My name as you may have guessed is Haydn- yes really! I live in the UK. I have been keeping marines for some 50 years- and yes I do remember undergravel filters.
In my time I have had a number of tanks, my current one is a 2m x 1m x 1m system including the sump it holds around 2500litres of water in total. I am currently restocking it after doing a complete strip down and rebuild to eradicate the plague of majanos which totally overtook the tank. In this incarnation of the tank I am doing something different (OK this is where I get controversial) I am not adding any tangs. All the issues I have experienced over the years have been tang related, in the last build of the tank I had a PB we called Psycho I couldn't put any new fish in with it, it even hunted down and killed 6 Chromis! Previously I have had tangs which developed whitespots if I added new fish, rearranged the décor or looked at them harshly! I had a stunning Chevron which grew to 10"+ and I couldn't maintain a low nitrate/phosphate value and my corals browned out.
So this time, no tangs!
The tank currently has a number of small fish- Fang blennies, Royal gammas, and Anthias of various varieties all in groups. One of the downsides of not having tangs is it has taken a long time for the tank to go through its various algae stages so the coral population is still low but it's getting there and hopefully I should be increasing the coral stock.
In my time I have had a number of tanks, my current one is a 2m x 1m x 1m system including the sump it holds around 2500litres of water in total. I am currently restocking it after doing a complete strip down and rebuild to eradicate the plague of majanos which totally overtook the tank. In this incarnation of the tank I am doing something different (OK this is where I get controversial) I am not adding any tangs. All the issues I have experienced over the years have been tang related, in the last build of the tank I had a PB we called Psycho I couldn't put any new fish in with it, it even hunted down and killed 6 Chromis! Previously I have had tangs which developed whitespots if I added new fish, rearranged the décor or looked at them harshly! I had a stunning Chevron which grew to 10"+ and I couldn't maintain a low nitrate/phosphate value and my corals browned out.
So this time, no tangs!
The tank currently has a number of small fish- Fang blennies, Royal gammas, and Anthias of various varieties all in groups. One of the downsides of not having tangs is it has taken a long time for the tank to go through its various algae stages so the coral population is still low but it's getting there and hopefully I should be increasing the coral stock.