avoid the tank being plunged into darkness when the halides go off.

The sump is lit with a 150w 14kk BLV halide.

I am fortunate because the system is in a south facing conservatory so it gets the sun most of the day. This means I can have a different lighting cycle in the summer and winter, to take advantage of natural light.

The lighting cycle:

Summer:
Actinics on 14:00 off 22:30
Outer Halides on 16:00 off 22:00
Inner Halides on 17:00 off 21:30

Sump light not used

Winter:

Actinics on 10:30 off 22:30
Outer halides on 13:00 off 22:00
Inner halides on 13:30 off 21:30

Sump light on 15:30 OFF 21:30

Originally I used Sequence pumps on closed loops for water movement, but the subsonic droning they made when they were all on together drove me insane. So they were replaced by Tunze Streams, I have 2 x 6101, 3 x 6201 and 1 x 6305. As they need replacing I plan to move to 6305’s which will (hopefully) maintain the flow as the corals grow out.

I have made Perspex mounting brackets for them because the thickness of the aquarium glass (19mm) and the difficulty getting to the back and sides makes the magnetic mounts awkward to manage.

I like to keep things as simple as possible, the tank has about 300kg of live rock aquascaped using a glass former on one side to create a deep cave and a bommie made from eggcrate and covered with live rock. This gives the tank a lot of swimming space, as well as providing darker areas where the shyer fish can feel safe, I have found that if the fish feel safe they tend come out more, although that sounds a contradiction.

There is a 1m x 1m x 20cm DSB, using various sizes and grades of gravel, in the sump with various species of algae growing on it. Hopefully the mangroves will soon burst into leaf and help with nutrient removal, I know algae is better at that but mangroves are prettier!

The next modification planned for the sump is to create a semi-cryptic zone in a glass box I built into dark corner of the sump.

I run an Aqua-medic 5000 skimmer gravity fed from the tank, yes I know it is an old skimmer but it is ideal for this tank, being about 6' it gives me a long contact time. I also have the confidence that it will not overflow because it has 2 x 11/4" outlet pipes.

This is the embarrassing bit. I had 2x 300W heaters in the sump but found out last year they had both failed, I have no idea when, but I have never replaced them.

The tank runs at 23-25 in the winter just on the heat generated by the halides and the pumps and the ambient temperature in the room. In the summer thanks to the reduced lighting cycle and the sump sunk into the floor it runs at 25-27, if it goes over that I open another window or put a fan on.

I find with 2500ltrs of water the temperature swings are very slow and this gives me time to manage them.

The only supplement I use is iodine as Lugols Solution, I found that the SPS, mangroves and algae (and maybe skimming) strip iodine out of the water very quickly. I started to notice a problem with my SPS, they began to lose flesh at their bases. DaveP suggested it may be due to an iodine deficiency, when I tested I was surprised to find how low it was. I was also surprised how quickly it seemed to become exhausted. Since I have been dosing I am finding the Acros seem to have a better colour.

I have a Deltec 601s Calcium Reactor which is controlled using an Aquadigital PH controller coupled to a TMC automatic CO2 valve, I fill it with Aquamedic Hydrocarbonate and use an Altec 40 RPM peristaltic pump with 6mm tubing, this gives me a flow through the unit of about 130ml/min.

I use automated top-up as I lose 15-20 litres of water in the summer and 8-12 in the winter. A direct mains cold water supply feeds a 6 stage Roman unit via a Aquamedic cut-off valve, the valve is controlled by an Aquamedic unit and float switch in the sump. There is a time switch which is ON for 3 hours in every 24 in summer and 2 hours in every 24 in winter because my RO unit realistically produces about 8 litres/hour, this means at best the unit will only deliver 24 litres per day (or 16 in winter), this protects the sump from flooding if the float switch fails in the ON position.

I do tend to feed quite heavily as there are a lot of mouths in the tank, so I feed a good pinch of New Era flake 3 times a day, crushing some of it into small bits for the smaller fish, all the fish take it even the Long Nosed Hawkfish and the tasseled filefish. In the evening I feed a mixture of frozen krill, mysis, brine shrimp and cyclopeeze. Once a week I feed cockles in their shells which the angels, foxface and Damselles love.

