WAMAS Tank of the Month
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Hello! It’s such an honor to be nominated for the WAMAS Tank of the Month. To me, my tank is still in the grow-out stage as most of my corals are still frags, but I have a few large colonies that really fill in some space. I recently turned my tank over from an SPS dominant to a true mixed reef and am much happier with the challenge of balancing various types of corals vs not upsetting those finicky acros. I have had aquariums ever since I can remember from freshwater fish, to newts, to turtles, but I set up my first reef tank as I was finishing college in 2006. Other than an 18-month break from 2013-2014 when I moved to DC the first time, I have been reefing in at least one tank… many times multiple tanks. Still as excited to be in the hobby as I was when I first started.
My tank is a RedSea Reefer 450 which is a nice 5’ long tank that really matches my home's style. For a 5th floor, 1,000 ft2 condo downtown, it’s a pretty big tank for a small space. I really want to upgrade to a 6’ 180g, but that might be on hold for a few years. This tank was first set it up when I was living in Ohio and I moved it and a handful of select livestock to DC when I moved back for the second time. I moved all of the live rock, and a handful of corals and fish that could fit in a 20g long with a 20g long sump while I looked for a home and rebuilt the tank. I initially rebuilt it as an SPS tank, but after about 18 months, I got bored with ups and downs, slow growth and finicky acros. I sold most of my SPS to fund some unique and colorful leathers. Shortly after, I caught the LPS and Zoa bug and now I have a mix of pretty much everything. My goal is to have every space of rock covered with some kind of coral, things growing into each other and lots of color contrast and movement. I love fragging and selling frags, mostly for the satisfaction of trimming, growing and selling my stuff for others to enjoy. I don’t have a dedicated frag tank, but I turned the the extra space in my sump as a frag tank. I have a rack that can hold about 200 of the ¾” frag plugs.
I am running 2 EcoTech MP40s on either end of the tank. I used to run these two with a Maxspec Gyre 350 when I was predominantly SPS, but now I don’t need as much flow. I am thinking about running 2 Tunze streams in the back if these leathers block a lot of flow as they grow. I personally believe that while leathers can handle lower flow, I feel they do much better in higher flow.
I run 2 ATI Straton LEDs and I absolutely love them. The look over the tank, that they’re dead silent and they have amazing color and spread. I think 3 would be too many for a 5’ tank, but I wish I could buy a half of a unit for the middle. There is no visible decline in brightness throughout the tank, but with my SPS in the middle, I would love to hit them with a little more light. I run the same spectrum and intensity as I did for SPS and everything seems to be doing just fine. While many say leathers and some LPS are low light corals, I really believe they actually show amazing coloration under high light. Pulsing sinularia is one that will start to get some metallic greens on the body under high light making it look amazing. My lights turn on 7am starting at like 5% and turn off at 10pm. It is however a very slow ramp up and ramp down, so they only get about 6-8 hours of intense lighting. I have used pretty much every type of lighting, from power compacts, to MHs, to T5s, etc. and I finally feel LEDs are to a point where they can do anything the other lights can with better color and less heat and energy. Either lots of fixtures or these huge panel lights like the Stratons, coral care, etc.
I have a Deltec 1000i skimmer which is amazing. Dead silent, uses little energy and pulls in the nastiest skimmate I have ever smelt. I also started running GFO as my phosphates are creeping up and GAC to reduce any chemicals released by the leathers. Other than that, I may run some filter fleece when I stir up the sand bed, otherwise I don’t want to filter water running into the frag tank area.
I use my Trident to monitor Alk really, and if I keep that in check, the calcium and magnesium seem to fall in line. I use a CO2 scrubber from time to time because our condo is pretty air tight and our windows only open a few degrees.
