Maintenance:
I have to admit that I do a lousy job of maintenance. The tank was set up at the
end of January '07 and I did not do any water changes until last week. What
prompted me to do this is that I could not get the Alkalinity high enough and I
was starting to see some ill effects to my acropora. I do use B-Ionic but I
don't think this is enough. The water change did improve the condition of the
corals. I don't have an auto top off so I replace evaporated water by hand with
RO/DI every day. During the hot summer months, I put in 2 big ice cubes that I
freeze using tupperware containers as a mean of cooling the tank as well as
replacing evaporated water. During the hot summer months, my tank's temp reaches
up to 84.7 degrees everyday. I have really pushed the envelop but there is one
thing that I think matters most (even more important than lighting, flow,
temperature) is good chemistry of the water and therefore water changes is so
important. If you plan to cut corners, try to avoid the not doing water changes.
(Fish
an
Click the image to enlarge
The tank has been set up since 1-27-2007. I had a small 20 gallon reef tank
about 8 years ago in which I kept mostly soft corals and I used a "high-tech"
Fluval canister filter as a filtration system and my prized coral at that time
was the xenia. Boy...how times have changed. I then quit reefing for many years
because of my study. The addiction slowly creeped up again last year and I spent
a lot of time reading and catching up on the "what's new" in reefing. I mananged
to convince my wife to set up a reef tank in our office since it would make
"our" office look nicer, can use it as a tax write-off, and bring good luck in a
feng shui sense. She agreed and the rest is history.
(Tank Size, Canopy, Stand Maker)
I bought the tank from PetCo. It came with the stand and canopy. The dimension
of the AGA reef-ready 90 gallon tank is 48" (L) X 18" (W) X 24" (H). It has one
internal overflow which I plumbed using the Herbie method for silence.
Two DE 14K Phoenix 250 watts on IceCap ballasts supplemented with two HO 48" 54
watts T5 on individual SLR reflectors. One bulb is Giesemann AquaBlue + and the
other is ATI Actinic Blue. Lighting schedule is 10 am-5 pm MH and 9 am-7 pm T5's
Return
Eheim 1262 Pump and two Tunze Turbelle NanoStream Pump 6045.
: The
system has a very simple set up. The sump only has 3 compartments in which one
of the compartment is used for cheato placement and another that uses a filter
sock to catch debris from the draining pipe. I don't use a skimmer, calcium
reactor, chiller, or any type of controllers. The only digital displays that I
have are the pH probe/monitor and a digital thermometer.
d Inverts):
3 lyretails (females)
1 blue tang
1 yellow tank
1 Hoeven's wrasse
3 fighting conches
Corals:
SPS:
sunset monti
superman monti
rainbow monti
Leng Sy cap
Orange/red cap
Purple cap
Purple haze
Green cap
Purple bonsai
Pink Lemonade
Atlantis Incredible Hulk
Sarmentosa
Pink bird nest
Tubs bird nest
Austera
Green Pocillopora
Blue millie
Green millie
Sunset millie
Tricolor
Green bali slimer
Orange digit
ORA Roscoe’s Blue Acropora
ORA German Acropora Green w/ blue polyps
Ocean Blue Polyp Stylo
Orange/red setosa
.....and about 5 other acropora that I don't know the name.
LPS:
Super neon green candy cane
Hammer head
Frogspawn
Green/Orange Acan
Red/green Acan
Dendros
Meteor Shower Cyphastrea
Pink with purple center goniopora
Green lobo
Fungia
Soft:
Fire and Ice zoos
Spiderman zoos
Red zoos
Blue zoos with green skirts
Neon green leather
Anthelia
Orange ricordia
Red ricordia
Green ricordia
Pink ricordia
Pink Yuma
Rainbow Yuma
Light orange Yuma
Green star polyps
Branching green star polyps
Red mushrooms
Purple mushrooms
Green mushrooms
Clams:
2 Crocea clams
Special types of coral:
Orange sponge with white polyps
Blue sponge
