Ultimate Reef
Wow! I am still in shock. What can I say? I've been a member of this forum for a while now, and I do visit it frequently, but do not post much. So, when I got a notification about my tank being voted TOTM, I was totally surprised.
Well, my adventure with aquariums started a long time ago when I was about ten years old. I remember having a 5 gallon tank with a few guppies and some plastic plants. Move forward 15 years, after a move to a different country, finally I was able to settle down and start another aquarium of my own. It was a 125 gallon freshwater tank with Discus fish. I kept those for about 5 years, until I saw my friend's SPS reef tank. Since then, I was obsessed with having a saltwater aquarium. I sold my freshwater set up and bought a 65 gal. reef ready tank. My first corals were softies, mushrooms, etc. and few easy fish. During that time, I was researching almost every day, spending countless hours on reefing forums, and 6 month later I upgraded to 120 gal. tank, that was to be all SPS. This tank was very succesful and I was very proud of it, but after 3 years it had to be broken down. Life got in a way for a while. I got married, bought a house, had kids. Finally last year I had enough time to get back to the hobby I love. This time I wanted something different, something that you don't see often. The idea of a non-photosynthetic tank was born. I had a colony of sun coral and a couple of dendros in my previous tank, and I always found them very fascinating, so I decided to start a tank with "easy" NPS corals, which mostly consist of sun corals, dendros, and easier gorgonians.
My current tank is an Elos 120 XL, 48 x 31 x 20, with custom stand built by me. A total of 126 gal.(US) with an additional 30 gal. sump and 40 gal. tank connected to the system that is used for easy water changes. This brings it up to total 196 gal. I chose a rimless tank, because I like the slick, modern design. Also having a shallower tank on a low 2 foot tall stand allows me to easily reach in to the tank for feeding and maintenance.
When designing my aquascape, I wanted vertical space for my gorgonians, room for fish to swim around and proper flow. Two tall pillars sticking out of water create in my opinion a very natural looking scape. Gorgonians are hanging sideways from rocks. I observe natural movement of my anthias and butterfly up and down around the rockwork. I had to design a screen cover to keep my fish in, but also to accommodate rock sticking out. Small, rectangular openings in the middle of the screen works well, and I know it is not 100% foolproof, but I have not lost one fish yet.
Non-photosynthetic corals have no need for light, so I only use 2 Coral Compulsion blue LED bulbs of 3 watts each, so there is some light for my viewing and for the fish. When showing off my tank or taking pictures, I add an additional 18 watt 22K led bulb. The tank is downstairs in my house basement (cellar), so it stays dark for most of the time. The light is only on for 5 hours a day, from 6PM -11PM. That is the time that I am home and can do maintenance and enjoy my aquarium.
For flow I am using one Maxspect Gyre XF-150. It is mounted vertically, in the left back corner of my tank. NPS corals prefer medium to strong, laminar current, so my Gyre is set on constant mode about 60%. Current is flowing around my rock structure, effectively reaching all my corals.
No heaters are used in my system. Water stays cool all year around between 68F-70F. Most NPS corals come from deeper waters where less sunlight penetrates, leaving the water a few degrees cooler than at the surface. I also have fish that come from deep waters, and like cool temperature.
One of most important things in an NPS tank is having the right filtration method. Feeding corals an absurd amount of food degrades water quality very fast. I have a 4 stage filtration method that is working very well for me.
1. Mechanical filtration (filter socks), changed every two days.
2. Big, efficient skimmer. I use an ATI Powercone 200IS. This is a beast of a skimmer. It works great without problems.
3. Siporax media for additional surface for bacteria. 10 litres in the sump after the filter socks and skimmer.
4. Water changes. I try to change 40 gallons of water every two weeks. For ease of doing this, I have a 40 gal. tank plumbed to my system, that I can easily drain and refill with new water. This allowes me large water changes, without lowering the water level in my main tank.
No other filtration media is used right now, no carbon, no GFO, no biopellets or carbon dosing.
This method keeps my nutrients in check., I am not striving for very low nutrients anyway, as my corals and fish seems to be doing fine in a higher nutrient environment.
With large water changes, and no fast growins SPS, I feel no need for any supplements at this moment.
I like to spend time tending to my tank, so I have no real need for an automation and monitoring/controlling system. I do have a basic RKL controller, that turns my light on and off at set times, but that is the only thing I am using it for.
Well, finally to the fun stuff.
Non-photosynthetic corals contain no symbiotic algae like SPS corals, called zooxanthellae, so to get their energy they need to eat, and I mean eat a lot of food. When starting my NPS system, I wanted to stay away from real hard corals like scleronephthya and dendronephthya, that have a very low survival record in captivity, and instead I focused on " easier" LPS and gorgonians. Maybe in the future I will try them, but not before I invest my time and money in a fully automatic feeding system. Right now my tank is fed anywhere from 3 to 6 times a day. That is in addition to target feeding of all my sun corals, which is done every other day.
