Mark Bradley
Well-Known Member
For many years I have kept a main tank of Malawi’s and three other tanks of anything I liked. I fancied a new challenge - did keep marines about 30 years ago so major improvements in the hobby now. I’ve only kept a small tank of shell dwellers and will use the others as hospital tanks if I need them - although 10 months in and that hasn’t been necessary. I read, and watched a lot, in advance and decided (against my usual nature) to take my time to ensure I gave myself the best chance of success. The route I took:
- My LFS had a Red Sea Reefer 170 as a display tank. It’s absolutely stunning - so I decided to speak to them about what they had, equipment wise, and why they had those things. I then decided to replicate exactly the set up as, after all, it was clearly working. Of course I appreciate that a new tank, reactor, skimmer, LEDs and the latest lighting isn’t cheap but I funded a fair chunk by selling my Malawi tank (40 fish, LEDs, two external filters, other equipment and the tank itself were all sold separately to maximise the return). eBay was a valued money source as I raided by house for anything I could sell which, in truth, I was simply hoarding for no reason. I also bought the various bits over a period of a few months whilst I was researching so it spread the cost. I bought recommended equipment and reviewed prior to buying too.
- I looked at a wealth of videos, on YouTube, to decide what fish and corals I should look to get as well as how to mature the tank and everything else required to maintain it. I spent two months on the research part.
- Having bought everything I then got the shop to set the tank up for me. This was useful from the perspective of making sure I started out right (took them 3 hours so I think it would have taken me loads more with potential for floods etc). However, the downside (which soon became evident) was I didn’t really understand how everything worked and interacted with each other. As an example I didn’t appreciate that when the reactor was not tumbling as much it was because of the sponge filter needing cleaning) - so I would still have them set it up, if I started again, but I’d pay greater attention whilst they were doing it.
- I matured the tank using Dr Tim’s but didn’t rush and took about 5 weeks for this phase.
- I then gradually added the clean up crew and fish. These were added over a period of 10 weeks to ensure the system adequately coped.
- I have a number of shrimps (including a blood red and a true pair of Boxing Shrimps), a number of different urchins, a couple of Hermits and numerous snails.
- My fish are Banggai Cardinal fish (pair), a Midas Blenny, a Purple Firefish, a Yellow Tang, Electric Blue Damsels, Tailspot Blenny
- I had the algae problem but kept it down as best I could manually - the key seemed to be when I got hair algae - I ‘hired’ a Sea Hare and it did a great job (backed up by my clean up crew) in resolving the issue in little over a week.
- Three months in I added my first corals - my water perimeters (including calcium, alkalinity etc) were perfect at this time - I wanted to get corals I really wanted so was prepared for the looking after whatever their requirements.
- Since then I’ve gradually built up my corals - some colonies and some frags. I’ve now got circa 20 types of coral - I’ve not added any more fish as they were what I wanted from the off so I’m happy especially as everything is getting on. My Malawi experience was that potential problems occurred when you added a new fish and I didn’t want the same issues.
- All corals are growing well - I’m just trying SPS so we will see how that goes. To date I’ve lost no fish or corals.
- My husbandry involves weekly water changes of 15%. Daily cleaning of skimmer cup and topping up of the auto top up unit. I’m using the Red Sea Recipes and I feed the fish a very varied diet. Filter sock is changed every three days. My salt water is bought from my LFS but I make my own plain RO (find making the salt a pain).
- I have changed my lighting to a RedSea Reef90 as the previous light had so many options with little guidance and I wasn’t happy. I’ve also bought a second media reactor for the carbon.
