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First of all, I would like to thank the WAMAS community for the help and support on this awesome close-knit forum. Second, I am honored to start this New Year as January TOTM. I have been keeping freshwater fish for over thirty years but never thought of crossing over to saltwater until five years ago. In 2010, I decided to set up a 10 gallon half-moon FOWLR, and the rest is history.
My current setup consists of two display tanks, a 210g (84x24x24) and a 93g cube (30x30x25). Both display tanks share a common, two-tank sump made from a 90g and a 100g stock tank. The system is located in my unfinished basement. The displays are built in-wall with a small fish room in the back for easy maintenance and to hide my fish equipment.
My setup is configured for two Mag18 return pumps, but currently I’m only running one of them. I think one mag18 provides sufficient return flow, and the lower flow through the sumps allows my skimmer to perform more efficiently. The 210g display has a Jebao WP-60 at 50% on each rear corner, and a Tunze 6045 in the center of the tank. The 93g cube has a Jebao WP-40 running full blast for circulation.
I have six 120W and one 180W LED fixture hanging above my setup. These are mixture of Evergrow and low-end LEDs, and run from 1130am to 930pm. I bought my first 4 fixtures back in the day when reefers were skeptical as to whether LEDs can grow corals. I took a chance back then and I’ve been extremely happy with them. Worth every penny!
My sump consists of two parts. Water drains from the display tanks and enters a 90g sump filled with live rock and rubble. The 90 g sump drains into a 100g stock tank, which contains my ASM G5 skimmer and a 5g bucket of chaeto. The bucket has large holes on the side toward the bottom for the water to flow through.
I use kalkwasser via an AVAST kalk stirrer to maintain alkalinity. I also manually dose BRS two-part whenever needed to keep up with the additional demand.
The tanks are a mixed reef of LPS and SPS corals. My favorite corals are the pocilloporas, because they have so many different varieties and colors. My favorite fish is a mated pair of six-line wrasses. They are so interesting to watch as they constantly search for food.
I feed my fish daily and alternate between frozen food and dry food. Each day I also feed 2 small sheets (2”x2”) of nori for the tangs. I made my own frozen food blend for my fish.
The most challenge I have faced is flooded basement. I flooded my basement a few times, mostly due to operator errors. Now I pay a lot more attention and stay alert whenever I make RODI water. I still have issues with low alkalinity, which I think killed some of my SPS colonies. I don’t like to chase number. However, I think I need to bring the number up a bit to maintain stability. I have learned a lot about the hobby in the past 5 years, but I’m still learning new things every day. Two words of advice that I believe will help reefers with long term reef keeping is “discipline” and “limit”. Understand your limit and capabilities (e.g., too many tanks, huge tank, no QT, impulsive buys).
1) Finish up the section of the basement where my tanks located so we can fully enjoy the tanks.
2) Automated water changing station
3) Upgrade wave makers
4) Add dosing pumps
Once again, I would like to thank WAMAS for the continued support and assistant to everyone in this community, so that we can enjoy this awesome hobby.
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- Salinity: 1.027
- Temperature: 79.5
- Alkalinity: 6.5
- Calcium: 400
- Magnesium: 1300
- Phosphate: 0.25
- Nitrate: 5
- Display: Combined 210g & 93g
- Sump: Combined 90g & 100g
- Return: Mag18
- Ciculation: Two Jebao WP-60, Tunze 6045, WP-40
- Lighting: 7 LED modules
- Skimmer: ASM G5
- Additives: AVAST kalk stirrer
- ATO: JBJ
- Copperband butterfly
- Yellow tang
- Sailfin tang
- Hippo tang
- Yellow damselfish
- Six-line wrasse pair
- Tomato and Red Saddle clownfish pair
- Blue chromis
- 2 Pajama cardinalfish
- 2 Dottybacks
- Lyretail anthia
- Mated pair percula clownfish
- 2 Damselfish
- Neon dottyback
- Red stripe angelfish
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