In October of 2004, started with a smaller 30 gallon reef setup, still have some of the same corals and fish that I started with in that tank, but it was always a dream of mine to do a saltwater tanks as the back drop of bar. Well when we decided to finish our basement I knew that my dream would finally come true. We started planning and decided on the 125 gallon.
Seeing other setup and knowing how messy even a small freshwater setup could look with all the equipment and such I knew that I was going to want a fish room behind the tank to hide equipment and easily do maintenance. The design and planning came into place and by Feb/Mar of 2005 it was time to get the tank and put it into place.
Started the setup with a crushed coral mixed with live sand for the substrate and the live rock from the original tank plus about 80 pounds of live rock. For the first year I slowly added a couple more pieces of live rock getting to a point where I probably have 200 lbs of live rock in the display , some in the sump and some rubble in the refugium. The one thing I would different from this plan would be to stay away from the crushed coral all together or maybe a single back of crushed coral to have some larger shells and such.
I have to thank the local reef club for a lot of the coral frags that I have, either free or for relatively low cost and now constitute most of the corals that I have expect for some very specific corals; plate corals and bubble coral which aren’t easily fragged.
The bar shot picture above is 2 years ago, you see can see it has come along way.
Lighting Schedule:
Actinics one from 7:30 am to 9:30 pm
MH on from 1:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Moonlights on from 8:30 pm to 12:00 midnight
Refugium and frag tank on reverse lighting schedule.
Maintenance:
Monthly water changes (or when signs of problems)
Usually try and test the water weekly but now over the last few months it is more watching for problems in tank, maybe a coral not opening or something like that then I will test.
Dosing:
I do dose some chemicals but they are dosed probably every 2 weeks minimum otherwise it is by sight.
Left side of Tank 1/24/2007
Feeding:
Fish are feed twice a day, dried brine shrimp and/or flake food
Once a week will feed frozen brine, mysis or cyclopees or some combination
Corals are fed maybe twice a month
Middle of Tank 1/24/2007
Right side of Tank 1/24/2007
Frag Tank (20 gallons)
Equipment:
125 All-Glass Reef Ready tank
#4 All-Glass Sump
2 – #4 Hydro Koralia power heads
2 – MaxiJets
Red Sea Prizm Pro Deluxe
Phosban Phosphate reactor
Heater
72” Aqualight Pro HQI/Compact Fluorescent/Lunar Light Fixture 1134w (3 250w MH)
30 Gallon Tall – used as Refugium
20 Gallon Acrylic – used as Frag grow out tank
Fish Room Pictures
Auto Top Off
Desk Area
Old Lighting
Refugium Sink Area
Sump and Skimmer
Portable AC Unit
Fish and Invertebrate:
• 3 Pajama Cardinals
• 1 Blue Chromis
• 1 Sailfin Tang
• 1 Coral Beauty
• 1 Foxface
• 1 Algae Blenny
• 3 False Percules
• 2 Saddleback Clowns
• 1 Purple Pseudochromis
• 1 Mandarin Dragonet
• 1 Orange Linka Star
• 1 Green Serpent Star
• 1 Sea Cucumber
• 2 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
• 1 Red Fire Shrimp
• 1 Coral Banded Shrimp
• 4 Peppermint Shrimp
• 2 Emerald Crabs
• Crocea Clam
• Dersa Clam
• Misc. red and blue legged hermit crabs
• Misc. Snails
• 1 Long Tentacle Anemone
• 1 Bubble tip Anemone
Corals:
• Torch Coral
• (Matts)
• Green Kenya Tree
• Devils Finger
• Purple Rimmed Montipora
• Green Montipora
• Yellow Monitpora
• Rainbow Montipora
• Orange Monitpora
• Red Digitalas
• Thin Branch Pink Birdsnest
• Anchor Coral
• Frog Spawn
• 2 Short Tentacle plats (orange and purple)
• 1 Green Trumpet Coral
• 1 brown/green Trumpet Coral
• 1 Pink Kenya Tree
• 1 Spaghetti Finger leather
• 2 Carnation Tree Coral
• Bright Orange Polyps
• Pink Polyps
• Green Star burst polyps (3 varieties)
• Yellow toadstool
• Pink Toadstool (3)
• Bubble Coral
• Xenia
• Fuzzy Mushrooms
• Various other SPS corals
• Various other frags
In refugium:
• Chili Coral
• Sun Coral
• Cheato Macro Algae
• Halimeda
Other items you might enjoy:
This thing has 6 Comments
Great tank, great location, great photos
Great job, great photo’s, great write-up.
From your Mom
Awesome is all I can say!!!!!!
Hi Cary
We just viewed your photos….they are beautiful! Great job and what a fantastic hobby.
The coral is just as interesting to look at as are the fish.
Vary nice. Wish I had the room for a setup like that. 1 quick question.
I was under the impression that you shouldn’t mix the hard and soft corals, Are all yours doing O.K. and do you use carbon to limit the chemical warfare of the softies. Thanks…
Yes, they say your not suppose to mix them because of chemical warfare, I do run carbon 24 x 7 and try and change it at least once a month or sooner to prevent phosphates from leaking out of the carbon. Mine seem to do ok, but I have lost a few SPS, not sure if it was from the chemical warfare or other factors ( leaning more towards other factors; like lack of calcium or low alk) since the SPS all require much higher levels.