I have started to feed with coral snow after lights out a couple of times per week but it’s too early to say if it has any benefit yet.

One thing I don’t feed is nori, I have tried but nothing will eat it, I have no idea why.

This has been particularly important this year and I have been scrupulous in water changing, testing and cleaning.

My tank did suffer a huge setback and needed a lot of TLC to get it back into order. Pre-heart attack I usually did a 400 liter water change a month (18%) but this year I have been doing 400liters a fortnight using Reef Crystals.

I test iodine daily and add Lugols solution as required, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium and nitrate are tested weekly (I did test daily but now the system has stabilised I do it weekly)

I clean my skimmer cup daily (because my wife has a good sense of smell!). Clean the front glass with a magnetic cleaner daily and scrape it weekly, I don’t clean the back or side panels.

Weekly I blow the detritus off of the LR with a power head and clean the front grills of the Streams.

Monthly I take the streams apart and give them a good clean. Clean the skimmer pump and venturi of calcium build up. Clean the sump return pumps. Clean the Luminarc reflectors and bulbs.

A year ago I had a serious heart attack and wasn’t able to look after the tank properly for 3-4 months. My wife, bless her, tried her best but she was more worried about me. The tank wasn’t cleaned, the RO unit was putting all sorts of rubbish in the tank, the skimmer had stopped working, the phosphate remover was exhausted, the corals ‘browned out’, majanos and aptasia were flourishing and I lost a lot of stock much of which was left to rot in the tank. My parameter readings were all over the place. Afterwards people asked why I hadn’t asked for help, but I was just not thinking straight.

When I felt better, I looked at the tank and came very close to phoning my LFS and telling them to just strip it down and sell everything, it was that bad! My wife convinced me to wait a while and try to get it back to what it had been. So started 3 months of hard work and massive water changes (I think Reef Crystals had to work nights to keep up my supply). The tank started it's cycle again, I had cyno, then hair algae, I needed to attack the nuisance anemones, but there were hundreds of them! I bought a Tasseled Filefish, a Raccoon Butterflyfish and finally a Burgess Butterflyfish. They have done a sterling job and although there are still a few majanos in there, I am not seeing any new areas of colonisation. The parameters are now stable. The corals are getting their colours back and I’m feeling a lot happier.

I am still impressed with the resilience of the tank and stock. How any of it survived I don’t know but it did and I was able to build on that starting point.

I LOVE FISH and especially kept in groups or pairs, OK, some of my fish are singletons but they are usually in there to do a job, for example my Foxface was put in to eat velonia algae which it did with gusto. The plan was to remove it when it had eaten them, but he grew on me, he has become a pet, so he is staying in there. Others like my Firefish is the last of a group, don’t let anyone tell you they shoal!

I also like SPS corals and I like them to grow out and intermingle, although some are trying for tank domination, like the Fire Coral and Monti’s and will need to be pruned.

I have been fortunate enough to have dived all over the world and as I said earlier I have always been fascinated by interaction between fish, whether it’s a pair reinforcing their bond or the group dynamics of a swarm. I wanted to see that in my tank, I have tried it with Anthias but they need so much food and they will only feed in the water column that I found my SPS were not keeping their colour due to the increased nutrients.
I had seen when diving, damsels in groups and wondered if members that family could be kept, peacefully, in groups under tank conditions. So I started doing a lot of research and I found that, yes, quite number of this (wrongly) maligned family are peaceful swarm fish, particularly the chromis. The hardest part is finding them! But they are around, usually at the back of LFS tanks, if you know what you are looking at there are some great bargains out there. Also I have some good friends in the trade who are prepared to order ‘specials’ for me, but you have to agree to take them when they arrive, so extensive research is needed to make sure you know exactly what you are taking on.

I think my favorite fish are the pair of Long Nosed Hawkfish, they spawn every month, but the interaction between them is a joy to watch. The downside is my pod population has been decimated.

I have two Regal Angels in the tank, one an adult, I think female, and one an older juvenile, they haven’t paired yet but I’m hoping. The juvenile is very shy and keeps to the back of the tank and in the cave, I feel this is normal behaviour and as it grows it may become bolder.

