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April 2005 - Tank of the Month
Will Spencer
Check out the PowerPoint presentation on
Will's tank by clicking here!
1) Your name, location and occupation. Include how long
you have been an aquarist, how long you have been a WMAS member and
how you heard of our club.
Name: Will Spencer
Location: West Jordan, UT
Occupation: Tax Accountant
How long have you been in the hobby? 20 Months in SW and
nearly 24 years in Aquariums in general
How long have you been a member of the club? 18 Months
How did you hear about the WMAS? After starting my Reef Tank
at my office one day I suddenly wondered if there was a club in Utah
for Salt Water aquariums. I did a search on Yahoo and found the
coolest board on the net. I came to the next meeting and was hooked.
That same month I went on the reef tour and found the reef that was
meant for my home. Suzy had been taking care of it for me and I
didn’t even know it.
2) Describe your tank. Acrylic or glass? Size in dimensions and
gallons. How long has it been set up?
Acrylic / Glass: All Glass, Not drilled.
Size in gallons: 180 Gallons with an 80 gallon Rubbermaid
sump.
Dimensions: 48x24x25. Standard All Glass tank
Age: (how long has the system been running) I have owned the
system for 18 months. Prior to that Suzy had it up about 5 years I
believe. Could be more. I moved most of the sand, rock, and coral
from her place to mine and essentially set it back up as it was at
her home with the same stock except for the fish which she kept. A
few months later I tore all the rock and coral out and redesigned
the aquascaping from scratch.
3) Describe your lighting system, including your photo-period.
Add what you would change if you could.
Currently the aquarium is lit mainly with 3 - 250 watt, 20K, HQI,
Metal Halides. One third of the aquarium is supplemented with 2 - 55
watt, actinic, power compact fluorescents and the other 2 thirds of
the aquarium is supplemented with 3 - 48” normal output florescent
bulbs, one of which is actinic.
The PC and NO lighting is on from 8:00 am until 10:00 pm and the
metal halide lighting comes on at around 11:00 am and goes off at
9:00 pm. This gives the tank a dawn and dusk feel to some degree.
In the future I may be changing my MH bulbs to 14K bulbs and
changing out all other bulbs for actinics. I have also considered
changing the MH bulbs to 10K’s and removing the current supplemental
lighting and going with 4 – 6 foot VHO Actinics. Any of this
changing would take place this summer when I build a new hood for my
tank.
As you can see from some of the pictures of my lighting set-up the
Metal Halides are currently mounted to the top of my hood where the
reflectors can be seen. This is not very pretty, but it does
accomplish several things. First off I did not have the time to
build a new hood when I acquired the metal halide lighting and did
not want to keep them in the garage until the hood happened.
Secondly I have no problems with heat in the current configuration.
Nonetheless I will be building them into a hood this summer where
they cannot be seen.
4 ) Describe your filtration system. Include: How deep is your
sand bed, plenum, your skimmer size and model and how long you run
it, your circulation pumps (how many and their size in gallons per
hour), your sump/refugium including Reverse Daylight, biowheels and
skilters, HOT systems, clean up crew.
Filtration in my tank is kept very simple. I have a 4-6” DSB that is
continually changing due to the efforts of my Yellow Headed Sleeper
Goby. I also have around 250-300 lbs of live rock, about 75lbs of
which consists of LBTR. The LBTR has been in the tank for around 18
months and consists mostly of large pieces of 25 lbs or more that is
being used as baserock and cannot be seen.
My tank has a hang on back overflow that flows water down to an 80
gallon Rubbermaid that I use as a sump. The overflow has 2 “U” tubes
to handle the large amount of water I need to feed to the sump. One
of the overflows flow into a filter sock that catches any detritus,
extra food, pods, etc. that flows into it. The 2nd overflows into a
refugium that is set in the sump.
