Whole Tank Left Side Right Side
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70 Gal Reef |
Note: This tank has been replaced by the 225 gallon tank. All inhabitants were moved to the new 225.
This tank has been setup for about 3 years. Some of it's inhabitants came from our old 29 gallon tank and are about 5 years old. It is an acrylic tank measuring 48"x18"x18". This is a nice size tank for someone who wants a moderate size tank and doesn't want to go too small or too large. It is a wider tank than a standard 55 gallon tank and this lets a much nicer reef to be constructed. A better option would have been a 120 gal tank which is 48"x24"x24". Oh well....
Whole
Tank
Left
Side
Right Side
Lighting: Lighting on this tank is currently provided by two 400W 10K Metal Halide lamps and 60W of Actinic fluorescent lamps in a homemade hood. This gives about 12W/gallon and is on the high side of what you need in a tank like this. I mounted the metal halide lights on a moveable plate so that I can adjust the height. I normally keep them about 12" above the water to reduce heat buildup in the water and to give a better spread of the light, although this does decrease the light intensity somewhat. My photoperiod is as follows:
Cooling: I have a fan mounted in the side of the hood which blows air into the canopy and across the water surface. I then have two exhaust fans mounted in the top of the hood to vacate the hot air out of the hood. This cooling has been adequate as long as the metal halide lamps are kept about 10" above the water surface. This tank is kept in an air conditioned room which also helps.
Heating: Is accomplished with two heaters. One is a 300W heater and one is a 100W. Temperature is normally maintained around 79-81º F. In summer it has gotten up to 84º due to the heating from the lights. It has also dropped to as low as 75º on a couple of occasions.
Sump: The sump is a 10 gallon tank that houses the return pump, heaters, carbon and the pump for the skimmer. The skimmer is a venturi skimmer that is built locally and powered by a Rio 2500 pump. I like to run the skimmer so that it skims one to two gallons a week which is then replaced with new saltwater.
Under tank Sump Close-up of Skimmer in action
Wave Maker: There are four Maxi-jet 1200 pumps on a wave maker. Two in each end of the tank pointed toward the center of the front glass. I am running only 2 of them at a time as all four give a little too much agitation to the water for the happiness of some of the inhabitants. I plug in the other two for a while during the day sometimes to simulate heavy wave action and cleanse the live rock. I might replace two of the 1200 for smaller pumps and run all 4 at the same time in the future.
Substrate: The bottom is covered with a 2" deep coral sand bed made up of 1-2mm size grains. There is somewhere around 120lbs of various types of live rock. There is also some coarse coral gravel (reef grunge) obtained from GARF.
Maintenance: Because this is mainly an SPS tank, I keep a close eye on the tank parameters for optimum coral growth and coloration. I did not pay much attention to these parameters when I kept mostly softy and LPS specimens and so I initially underestimated how important they are to SPS corals for coloration and growth. Each day I supplement Alkalinity levels with a drip made of ~6.5 tsp of Seachem Reef Complete mixed with a half gallon of water in the morning and I supplement calcium using a drip made up of ~4.5 tsp of Seachem Reef Advantage mixed with a half gallon of water at night. I also add 1 ml. of organic Seachem Reef Calcium each day. I occasionally use Reef Plus, an iodine and vitamin supplement on occasion. I have found that this tends to promote algae growth on the tank glass if I use more than a couple of ml. a week. I keep salinity at around 1.024-1.025. I measure Alkalinity and Calcium levels using Salifert test kits and adjust my dosage levels each week. I originally used Red Sea test kits, but discovered that they are incredibly inaccurate. I monitor salinity once a week as well. I only occasionally test Nitrates and they are always zero.
Feeding: I usually feed once a day due to job constraints. I alternate between Formula One, Formula Two, Formula Angle, frozen bloodworms, frozen brine shrimp and occasionally flake food. I feed heavily once or twice a week to make sure that everything in the tank get a chance for at least an occasional meal. The LPS corals are occasionally feed some Formula One, Formula Two or raw shrimp. The brittle star is hand fed a quarter piece of a Formula One cube once a week or so.
Livestock:
Note: For complete descriptions and pictures of these and other specimens,
go to the Specimen Database
Fish
Mobile Invertebrates
Clams
SPS
LPS
Soft Corals
Gorgonians
Deceased
There have been some loses over the years. Here are some that come to
mind.
Misc Notes:
The tank has had the pink coralline algae taken over by an ugly green variety over the last year. This has decreased the attractiveness of the live rock considerably. Fortunately, it looks like the green variety is starting to give way to the pink and purple varieties again (at least I hope).
I had an outbreak of Aiptasia anemones which I was able to successfully control using peppermint shrimps. I originally used Aiptasia Stop which is a commercial liquid that can be injected into the anemones to kill them. It works fairly well as long as you can reach the anemones to inject them. The peppermint shrimp cleaned up at least 100 anemones within a couple of weeks of their introduction.
I also have a hair algae outbreak in 1999. This was difficult and frustrating to overcome. I increased my skimmer size, upgraded my lighting from 6K to 10K lighting, added over a hundred snails and hermits and added Phosgard to the sump to remove any phosphates. None of this seemed to help. I eventually got the upper hand by removing each major algae covered rock and scrubbing it in a bucket of saltwater with a toothbrush to clean off as much hair algae as possible. Once I had removed all major portions of the hair algae, the other things I had done seemed to be able to keep it in check from that point.