My fish stock:

Long Nosed Hawkfish x 2 (Oxycirrhites typus)	Regal Angelfish x2 (Pygoplites diacanthus)	Green Chromis x 14 (Chromis viridis)
Bicolour Chromis x 5 (Chromis margaritifer)	Half and half Chromis x2 (Chromis iomelas)	Blackbar Chromis x 8 (Chromis retrofasciata)
Vanderbilt's Chromis x 5 (Chromis vanderbilti)	Regal Demoiselle x 10 (Neopomacentrus cyanomos)	Peacock Wrasse x 5 (Macropharyngodon bipartitus)
Filament Flasher Wrasse x2 (Paracheilinus filamentosus)	Raccoon Butterflyfish (Chaetodon fasciatus)	Burgess' Butterflyfish (Chaetodon burgessi)
Tasseled Filefish (Chaetoderma penicilligera)	Lawnmower Blenny (Salarias fasciatus)	Yellow Tang x3 (Zebrasoma flavescens)
Convict Tang (Acanthurus triostegus)	Firefish (Nemateleotris magnifica)	Foxface (Siganus vulpinus)

The tank is predominantly SPS with various species of Acropora, montipora, Pocillopora, Seriatoporas and Pavona. I bought Veron’s Corals of the World to try and identify species but just ended up confusing myself even more! So I now tend to buy corals for their colour and shape.

I have a large Heliopora, Blue Coral, (an octocoral, so technically a softy) and stand of Millipora, Fire Coral, (a Hydroid) which is encrusting the back glass.

The only LPS I have is a Plerogyra sinuosa bubble coral and a Duncan's coral, Duncanopsammia Sp. Soft Corals are represented by a group of Zoanthids which survived my tank rebuild, they went through a freshwater soaking, pressure washing and drying out! There is also a gorgonian which was a frag from a dear friend’s tank when he broke it down.

I expected the butterflies to make short work of the LPS and zoa’s but as yet that seems not to be the case, they have the occasional nip but nothing major.

My cleanup crew consists of turbo snails, a few hermit crabs, lots of dove snails and the usual hitchhikers like Stomatella Snails, Cerith Snails, Nassarius Snails, Bristle worms. To keep the sand bed open and clean I have two Black Cucumbers (Holothuria Atra), I used to have one Black Cucumber about 14” but I now have two about 7”.

I put 25 Peppermint shrimp in the tank about a year ago to eat the Aptasia, I still see some but I have no idea how many are still in there.

I have a pair of Harlequin Shrimps which keep the asternia population down to manageable proportions.

I have been keeping marines almost unbroken for some 40 years and they always have the ability to surprise me. Whenever I look into a tank, I see something new, something fresh, I enjoy looking at other peoples tanks, I like discussing reef keeping (especially over a pint or two). I think this hobby is rewarding on so many levels.

There is no right or wrong way to do something, yes, there are basics you need to understand but you need to be open to other reef keepers ideas, listen to and respect other peoples’ opinions and find the best one for your system and livestock.

And remember a reef tank is a living entity.

Firstly I would like to thank my long suffering wife, without her support I wouldn’t have a tank, and my sons for helping aquascape it, I am not artistic and have no eye for esthetics, they with infinite patience and tact managed to cajole me into getting the LR looking passable.

Over the years I have made many friends in this wonderful hobby and have learned a great deal from all of them, I’m not going to name them all but they know who they are. I thank them all for the generous way they have given me help and advice. I also thank them for the drinking deep into the night and heavy discussions we have had!

I have two special people to thank, and I hope you will indulge me, as neither is with us now, Keith Davies and Dave Keeley. Both of these people have been an inspiration to me in different ways, Keith because of what he achieved on a small budget, his insight and understanding of the organic processes and chemistry in a reef tank and for his ability to explain it in simple terms made him second to none. Dave for encouragement which allowed me to test the bounderies of the hobby, together with his support and friendship over many years. Without them I would not have the tank I have today.

Last but not least, I would like to thank all the UR members for finding my tank worthy of your votes. I have been a member of UR for 10 years and I have always enjoyed my time surfing on the board. There is always something new to learn and discuss.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my tank. I hope you not only enjoyed it but maybe it has inspired you to try something a little different.

Thank you for reading this.