Smarkow
Valuable Member
Omg you are a data machine and I love, love, love how mature your tank looks.Howdy all!
I'm originally from Texas, but have been living / working and reefing from the awesome country of the Netherlands since about 1993.
I setup my first marine aquarium in Texas, back in 1991, not for corals or fish, but an octopus. (Do not make my mistake & begin with octopuses! Trust me on this.) About a year later, after the octopus passed (short life spans....very sad, but amazing creatures) I embarked on keeping corals.
A year later, I ended up with a job opportunity in Germany, working for a Dutch company with offices there. Since it was the case back then, much of the experience in this hobby existed primarily in Germany / Netherlands I made a lot of jokes at the time I was going to relocate to where the knowledge in the hobby was; and in my spare time, I'd try to earn a paycheck with my computer skills. ;-)
Flash forward almost 3 decades, and my current setup is multi-tank system that spans three rooms and consists of up to 12 running aquariums, which features a 3 interconnected display tanks of 1000 liters, 250 liters and 200 liters, 7 interconnected (to the same system) working tanks (growout tanks, fry tanks, frag tanks, etc.) + dedicated refuge + common sump. Additionally, there's 2 standby quarantine / hospital tanks. Total system volume is over 2500 liters.
With almost two decades working in GSM world, building high availability networks and the like and responsible for their security architectures, I decided (circa 2016-2017) I could build a better aquarium controller than anything on the market. I needed scalability and high availability and security at an affordable price, so that's how I built it - it's the first aquarium controller that I know of that can survive a hardware failure of the aquarium controller. It literally was modeled around the flight systems of the Space Shuttle / Crew Dragon module & features 5 distributed nodes. (More interestingly and recently this year, I noticed earlier this year, it appears CoralVue copied / borrowed my design philosophy a little bit with their new line of Hydros aquarium controllers. )
All of this is to support my Nano Farming operations of corals and clownfish. On average, may annual exports (sales) are between 500-1000 clownfish a year and about 4-6x 20 liter buckets worth (to the rim) of corals a year. I do this as my own commitment to sustainable reefing, and to offset the need for the importation of corals and clownfish from abroad and the wild. Although occassionally I'll sell directly to other reefers, I really try to focus on reselling to retail shops and/or wholesalers as a "Locally Sustainably Aqua-cultured" source of corals and fish.
Although I don't skimp on price for pumps and heaters, I do try to focus on sustainability for myself which means I will try to find the most affordable and least environmentally impacting solutions to my hobby. Pretty sumps and colored PVC pipes are not my thing. Reliability and Affordability are keywords for me.
I dunno why I never registered on Reef2Reef, I certainly had been lurking here a long time. I am registered by the same name on ReefCentral, and have also been on Facebook groups of the Dutch language "MyReef" group, "WorldWide Reefing" and help novices on the "Marine Aquariums for Beginners" groups for years. Glad I realized my "gap" and finally registered here now too.
Quick question for those that know: Being that my largest tank is only 1000 litres but my total multi-tank system volume is over 2000 liters, is it appropriate to write up my Tank Build Description in the Monster Tank group or the Large Aquarium group? TIA
Here's some pics for your enjoyment.
you’re right about one thing: should have joined R2R long ago