My refugium consists of a Styrofoam shipping container that brought
fish home from a LFS one day. It has 6 – ½” holes drilled in each
end toward the top of the container that lets water flow out and
into the sump. When I came upon the idea of using the stryofoam box
as a refugium I neglected to think of one detail. While testing the
idea in the bathtub it surfaced. Literally! I found that the
Styrofoam floated. To fix this problem I have 4” of live sand in the
bottom of the box and about 10-15 lbs of Live rock on top of that. I
had planned to have both of these in the refugium anyway, but now
they serve yet another purpose. Besides providing extra filtration,
and a place for “critters” to grow unmolested, it also holds the
refugium down in the sump.
I found that the flotation properties of the Styrofoam box does have
advantages however. One day when I had topped off the tank a little
higher than I should have, the power went out. Needless to say I was
worried that I might get water on the carpet. (Again!) I ran to the
basement where the tank is located and watched as the water from the
tank overflowed into the refugium. As I watched I knew there was no
way I had enough room in the sump to hold all the water. To my
surprise when the water got high enough the refugium started
floating. I figure the floating refugium saved me between 3 and 5
gallons of space in the sump which was just enough to keep it from
overflowing onto the floor.
I am growing 4 different kinds of caulerpa in my refugium including
Chaetomorpha, Racemosa, and a couple blade type algaes I don’t know
the names of. The refugium is lit with a 55 watt Power Compact bulb
24 hours a day 7 days a week to help the Macro Algae growth. Even so
I only harvest about 3 cups of Macro every month or so.
The only mechanical filtration in my tank is an ASM protein skimmer
that I added about 3 months ago. I believe the skimmer is rated for
up to a 250 gallon tank. It does not get the “cup a day” Anthony
Calfo thinks we should be getting, but it does skim about a cup
every 3 to 4 days. I have been very happy with this skimmer. For
about a year before I got this skimmer I had a Berlin Turbo skimmer
in the sump. I believe I emptied the collection cup 3 or 4 times
during that time. Needless to say I was not impressed with that
skimmer at all. I would have pulled it from the tank completely were
I not to lazy to do it.
The return pump from my sump to my tank is a Rio 24HF. It returns
the water to a spraybar in the top center of the tank. The spraybar
sprays the return water toward the front of the tank and gives water
movement across the entire surface of the aquarium. I also have 4
Maxi-jet 1200 Powerheads in the display tank to add more motion to
the water. 2 of these are set up on a Blue-Line Tsunami wavemaker
and switch on and off every 15 minutes or so to create different
water motion in the tank.
One day I would like to build a closed loop manifold like the one
Anthony Calfo explained to us and remove the extra powerheads from
the tank.
4) What are your maintenance techniques? Include water change
schedule.
My maintenance is pretty simple. I do a 35 gallon water change
approximately once a month. Every 4 to 6 months I up that to a 70
gallon water change. In the past I have used Oceanic Salt, but have
recently experimented with a couple different brands. In the future
I am going to start using a mixture of Oceanic and Instant Ocean to
see how my tank reacts to the two together. I’m hoping for the best
of both worlds.
I use a Mag Float magnetic cleaner about once a week to keep the
green off the front of the tank and scrape the Coraline off the
front glass whenever I feel it is necessary. This is usually about
once a month. I had been using a razor blade for this until I bought
a Kent Turbo Scraper about a month ago. This is the best piece of
maintenance equipment I have purchased. I originally did not buy one
because I felt they were too expensive, but when I found one with a
12” handle on sale I bought it. It cut my scraping time by two
thirds.
The maintenance in my sump consists of emptying the skimmer cup once
or twice a week and harvesting Caulerpa once every month or two,
usually the day of a club meeting. I also feed my Tangs some of the
Caulerpa on occasion.
5) What additives do you use? Kalkwasser, Strontium, Molybdenum,
Iodine, Magnesium, Other
I use very little as far as additives go. Occasionally I dose a
little Iodine. By occasionally I mean about once every 6 months or
so. I try to keep an eye on my calcium and alkalinity. I have never
had my calcium lower than 450 when tested so I hardly ever dose
anything for it. At times my alkalinity has been very low, such as
when it was at 2 meq/L a couple weeks ago. To remedy this I dose 6
Tablespoons of Baking Soda then test the next day. I continue adding
this much baking soda until the alkalinity is in the range I would
like it. I have normally been keeping it around 6 meq/L.
