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Hey what’s up WAMAS! It is a huge honor to be highlighted as the TOTM. I grew up with WAMAS…I first signed up for the forum back in 12/18/2003, and I have learned and gained a tremendous amount through this club. In fact, most of my setup and corals come from other WAMAS members.
My current display is a 45g tank measuring 24”x24”x18” that has been running for two years. Since this is my first tank after a long break, I wanted a small tank that is more manageable. This is also my first tank to have a sump, as well as my first tank to use RO/DI water. I had been using tap water for 10+ years prior to getting back into the hobby, and better water has made a huge difference.
Water movement in this tank is provided by half of a Gyre XF-130 (took off one side) and a Jebao RW-4. The return pump is a Jebao DCT. I was a bit hesitant with the cheaper powerhead and return pump, but so far they’re holding up well.
I am running a Radion G3 with wide angle lenses. I am merely content with the light - not a big fan of the disco ball effect and I wish there was less shadowing. I am considering adding T5 to help with these issues, but I may end up just upgrading the whole system. I am running a 24w LED grow light over the sump, and I’m very happy with the cheato growth so far.
For filtration I am running a SWC-120 skimmer and two blocks of MarinePure (8”x8”x4” and 8”x8”x1”). I also run a media reactor that either has GFO or carbon depending on the situation. Sometimes I use a 200 micron filter sock for a few days if I see detritus in the water column. My live rock is BRS Pukani dry rock, which I highly recommend.
I dose kalk through my ATO, and sometimes I dose SeaChem Eight.Four to raise alk if the alk is the only thing that’s low. I try to perform a 10% water change every other week with Red Sea Coral Pro salt to replenish trace elements.
I planned for this tank to have a heavy bioload (wanting to recreate the ordered chaos on a reef), so this tank houses mostly corals and inverts that thrive in nutrient-rich water. For fish, there are currently a pair of MochVinci clowns from BRS, a bicolor blenny, a yasha goby, and 5 green chromis. I have another 6 green chromis in my drop-off tank and I may move a few over to this 45g. The female MochaVinci clown has a ton of personality and is definitely my favorite fish. For corals, most of them came from fellow WAMAS members and LFS. I am particularly fond of the red montipora cap from Copps and the elegance coral from Pacific East.
I feed heavy, I mix LRS or Rod’s with frozen PE Mysis two or three times a week, and target feed the corals that actively capture food. I also broadcast feed Reef Chili / Coral Frenzy / Reef-Roids once in a while. I feed crushed up Prime Reef flakes multiple times a day mainly for the chromis shoal. I read that frequent feeding is one of the keys to keep these fish from excessive in-fighting. We’ll see how it pans out long term.
I struggled with dinos and cyano algae the first year when I was still using tap water. I was able to beat the algae back by blackout in conjunction with H2O2 dosing… but they always come back. Most of the problems went away from I switched to RO/DI water. If there is one essential piece of equipment I would recommend, it would be a RO/DI unit. Now that I started venturing into more sensitive SPS corals, I’m trying to keep the parameters more stable and it has been a challenge. I may finally start looking into dosing and eventually a controller.
Equipment-wise, I may look into a two-part doser. I am also waiting for a used 120g+ system to go on sale locally so I’m hesitant to spend too much on the current system. For livestock, I’m working towards successfully keeping a shoal of green chromis as they tend to start dwindling due to in-fighting. So far things seems to be going well. *knocks on wood*
I must reiterate how excited I am to be a featured tank this month. I have drooled over a lot of the TOTMs in the past so it is pretty amazing to be a part of it. In these years, I learned a lot from this club and I met a lot of amazing club members, but I never knew how good I had it until I started talking to reefers from other states and countries. We are very fortunate. I hope everyone enjoys my humble little tank; it’s pretty low-tech and rough around the edges compared to most of the TOTMs but I hope you still find a little charm in my glass box.
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- Display: 45g glass
- Skimmer: SWC 120
- Lighting: Radion G3
- Return Pump: Jebao DCT
- Circulation: Gyre XF-130 and Jebao RW-4
- MochaVinci clownfish pair
- Yasha goby
- Bicolor blenny
- Green chromis shoal
- Deresa clam
- Pistol shrimp
- Cleaner shrimp
- Three bubble-tip anemones
- Salinity: 1.025
- pH: 8.18
- Alk: 7.7 dkh
- Ca: 500 ppm
- Mg: 1320 ppm
- Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
- Nitrate: 0 ppm
- Phosphate: 0.65 ppm
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