WAMAS Tank of the Month
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| First of all, thanks to all the WAMAS board members for keeping this club so successful for so long. I was introduced to WAMAS through Craig Chun way back in the fall of 2001. I was at The Reeftank (RIP) where I asked him about a monti cap and he introduced me to Copps who was also there. John told me not to buy the frag and to swing by his house if I had the time. Several hours later, after seeing my first established reef (John's old 65g RC TOTM) I was hooked, and heading home with a boatload of free frags. Deep Blue RR80G 48x24x16. Decided to small this time around. The tank is "in-wall," or it will be at some time in the future. The tank sits in a dedicated fishroom and the viewable side will be in a yet to be finished room just for me. The plan was to make it a poker room, but now the wife wants me to set up the poker area next to the bar. Not complaining. The return is pump is an Ecotech Vectra M1 that is split between the display and the frag tank. In tank, two MP40s do all the hard work. There are a couple of dead spots, but the sand can't handle my third MP40 so I removed it. May add a Gyre in the future This tank has had many different light configurations over it in the 30 months it's been running. Initially it was a 48" Reefbreeders unit. After that, in no particular order, there were; a 48" Vertex Illumina LED, three black box LEDs, two Kessil A360s and finally an 8x54w 48" ATI T5 unit supplemented with a Sky Blue Orphek OR120 LED bar. I was lucky enough to win a Synergy Reef sump in one of the promo threads on R2R. It replaced a custom sump from Jeff @ Pimped Out Aquariums. I prefer the old sump, but smaller reef synergy unit works better under my stand. I run 200 micron filter socks (not in the photo – way behind on washing them) and an Avast skimmer. Live rock in the display is minimal and there is a ~1" sandbed. Top off controlled by an Avast ATO unit that feeds an Avast K2 kalk reactor. The output is T'd off to bypass ~25% of top off water straight to the sump. I have two custom low flow dosing pumps from Avast to run two part. Currently, my SPS load is OK with just the kalk. I doubt it will stay that way for long. I love my SPS and was never a name chaser. These days it's almost impossible to pick up a new frag without it having a name. While I think it has become ridiculous, it does however, help to communicate with other SPSers. My auto feeder took an unscheduled saltwater dip that it did not recover from. I have yet to replace it. I have blend of dry foods from Capital Aquariums that I feed a 'pinch' two or three times a day. I put nori in for the PBT once a week. Patience! Committing to only adding frags to seed the tank has tested my impulsivity to the limit. Keeping the sand bed clean. Flow is also an issue. With the two channels between the rockwork, I have dead spots. When I add the third MP40 the sand gets blown around exposing the glass bottom. Bear bottom is not an option. I always intended this tank to have a sand bed so I wasn't worried about what was under the tank so bear spots expose teal Styrofoam! Not a good look. Finish the surrounding walls. Add an MP10 or a Gyre. Let the tank grow in. |
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