January TOTM


The TOTM committee is proud to present January’s TOTM... theplantman!

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>>> View the full slideshow here (http://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd223/sailfish88/TOTM%20Plantman/?action=view&current=a89e75d1.pbw) <<<

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Introduction
A bit about you as the hobbyist?
I have been keeping aquariums since I was 10 years old. Since I got started, I think the longest I have gone without having some sort of tank running has been about a year.

How did you get started?
I got started with aquariums as a kid. I was the neighborhood nature boy and brought home anything alive I could catch. The parents got me a 10 gallon tank so the wild critters could stay wild. Since then I have had Cichlid tanks, discus, planted tetra tanks and now a saltwater reef tank that my wife got for me as a gift last year. We reef as a hobby together.

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What or who were/are your influences and inspirations?
I have been fascinated by the ocean all my life and Jacque Cousteau was the closest thing to a boyhood hero I probably had. Now my wife and I rarely miss documentaries that involve the ocean, reef and life underwater.

How do you feel about your tank being picked for ToTM?
It is an honor to be selected as TOTM. There are so many great tanks in this club and each one has something special. Hopefully our little reef at home will live up to everyone’s expectations.

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Overview
History of the tank
We started the tank in December 2008 after about three months of research trying to decide what size tank to get and what type. I was not new to doing saltwater but was new to doing it right and wanted to make sure this was a success, not an expensive failure. My wife got the 34 gallon Solana for me from another member. It came with the stock skimmer and pump and a Current Sunpod 250w HQI metal halide light, as well as live rock (which was covered in hair algae so I left it alone and hand picked some new rock at a local LFS for start up) and a Turbo twist UV sterilizer.

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How the tank got to where it is today?
Over the past year we have added a lot of new equipment. At start up I scrapped the original skimmer and added an Aqua Remora C Skimmer and we recently upgraded that pump from a 290gal/hr maxijet to a 390gal per hour pump. We added a Two Little Fishies phosphate reactor and stopped running the UV sterilizer. We followed a strict start up procedure and monitored all phases before adding livestock and then gradually started adding livestock at a reasonable level, starting with the cleanup crew and gradually coral and fish. We made sure to never add more than we thought the natural biological filtration in the tank could handle and as a result have never (knock on wood) suffered a crash or severe spike in bad water properties. Regular water changes are a big part of this. We also built the open canopy with 10” molding to raise the lighting off the water to help control temperature swings.

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Specifics of the tank
The tank is mostly LPS and soft corals but there are a few sps corals thrown in here and there. It has a 2” sand bed in most areas, that is until our blue spot jawfish moves in and does his home building and then it varies from 1”-4” as he sees fit. We have a large cleanup crew including; turbo, Nassarius, Nerites and Cerith snails, serpent stars, shrimp, emerald crabs and numerous hermits. Each fish was selected based on where it lives in the tank whether sand bed, lower, middle or upper water column to try and prevent disputes. The corals were selected the same way, based on flow and lighting requirements as well as water quality. I would venture that we maintain one of the higher nitrate levels and do not fret about it. The softies seem to thrive and for the life of me I cannot get them to zero hence the limited SPS corals in the tank.

Other tanks
None at this time, but the last endeavor was a freshwater planted tank that was a 55 gallon and ran for about 10 years before taking a break for a year.

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System Profile
System water volume- 34 gallons
Display tank volume- 30 gallons in the display area.
Tank dimensions- 20"x20"x20"
Sump volume- No Sump

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Equipment
Lighting - Sunpod 250watt HQI with Lunar lights and phoenix 14k bulb. We also run a Nova extreme 36 watt T-5 with actinics.
Pumps - Ecoplus 396 attached to Aqua Remora C Skimmer, Stock Solana return pump, 2 koralia 1's in tank as well as a Tunze Nanostream 6025 In the tank for circulation.
Cooling is performed with a Tunze Aqua wind twin ventilator fan run on low 24 hrs a day.
Heating is with a Jager 150w heater made by Eheim.
We also run a Two Little Fishies phosphate reactor with either GFO or phosban depending on which is available when I need more.
For additional mechanical filtration we just bought a Fluval 205 canister filter that I will be running at every other water change to remove solids from the display area. This involves jetting the sand bed surface and all coral and live rock surfaces multiple times over a 4 hour period while the filter removes the suspended solids. Hopefully this will help bring down the nitrates as well.
Coralife 4 stage RODI filter.

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More in depth sections
Lighting (ie: photo period)- Actinics on at Noon and off at 2:00pm, MH on at 1:00pm and off at 9:00pm, Actinics on at 8:00pm and off at 10:00pm, moonlights on from 10:00pm until Noon.