I am currently in the research stages as to how to dose Kalkwasser.
I’m not really excited to go with the fancy Kalk-reactor, but it
looks like I’m heading in that direction. The ease of the dosing
with such a reactor seems to make up for the hassle I find in
building it and installing it.
6) Describe your feeding philosophy. Include your schedule, and
what you prefer to feed your system?
My philosophy when it comes to feeding is that variety is the spice
of life. I have tons of different kinds of food that I feed my fish.
I typically feed once per day and occasionally let my fish fast for
a day. (Usually when I’ve been too lazy to feed that day.)
I have made my own home made frozen fish food consisting of about
2/3 meaty foods such as white fish, raw shrimp, scallops, and
octopus, and 1/3 macro algae. For macro I used several different
kinds of seaweed I found at the oriental market.
Otherwise I feed my fish many prepared foods. I usually just change
up each day and feed something different. I also usually a couple
different kinds of food in one feeding. Some of the foods I use are
listed below:
-Golden Pearls (I feed 6 different sizes many times mixing them all
together.)
-Prime Reef Flakes (I just sprinkle this over the top of the water.)
-Zooplankton Plus Flakes (This I soak in a cup of water for 5
minutes and my fish love it.)
-Garlic Plus Flakes (Same as Zooplankton Plus)
-Freeze dried Krill (My love this after it soaks a little while in a
cup of water.)
-Frozen Brine Shrimp (The fish love it even though it is not that
nutritional.)
-Cycolpeze (Both the fish and corals love this stuff. I try to use
it at least twice a week.)
-Tahitian Blend Algae Paste (I feed this about twice a week for the
corals and the pod population.
-My home made frozen food (I feed this about 3 times a week as the
fish love it too and the Tangs like the green matter in it.
-Nori Sheets (I buy this from the oriental market and feed about a
quarter sheet a day on a clip.)
I also add garlic to just about any of these foods about twice a
week or as I think it is needed to control Ick. Besides the fish
seem to like it.
7) DIY ie, Calcium reactor, stand / hood, skimmer, sump, ect. Any
Do-it-yourself items of interest? Web-sites that you may have
referenced?
I haven’t had time yet to do many DIY projects yet. My stand and
hood are DIY, but Suzy did them long before I aquired the tank. I
did build a spraybar for the tank when I first got it so that was my
first DIY project. Since I have added the lighting.
The one project that is pretty much DIY is the sump as I described
earlier. I’m still quite happy with the setup and have had no
problems with it.
The future holds a few DIY projects. Number one is to build a new
hood that will accommodate my lighting and “Pretty-up” the top of
the tank. The next project will probably be to build a Kalk-Reactor
to drip Kalkwasser into the sump. I would also like to see if I can
build a calcium reactor, but this may not be in the immediate
future.
8) Stand and Canopy
Wood: Pine adorned with cutouts of Dolphins and Seahorses.
Color: Stained an Oak color.
Special Characteristics: The stand was build lower than most
people usually do. This creates a slightly cramped area for the
sump, but is perfect for viewing from a sitting position. Since my
tank is in my home office I am usually sitting while viewing it so
the height works perfect for me. It also makes getting in the tank a
little easier. (No not climbing in, getting my arm in.) I can do
most work on it without a ladder.
9) Items of interest: Favorite or unusual Fish, coral, or
invertebrate
Favorite Fish: My favorite reef fish is the Powder Blue Tang.
I have a beautiful one in my tank. Otherwise my favorite fish
overall is the Imperator Angel. I don’t think I want to loose my
corals to one though.
