|
Congratulations Scott, on being selected tank of the month. |
About the Tank
Experience in hobby
- Powder blue tang
- Yellow tang
- Regal angel
- Pinktail trigger
- Gold spot rabbitfish
- Foxface
- Mystery wrasse
- Leopard wrasse
- Pylei wrasse
- Percula clowns
Q How long have you been doing this?
A 15 Years.
Q Who got you into the hobby?
A My dad, working at a aquarium shop since I was 15.
Q Who in the hobby most influences you?
A Rik, Chris Thomas, Justin Casp.
Tank setup and equipment
The tank is a 120 gallon display tank with a 50 sump, 10 gallon refugium, and 38 gallon NAGA frag tank. Primarily SPS with some LPS. I run a DIY calcium reactor, Kalk reactor, and a media reactor for carbon and phosphate remover. 1 40 UV sterilizer. Everything is controlled by a Neptune Apex controller.
Q What is your maintenance schedule like?
A I do Water change every 2 weeks. This is made real simple by a in sump pump that I have connected to a hose that runs to my laundry basin. Flip a switch, wait a few minutes, and turn it off. I have a 50 gallon Pepsi drum with premixed salt water that I just pump back into the tank. I wanted to make it as simple as possible. I use filter socks, so those are changed ~once a week. Filter media is changed once a month.
Q How much time do you spend weekly?
A 2-3 hours a week, feeding, checking parameters, observing the fish/corals and maintenance.
- Aquarium City red millipora
- Tyree watermelon chalice
- Bubblegum Chalice
- Pink birds nest
- Garf Purple bonsai
- Red table milli
- Meteor shower cyphastrea
- Purple pavona
- Blue polyp monti
- Purple rim monti
Q Where do you keep your water parameters?
A Calcium ~400, alk is ~10 dkh.
Q What brand salt do you use?
A I have always used Instant Ocean.
Q What do you feed your fish and or corals?
A I feed a lot of different stuff. Primarily Spectrum pellets. I also make my own food which has about 20+ ingredients from 1 micron stuff, to bigger scraps for the bigger fish.
Q How do you maintain calcium/alkalinity?
A With a calcium reactor, kalk reactor and depending on what I have on hand for magnesium, I use a liquid or salt additive.
Q Do you dose anything? If so, how much, how often?
A Not really. Occasionally, ZEOvit amino acids and sponge power.
Q What type of lighting do you have and what scheulde do you have them on?
A
The main tank lighting is provided by 2 x 250 20k Radium SE bulbs with Lumenbright reflectors and ICEcap ballasts, 2 x 110 VHO actinic bulbs, and 2 Powerbright LED's 10k/20k. Frag tank is 6 T5 bulbs.
MH - 10-6
VHO's from 6-830
Q What kind of water flow do you have? How do you accomplish it?
A With my sps dominant tank, I wanted a lot of flow. I have an MP 20 and an MP 40 for the main flow on each side of the tank. I also have 2 small koralias in the back to keep sediment/waste from collecting behind the rock work. I also have my main pump for the system a Reeflo barracuda that is plumbed into two separate parts in the tank, one is through a seaswirl and the other is split by using loc line.
Q What are your future plans for improvement/upgrade of the tank?
A Good question, I want to design an automated water change schedule. I have been playing with doing it different ways and battle gravity. Possibly a light mover to eliminate one of the MH.
- Snails
- Spiny Urchin
Q What makes your setup special or unique?
A Well, I built and designed the whole system from the demolition of the old wall, to the build of the new fish room aka man cave.
Q If you had to start from scratch, would you do anything different?
A Have a little more room in the man cave for stuff that you inevitably collect.
Q Do you have any advice for those folks whom are new to the hobby.
A Make sure you dip/inspect your corals when you get them. Even if you know they came from a reputable person/place. Try and make everything as simple as possible. This makes it easier to do things and less time consuming.
Personal
Q What are your other hobbies?
A Scuba Diving, Watching pitiful Redskin football, PC Gaming
Q Who would you most like to meet past present or future?
A Hmm, Past would probably be Walter Payton from the Chicago Bears. I always enjoyed watching him as a kid and collected all his football cards. He seemed like a great professional on and off the field. You don't find many like him anymore. In addition, on a more personal level I would have also liked to spend more time with my grandfather who died when I was very young. He was an all-star softball player with many trophies for his pitching.
Q What is the last book you read?
A I read a lot of computer/information security books.
Q Why did you choose the screen name you did?
A Not very creative. It is my name and my birthdate,
Q Scotch or burbon?
A Grey Goose Vodka.
Q Things I wish I knew 6 years ago:
A Take everything very slowly. Don't jump on the latest bandwagon if things are working for you.