Filtration (ie: types)- 30 lbs of live rock in display as well as 25lbs live sand, extensive clean up crew, Aqua Remora C Skimmer, phosphate reactor running GFO and purigen bag in pump area of the tank as well as another 5lbs of live rock.

Cooling/Heating- Cooling is performed with a Tunze Aqua wind twin ventilator fan run on low 24 hrs a day. Heating is with a Jager 150w heater made by Eheim. Set on 75 degrees. The rest of the heat Is supplied by the metal halide.

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Livestock
Coral- Acanthastrea, teal and red, and purple and green, Numerous mushrooms including multiple colors of Rhodactis, Actinodiscus, Ricordea and Discosoma species as well as corallimorphs.
Green Hammer Coral and Green and purple frogspawn. Numerous zoas and paly's including nuclear greens, mint chocolate chips, eagle eyes and proto-palys. Yellow finger Leather, Green Montipora digita, Montipora confusa, Fox Coral, Plum crazy acropora, white w/red polyp seriatopora, pink goniopora, alveopora, green and purple plate coral tree, GSP, Radioactive Clove polyps, Daisy polyps, Sun coral and Red and teal Blastomussa

Fish- Six Line Wrasse, Bluespot Jawfish, Pair of Percula clowns, Red Sea Mimic Blenny, High fin Banded Goby, Purple Firefish.

Other Inverts- Mated pair of Coral Banded Shrimp, Skunk cleaner shrimp, Randall's Pistol Shrimp, Arrow Crab, Green Emerald Crab, Red Emerald Crab, Fighting Conch, Giant Nassarius Snail, Orange and White, Green and White, and Red and pink banded serpent stars, brown and white and purple and white feather dusters, Purple frilly Gorgonian (photosynthetic) Red Finger Gorgonian (not photosynthetic) Derasa Clam, Squamosa Clam, Scarlet Reef Hermit Crabs and Caribbean Orange Legged Hermit Crabs, Numerous different small tunicate colonies including, yellow, red and brown and white tunicates.

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Feeding and Additives
Foods - We feed varied foods all week long, we keep in stock Hikari spirulina, brine, krill, Mysis and cyclopeeze, Rod's Food, BARF, also Omega One marine flakes with garlic, Omega One super veggie kelp flakes, Ocean Nutrition Formula Two marine pellets. I also keep a bottle of DT's on hand for the filter feeders when I feel like I am not getting enough off the glass every week.

Routine- I do not do any regular dosing of the tank. I do a weekly water change of 5 gallons and we use H2Ocean Salt Mix which keeps all my nutrients in check. When my alkalinity starts to wander too low I will add an occasional dose of Reef Builder to adjust the ALK in the tank.

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Maintenance
Daily- Add top off water once In the AM and once in the evening, clean the glass if needed, fix any corals that are out of place due to the shrimp, and blow any sand off the corals that our blue spot has buried. Oh, and feed the fish. We usually empty the skimmer every other day.

Weekly- Five gallon water change and every other change gets a solid removal filtration run for 4 hours with the Fluval as well as a run through of the water with charcoal.

Monthly- Clean pumps and skimmer unit, recharge purigen and change GFO. I usually clean the pumps at different intervals so I do not have the tank pumps shut down for too long. It spreads out the maintenance work. Water Testing as needed.

Water Parameters
Specific Gravity- 1.026 using a Milwaukee refractometer
Temperature- ranges from 78.7 to 79.3
Using Salifert Test Kits
pH - Ranges from 8.0 to 8.2
Alkalinity- ranges from 9.3 to 10.2 dkh
Nitrate- 10ppm after a water change to as high as 25ppm before a water change
Magnesium- Do not test for this
Calcium- As low as 390 before a water change to as high as 450 after a water change
Phosphates - Does not register - 0
Ammonia - Does not register - 0

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Final Thoughts
What is your key to success or what have you learned?
Planning was the most important part of the process, as well as sticking to that plan. Try to resist the temptation to add something to the tank too early (before the tank is mature enough) or a specimen that you are not ready to take care of properly. A dead specimen besides the loss of money and life of the specimen, can only add other problems to the tank such as disease, ammonia, nitrates, etc.

What are your future plans for the tank?
Keep it happy and healthy and of course continue to trade out old corals for new color and challenges so we can gain enough experience before we try something bigger.

What is the worst and best thing you have ever bought/added/done to your tank?
Worst was a Fuji leather, it was not happy and dumped toxins into the tank that set all the other corals back. It was just too small of a water volume to absorb the toxins from the 5" leather we added. The best addition to the tank was the phosphate reactor, before we added it, the phosphates were impossible to control due to the number of inhabitants in the tank. Softies and LPS put out a lot of waste.

