WAMAS Tank Of The Month November 2007 Rik Leishmans (Leishman)

Congratulations to you Rik, on being selected tank of the month.

About the Tank

Experience in hobby

Q  How long have you been doing this?

A  I've been in the hobby for about 6.5 years. I got started right around July 4th, the weekend before my son was born.

Q  Who got you into the hobby?

A  I got into the marine hobby because I went to the store to get fresh water stuff for an office tank and saw the salt water stuff. That was it, I have to have one so I did.

Q  Who in the hobby most influences you?

A  No single person, no one really. I prefer to read the boards and pick an choose the things I want to try. I tend to avoid the "pros" columns online, and read real life stuff.

Tank setup and equipment

I have a 250g glass tank from Glass Gages. It's 65 x 36 x 25h. It's that size because it fits where our washer and dryer used to be. My wife got a 1200sqf addition and got this hole. I use a sequence dart pump for return and 4 Tunzes for circulation. 6100s, 6080,s and 6055s. I have a Geo Ca reactor, Barr Aquatics kalk stirrer, Deltec 702 skimmer, GSA carbon and rowa reactors. For lights I use 400w 14K Ushio bulbs inside Lumenarc reflectors and 4 x 160w 03 actinics.

Q  What is your maintenance schedule like?

A  I change 44q a week, change carbon and or Phosar about every 3 months. I clean the skimmer neck and empty the cup once a week. I service pumps and powerheads only as needed. Sometimes I clean the glass and sometimes not. I did tonight because I knew you were coming.

Q  What brand salt do you use?

A  I use Instant Ocean salt mix.

Q  What do you feed your fish and or corals?

A  I feed my fish PE mysis and Hikari mysis shrimp. I also use Dainichti - marine, veggie, marine FX sink pellets and flake mixed together. I feed this every day and frozen every other day. I also target feed some of my LPS and Zoos.

Q  What are your future plans for improvement/upgrade of the tank?

A  I'm happy with my tank and set up so I don't have any real future plans for it other than to keep maintaining it and keeping it in good shape. My wife and I have talked about moving it into another room but I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon, if ever. Nah... I don't think so.

Q  What makes your setup special or unique?

A  My tank is unique because I did it for myself.
All the tanks we see here are unique in their own way and mine is no different

Q  If you had to start from scratch, would you do anything different?

A  I'd make it so I could get behind the tank. I think I also might loike to have an external overflow box and while I'm at it, a closed loop.

Personal

Q  What are your other hobbies?

A  I love to watch Hockey and play with my kids.

Q  What kind of music are you into right now?

A  Hannah Montana and the Wiggles.

Q  Who would you most like to meet past present or future?

A  I'd like to re-meet my grandparents. I was too young when they were around and I'd like to know more about who they really were.

Q  If you could go one place on earth where would it be?

A  If I could one place it'd have to be the South Pacific

Q  Why did you choose the screen name you did?

A  It was my last name and that's what people called me so it seemed to fit.

Q  What is the last book you read?

A  The Book of Fate by Meltzer.

Q  Football or basketball?

A  HOCKEY, is there another sport worth watching, really? (Except my England for football)

Q  Scotch or burbon?

A  Guinness!

Q  Do you have any advice for those folks whom are new to the hobby.

A  Don't do what I do.
Test your water regularly.

Q  Things I wish I knew 6 years ago:

A  DIP ALL NEW CORALS I have lost buckets of corals to AEFW, monti eating nudis, and red bugs.
Impulse buys never work out well.
Buy the best lights and skimmer you can, replacing cheap ones is a waste of $$$.