Favorite Coral: My favorite coral is hard to come up with. I
love my Sun Polyps, My beautiful Photosynthetic Gorgonia, my
Blastomossa, Frogspawn, and Zoanthids. One coral I just love that I
don’t have in my tank is an Elegance Coral.
Favorite Polyps: I have some orange Zoanthids with green
frilly edges that I think are just about my favorite polyps.
Favorite Sponge: I have a rock that has black, yellow, orange
and red sponge on the bottom of it. Unfortunately every time I turn
it a little so it can be seen, the sponge recedes on the exposed
edges.
Favorite Crab: I have a Zebra Crab that is pretty cool. My
wife named him Herbert. He was getting pretty big and knocking
things around a bit, but I put up with that. Unfortunately he
developed a thing for my overflow. After finding him lodged in an
overflow tube the second time he was relegated to the sump. We still
occasionally see him crawling over stuff down there.
Favorite Worm: I have a peanut worm that lives in a rock
surrounded by a colony of Zoanthids. Of course I only get to see him
late at night when he comes out and after the Zoanthids close up.
Favorite Clam: I love clams but I don’t have one yet. I’d
really like to get a Blue Maxima.
10) Can you include a table showing your elemental levels of Ca+,
alkalinity, S.G., temperature, pH and other interesting testables?
Current elemental levels:
Ammonia & Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0 (I couldn’t believe this, but 2 tests said so.)
PH: 8.2
Calcium: 450
Alkalinity: 6 meq/L
Specific Gravity: 6.025
Tempurature: 81.5 Degrees F.
11) What experiences and challenges have you had with the tank?
Any lessons learned? Is there anything you do differently than
others (or differently than previously)? If so, why?
Overall I would have to say I have had a wonderful experience with
my tank. I love the corals and the fish. I feel that my tank is
quite beautiful, but of course I would say that.
I have had some challenges with it though. My biggest challenge has
been keeping the water in the tank and off the floor.
When I first put the new sump in it I needed to make up about 40
gallons more water because the sump was that much bigger than the
old one. Since I didn’t have anything in it I figured I would mix
the water in the sump. After putting in the salt and filling it with
RO water I put a pump in the sump to stir the water a bit. I figured
that with a hose on the pump I could pump water to the other side of
the sump and get a good current going. This was about dinner time so
I left it to stir while I ate. When I came back 40 minutes later I
found the hose had come out of the sump and emptied the 40 gallons
of water onto the floor.
About 6 months later I had more problems. I had aquired a huge 13
inch diameter Bubble Tipped Anemone. Both my Gold Stripped Maroon
Anemone fish and I thought it was super cool. It hung out in the
exact spot I put it when I put it in the tank and never moved. Until
four months later when I left on vacation that is. It seems that
that day he decided to check out my overflow box. The stupid thing
plugged up both my U-tubes and emptied the sump onto the floor
again. When I came home 3 days later the tank was stagnant and
stinky, the Anemone was dead and so were half my fish and shrimp. At
least the corals made it through OK. (That was also the day I did
the quickest 50% water change of my life.)
As if that was not enough about 2 months later I decided that my
tank needed to be topped off late one Friday night. I turned on the
top-off water and somehow I forgot about it. My RO unit only stores
3 gallons of water and then drips really slowly after that, but it’s
supposed to put out 100 gallons per day. At that rate it might not
have been a problem if I had come to check out the tank Saturday
morning, but I had a very busy Saturday and never did make
downstairs to my office. Then Sunday I spent a lazy day watching the
race on TV and made it down to feed the fish about 3:00. Needless to
say the entire floor was covered with water. Luckily for me the top
off water was dripping into the tank at the top of the sump and so
the freshwater was making it over the top before it mixed much. I
did have almost 200 gallons of water on the floor, but the salinity
in the tank had only dropped to 1.018. I fixed this over the course
of the several hours I was sucking water out of the carpet.
The moral of this story is never leave running water unattended. You
can bet I never will again.
Thank you for letting me present my tank to you. I hope you enjoy
the pictures and I always welcome anyone into my home to see and
talk about aquariums.
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