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Describe any disasters you have had.
Fortunately, we have not had any disasters, one near miss though when I forgot to throw the switch back on for the pumps after doing a late night water change. I had the skimmer on a separate switch and it was running, but the circulation pumps and return pump were not for close to 24 hours, this was after about 3 months of running the tank and we got lucky. We lost our Rainford goby and that was it. Now all pumps run off the same switch so I don't make that mistake again.

What would you have done differently?
We would go bigger from the start. We really did not go very expensive or sophisticated on the equipment as you can tell above, but had I known the tank would be this easy to run and maintain I would have gone with a custom 105 gal cube from the start and probably could have had it up and running for a little more than we have invested now. The design is done, but we will not be building now until we relocate to Maryland in 2011. I do not want to move that big of a tank a year after getting it set up.

Thoughts on coral fads
It is all too tempting to buy the expensive new coral, but the wife and I have more fun trying to find the larger piece of coral that we like just as well instead of getting a half inch frag or polyp we end up with a 3-5" specimen that does so much more for the tank.

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Advice for beginners/Words of wisdom
Research, plan, plan, plan and then stick to it. Also be prepared to make adjustments to the system as its needs change. And keep up with the regular water changes. I firmly believe they are the responsible for the majority of the success we have had with our reef tank.

Tips and Tricks
Select your livestock and LFS suppliers carefully. I do not have a quarantine tank or dip our corals, but we do not make impulse decisions when we buy specimens. And we not only inspect our specimen but we look at all the other livestock housed with them. We do not buy from a tank with a dead fish in it or if anything in the tank looks severely stressed. We do not buy if hair algae or other pests are visible and we spend a little more for the quality. We also try to select specimens that have been at the LFS for at least two weeks. In the case of our Blue spot, our LFS brought him in and housed him with another mimic blenny for three weeks to make sure they would get along and the blue spot was healthy and eating. Again we paid a little more, but have had success with a fish that numerous other ARC members urged us to stay away from due to bad experiences. You may save a dollar or two when you buy from a discounter you do not know or a special on a mass delivery, but if that specimen dies or worse kills other fish and corals in your tank; you end up costing yourself money and frustration.

Things you couldn't live without
My wife, she got me the tank and has been an integral part of picking the livestock and corals. I maintain it, but we built it together and I thank her for being just as interested in the hobby as I am. Love you honey.

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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the following LFS dealers who have helped us make the tank what it is today.

First, Sam at Aquabuys for helping us get a great little skimmer, recommending an excellent salt mix and providing an easy to follow and great start up schedule on his website.

Second, Tim at Keen Reef for some great pump and fan upgrades, advice and providing lots of spectacular specimens including the clams which he always seems to have a great selection of.

Third, Chris at Fishscales who always seems to get his hands on those outrageous mushrooms we love so well and for providing excellent customer service and knowledgeable advice.

And finally, all the ARC members who have answered all those questions, provided frags and continue to make this club such an enjoyable success.http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz303/jynolen/totm/jan10/Clamsupercloseupversion2.jpg



ARC TOTM Committee
Photos by Joe
Editing by Stacy
Composition by Tamara

Very nice!

Top notch!

Very nice tank. I love the color in softy and LPS tanks. great job :up:

Very nice! Appears extremely healthy. Congratulations!

Congrats! Very nice tank.

well done. :thumbs:
make no mistake, size isnt everything and this ToTM proves it.

sweet congratz on a killer tank.

nice unit. A very well deserved winner!!

beautiful tank! very nice. great pics, too!

Nice set up.

Beautiful. Well done!!

Congrats! Tank looks Great!

very unique tank, it looks great

Great example of beautiful Nano. I love the squamosa clam and Blue spot.

Thanks for participating.

Great job TOTM team.

Joe

Thanks for the compliments everyone and thanks to sailfish for taking some great shots of the tank. Janet and I appreciate it.

FINALLY! A ToTM that features soft corals, and as a bonus, is a realistic size! Nicely done... good photography as well. There is much that you explain that I'll would like to apply to my own setup.

Congrats on a beautiful reef! :goodjob:

Congratulations! You have a beautiful tank and it's rather refreshing to see a nicely done non-"stick" dominated tank. :up: ;) I love the clam's color and will be getting a similar blenny myself, the Blackline, soon.

Very Deserving, Congratulations!!

Excellent choice! I love the color and texture of the tank. Very well maintained and all the livestock looks healthy and well cared for, especially the jawfish!

Very nice tank! I love the colors!

- Brad

Mike, the tank looks great! I really want to see it in person sometime.

Very nice system, plantman, and awesome writeup, Tamara! Kudos to both of you!