I dose 2 part using Neptune DoS system and a Trident to monitor my Alk and Calcium. I sometimes add bacteria in a bottle just to keep things refreshed, but don’t dose anything else. My clown is the oldest fish I have at about 8 years old. Her mate recently died from what I believe was an internal infection. Jay Hemdal seemed to think it was a Mycobacterium infection which is common in every tank, but some older fish are unable to fight it. While I love all of my fish, I am most excited about the Biota Marine Betta I recently obtained. It’s pretty small right now and mostly cryptic. I usually only see it at dusk, but I have heard they get more outgoing when the grow larger. Soon, it should be the biggest fish in the tank. Instead of listing all of my corals, I will list what types I have and include some of my favorites. I have about 10 types of Acros and Montis, several nice Favites, some Platygyra brain maze corals, various encrusting SPS/LPS, 3 types of gorgonians, some leather corals and several types of toadstools, about 20 or more zoanthid morphs, lots and lots of Ricordea florida, and tons of rock flower anemones everywhere thanks to a recent breeding event. The oldest corals I have are my frogspawn and hammer which I bought in 2007. My brother and I have been passing frags back and forth for over a decade, as we move, set up new tanks, rebuild, etc. But it is still going strong. Good thing they’re great looking corals otherwise I would have ditched them long ago. I have a huge torch colony which is ultra-bright green with purple tips that grows insanely fast. I got it for free in a trade at a LFS in 2017 as 2 heads. When I moved back to DC in 2020, I sold the colony of about 20 heads and kept 2 heads for myself. Since January 2020 it has grown to about 25-30 heads currently, but I frag about 6 heads every 2 months or so because it’s growing so fast. I’ve never seen such a bright green euphyllia specimen before. This thing has probably paid for all of the coral in my tank! I also love Ricordea florida and have about 10 different color morphs. The original LFS I went to always had a huge selection and an 800g show tank with a Ricordea waterfall with 100s of Ricordea polyps coming down a large rock wall. My Ricordea garden is not as big, but has filled in its space enough that it now kicks a few polyps out every now and then. Time to trim it! To combo with the colorfulness of the Ricordea, I also bought about 10 randomly colored rock flower anemones which have since spawned and now I have dozens of babies all over. I was able to capture about 20 or so which I plan to grow out and make them available to other local reefers. The corals I am most excited to grow out are my pulsing sinularia, my Tracy Morgan gorgonian, bali green slimer and my blue Cespitularia. I had a giant pulsing sinularia colony that I sold before moving back to DC and miss it. It’s a beautiful coral when grown out and also has the parlor trick of pulsing in patterns when disturbed. I love gorgonians and movement, and recently got a frag of the famous Tracy Morgan gorgonian. I have 2 other large gorgonian colonies, but this one is super fuzzy. It’s a real beauty! If you don’t know what I am talking about, Google Melev’s reef tank or MikeC’s Softie tank. I also love huge colonies so if I only have 1 SPS make it, I want it to be the bali green slimer. Those huge slimer colonies are what reefing is all about for me. I don’t get too excited for the rare or ultra-colored corals, I love huge colonies and thick coral masses. I feed fairly heavy and almost exclusively frozen or refrigerated foods. I have some fish that won’t eat pellets, but I also feel that fish heath is super important. Good food = healthy fish = no diseases and lots of free coral food when they poop it out. I feed lots of mysis, canned cyclops which I freeze into cubes, frozen LRS Reef Frenzy which will also feed my coral, nori for the tang, angel and wrasse, and some random other frozen foods to keep a variety in the tank. I also feed ReefNutrition R.O.E. and oyster feast which gets everyone excited. I have fed phytoplankton in the past but didn’t notice any benefits, so I stopped. I don’t have any corals or inverts that really need it but may start again if I get some clams. I have made my own food in the past, but realized a lot never got eaten. Not sure which types of seafood my fish didn’t like so I decided it was better to be lazy and just by LRS. Keeping a larger tank in a smaller, downtown DC condo has its own challenges. I don’t have a lot of storage space, so I can’t keep a lot of extra stuff on hand like QT and hospital tanks, extra equipment and large quantities of water (hence my emphasis on fish health). I have an RODI plumbed into a closet and make water as I need it. I use a booster pump to speed up the process so I can make a lot of water quickly. I do about 15 gallon water changes every week or two, and have a water making station that I can pack down to a single square brute container and store in a closet when I am done. Thankfully, my condo is wall to wall tile, so spilling water is of no concern. Since I can’t QT fish, I only buy from a source that QTs fish already or directly from Biota which are all tank raised and have been through a pretty rigid QT process. Haven’t had any fish diseases other than a clown that died from an old age illness. Also, being a compact space, noise matters since the tank is about 15’ from my bedroom, so every piece of equipment has to be dead silent. For now, I want to let things grow in, maybe add a few more frags and a maxima clam or two. I do need some more fish, and may add some more wrasses. I would love more tangs, but I feel like my yellow has been top dog for almost a year and fear any tang added would be in big trouble. I may add a small 18”x18” frag tank if I start running out of room. One day I will upgrade to a 180 or larger (maybe if we move to a larger house), but now is not a good time… while the idea of a bigger tank sounds good, the thought of all of the work required to set up a new tank has me putting this plan on the back burner. Besides, I just got this one to where I can put it on cruise control. While I have been in the hobby for over 15 years, I still feel like there is so much I don’t know and always finding ways to improve. After struggling here and there with various corals, I decided that keeping corals that do well in my tank is much more enjoyable than trying to change my tank to suit certain types of corals. This hobby has come a long way in the last two decades and I am excited to see where it is going. I am hoping this tank will be fill end to end with huge colonies before long and will try to keep my build thread updated. |
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