I create two mixtures that I broadcast for my corals, one using only frozen and liquid foods like: baby brine shrimp, rotifers, oyster feast, phyto feast, roti feast, brine shrimp eggs, fish eggs, brine shrimp, etc.
The second mixture uses dry, powdered foods like: reef-roids, coral frenzy, reef pearls, ultra seafan, ultra clam, reef chilli, etc.
I make enough for a full day and dose it throughout a day every few hours. This is great mostly for gorgonians, chilli coral and some other filter feeders I have in my tank.
Every other day I defrost a large quanity of frozen brine shrimp, mysis and fish eggs, and feed my large polyp corals directly. I don't use any pellet food for LPS, I just think they contain a lot of fillers and are unnatural. My sun corals and dendros react and eat frozen very well, and keep growing new heads fairly quickly.
As you might think, my fish are quite fat and happy with this kind of feeding regimen, as they get more than their fair share of food.
Well, like I said before, I don't use any automation/monitoring syatem, so I need to spend about 20 minutes a day tending to my tank. Every night I replace evaporated water, about half a gallon with new RO/DI. Filter socks are changed every other day. The skimmer collection cup is cleaned twice a week. Twice a month I change 40 gallons of tank water. Every three months I clean all my pumps and sump.
My biggest problem to date is Aiptasia. As is well known, it loves a hight nutrient environment. It slowly spreads out through my tank, but I try to keep it in check. I decided against peppermint shrimps, as I worry they would rather steal food from my corals than eat aiptasia. Another remedy that is a Copperband butterfly or an Aiptasia eating Filefish, just doesn't go with my fish theme, which is deepwater fish. I thought about Berghia nudibranches, but not sure if they will survive in my cool water temperature, and also might be eaten be dendros and sun corals if they get too close. So for now , I use Aiptasia X and a majano wand to manually eradicate as many aiptasia as I can reach. This keeps their number in check and manageable so far. I also found a sun coral eating nudibranch (Phestilla Melanobrachia), but thankfully it did not decimate my coral population.
Right now I have total of 14 fish in the display, and their number is slowly growing as I add more. I try to stay with my deepwater theme, so I think carefully about each addition, as it needs to be reef safe, peaceful, like cooler water and dim light. Each fish goes through 30 days of Chloroquine Phosphate treatment at 40 mg per 10 gal., to eradicate any exterior parasites like ich or marine velvet. After that I do two treatments of Prazipro for flukes and worms, and then if the fish is healthy and eating well, it is introduced to the main display. I do not take any chances, and quarantine all my fish, as I learned hard and expensive lessons in the past.
| Sunburst anthia(Serranocirrhitus latus) | 6 x Resplendent anthias(Pseudanthias pulcherrimus) | 3 x Sunset anthias(Pseudanthias parvirostris) |
| 3 x chalk bass(Serranus tortugarum) | Tinkeri Butterflyfish(Chaetodon tinkeri) |
All of my corals are non-photosynthetics. Mostly different spicies of sun corals, dendros and balanophyllias. I also have a good number of gorgonians, which stands at 11 right now. I stay away from carnation trees for now, as I know well their abysmal record in home aquaria even those specially dedicated to NPS corals.
I love all those little, unusual things in my tank. I have two red squat lobsters, six porcelain crabs, a staghorn crab and a whole army of hermit crabs and nassarius snails to keep my sand fairly clean. I also have two predatory basket stars and a red cyranoid, which I am trying to keep alive. I got it for free from my LFS, so far going on its third month without looking any worse. My large tube anemone and featherduster worm finishes the list of inverts I keep right now.
This hobby is very rewarding , yet it could be very frustrating at the same time. It is addictive like no other, no matter what life brings my way, I can't stay away from it for a long period of time. I learn someting new almost every day. It is a great hobby to enjoy with family, especially kids. My young son (6 years old), spends time with me during cleaning, feeding and just being around my tank. He knows every name of fish I have in the display. It brings to us quality time as a father and son. I am in this hobby only since 2010, and my interest has shifted, from keeping basic soft corals in the beginning, to going full craze SPS for a couple of years, to get me where I am right now.
I find something really mysterious and peaceful about the deep water NPS environment. My goal was to try to replicate this on a small scale, in my aquarium.
Most of all I want to thank you, members of this forum, as well as other forums. This is where I learned the most about this hobby.
My wife, my family that puts up with my hobby get a special thank you as well.
My two favorite LFS Reefwise and Coral Reef for constantly taking care of me with their quality livestock and advice.
Happy Reefing everybody !!!
ultimatereef.com
ultimatereef.com
System
Settlement: 36 x 17 x 18 inches (91 x 43 x 46cm)
Quarantine: 30 x 12 x 18 inches (76 x 30 x 46cm)
Tank Volume: 570 litres (125 gal)
System Volume: 890 litres (196 gal)
Water Parameters
Equipment
Flow Pumps: Gyre xf150