Nadir Rehman (NRehman)

Congratulations Nadir, 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 since 1992, but took a 10 year break until early 2006 when we set up a 72 gallon tank.
We set the current tank up in June'07 and been off to the races ever since.

Q  Who got you into the hobby?

A  My brother Khalid first introduced and got me addicted to the hobby in 1992 with the under-gravel filters! He had already kept freshwater fish for 10 years. But like I said, I took a break thereafter until my wife Nancy encouraged me to get back in in 2006. I'm sure she had no real idea what she was getting me (and us) into.

Q  Who in the hobby most influences you?

A  My wife Nancy, definitely the other half of this project, and my fellow WAMAS members most influence me but we also get lots of input from our son Adam.

Tank setup and equipment

Our current display tank is a Glass Cages 210 mixed reef which measures 84l x 24w x 25h, with a total water volume of about 450g including sump and frag tanks.

Q  What is your maintenance schedule like?

A  We change anywhere from 50-100 gallons per month and use Instant Ocean salt to do so. We also try to clean the large pumps about every three months and the skimmer 2x a week. On the other hand, our second job seems to be scraping glass all the time!

Q  What do you feed your fish and or corals?

A  As far as feeding the tanks inhabitants, we like to feed krill, mysis shrimp, plankton, cyclopeeze, Ocean Nutrition flake formula II & II), romaine lettuce, and a secret home made food.

Q  How do you maintain calcium/alkalinity?

A  For supplementation purposes, we use a Ca reactor and drip kalkwasser, but have recently been adding calcium chloride and Mag flake, 2 cups per gallon, via drip as needed over the course of a few days.
The tanks water parameters are:
SG 1.025
Ca 420
Alk 9dkh
Mg 1280
I measure test the water every two weeks and adjust slowly via drip as needed. No sudden changes for me.

Q  What type of lighting do you have and what schedule do you have them on?

A  Our tanks lighting consists of 3 x 250MH 10k Ushio bulbs running on ARO ballasts. We change the bulbs once a year. We also use actinic supplementation via 2 x 160w VHO bulbs running on Ice Cap ballasts.

Q  What kind of water flow do you have? How do you accomplish it?

A  For flow in the aquarium, I use 3 Tunze 6100's controlled by a Tunze 7095 multi controller. I plan to hook this up to my ACIII to take advantage of the Feeder setting on the ACIII.

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

A  Our future plans for our tank may include another tank as small as 300g We treat our hobby as a family affair with all of us deciding on what we will do or include next.

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

A  If I had to start over again, I'd go with a much bigger tank and put more of an emphasis on automation to keep it all simple.

Personal

Q  What are your other hobbies?

A  People have other hobbies? j/k
My other hobbies include my family, diving, and perpetually remodeling the house.

Q  What kind of music are you into right now?

A  I like classical music and Dan Zanes (thanks to Adam)

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

A  Buddha (what goes around comes around)!

Q  Why did you choose the screen name you did?

A  1st initial and my last name. I tried to be original (try to find another nrehman)!

Q  What is the last book you read?

A  Harry Potter #6

Q  Football or basketball?

A  Neither, I like to play tennis and am really good at it. As a matter of fact, I beat the pants of everyone I play. It's so funny seeing people playing without pants…except I'm not that good.

Q  Scotch or burbon?

A  Single malt, but I have some really good Kentucky Bourbon.

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

A  I suggest reading and researching as much as you can before you get wet, and then watch your tank while getting your family involved. I'm really surprised at how much fun it is and wish I had known earlier. I'd like people to spread awareness about what is happening with the world's oceans (fish and reef).
Also, grow, frag and sell as much as you can so we stop depleting the reefs as much as possible. It's a lot of fun and keeps the hobby sustainable.