Bruce's Reef

[Brucey]

OK, Time is well overdue for me to post my reef in the member’s tank forum. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages but as everyone knows who has done it, it takes an evening to put the photo’s together, write something slightly intelligible and then post it in a manner that most people can follow.

Firstly and foremost, everyone is going to ask, what the secret is. I think I have a pretty good SPS collection and my fish are always disease free. Well, what’s the secret? It’s easy, buy the right equipment first time around, read as much as you can even when that impulse buy is crying out for your tank and spend time on the tank. I’m no chemist or scientist. I don’t know what half my corals are (well, there actual scientific name anyway) but I spend approx 30-60 minutes every day on the tank. I call it my tank therapy. It’s calming, it’s enjoyable and it’s very very rewarding.

[Brucey]

So, onto the tank. It is 7ft long, x 2ft High by 18” wide. It has a custom made base and hood hold approx 130UK gallons with a 35 Gallon sump. It was ordered on 7th Sept 2002 from Richard Dwyer at Pet Fish, Reading England and was installed dry on 4th November 2002. The following week it was filled with RO, Salt added and 3 days later cured Live Rock was installed. The tank cycled for two days and the first fish were added on 17th November 2002.

[Brucey]

Above is the Left of the tank, Below is the middle

[Brucey]

And below is the right

[Brucey]

So onto the plumbing and equipment. Well, it’s change and has been upgraded several times in the last 18 months to its current state. The Return is an Aquamedic OR6500 (6500LPH), which flows via hard piping into the main tank. I have 4 returns, 2 of which ay any time are turned on to change the water characterizes. There is a 4” corner overflow filled half way across with bioballs. This aids biological filtration and cuts down on noise as the water goes over the weir box. The other half of the weir box is completely empty allowing the more adventurous fish a clear ride through to the sump if they are foolhardy enough

[Brucey]

There are also 3xPowerheads each pumping out between 900 and 1050LPH. These are randomly positioned at varying points of the BB tank and are also controlled by an Aquamedic WAVE machine which randomly oscillates the power heads.

[Brucey]

The WAVE, Top up system and PH computer

[Brucey]

Filtration is via an Aquamedic Turbo Floater Shorty skimmer which is powered by 2x Aquamedic OR3500 pumps. The venture is also plumbed through a Redsea Ozonizer which a Redox computer controlling the output. The Redox is set to 420ppm. The skimmer returns over a separate DSB compartment in the sump where the Redox and PH probes are house. An Eheim 2213 filter also takes part of this water whilst it is at its cleanest and passes it through a Rowaphos filter to remove phosphates.

[Brucey]

The Skimmer return and remote DSB

[Brucey]

The lighting is an Arcadia 3 Series pendant. It houses 3x250Watt 12,000K Metal Halides. There are also two 60” Actinic Bulbs.

[Brucey]

The PH is monitored by an Aquamedic PH computer. The PH probe is set to 8.4 and doses Kalk via a Deltec Kalk Stirrer whenever the PH drops below this level.

[Brucey]

The Kalk stirrer is directly linked to the Purity on Tap RO / DI unit via a dosing pump and a 46 gallon Water Butt. It doses approx 7 liters of Kalk a day and whilst stabilizing PH also adds Calcium and Alkalinity

[Brucey]

The evaporation is slightly higher than the amount of Kalk added and this is compensated for by an Aquamedic Aqueniveau top up system via the Purity on Tap RO / DI unit. Evaporation and cooling is just an inexpensive PC cooling fan.

[Brucey]

That’s about it. I started off with some softy corals and some very easy to keep fish. Leathers and Clown Fish. After 6 months I tried some Acropora SPS and bit the bug. I now have a heavily dominated SPS tank, with table and staghorn Acropora, plating and branching Montipora, Pocillopora, Seriatopora and Hydnophora. I also have some LPS corals such as Euphyllia, Caulastrea and Goniopora. I have a few fish you wouldn’t normally have in a reef such as Emp Angels and Copper Band butterfly’s but I have found if you get them young enough and feed them a rich and varied diet, they have, so far, stayed away from my corals. My one big mistake was buying a Birdmouth Wrasse which I now love to bits, but it devastated my shrimp and crab collection. Approx £ 200 worth in 2 days. Now however, I just have turbo snails and I find with a bare bottom tank that is all the cleanup crew I need.

Anyway, take care. Any questions let me know.
Brucey

To finish, just a selection of my SPS and LPS corals

[Brucey]

Star Polyps