Paul's Reef

System Details

In the past I kept freshwater fish, mainly focused on African cichlids. My pride and joy was a 350L Malawi cichlid Juwel Trigon aquarium but when I moved house I was unable to keep the aquarium. After the move I didn't replace the aquarium and after several years was itching to keep fish again. I had looked a keeping a saltwater tank previously but was unable to commit to the cost of the hobby.

Several years ago I decided now was the time to start keeping fish again and this is my first saltwater aquarium. I bought a 24"x15"x13" all-in-one aquarium made by Innovative Marine called the Fusion Nano 20. Its made from 6mm low iron glass and has dual built-in overflows leading to the built-in sump area. It came with a 11W 210GPH return pump and a mesh screen lid and the stand is an Exo Terra Terrarium Cabinet. When I originally got this tank my plan was to keep a simple soft/lps reef tank but the beauty of sps corals caught my eye.

Lighting

The tank was originally lit by a 6" Wave Point 3-watt Super Blue Micro Sun LED Clamp Light. It was good enough for my first fish and green star poly coral (Briareium sp.) but I quickly realised it was not good enough for lps corals. I replaced it with an Ecotech Radion XR15w Pro Gen3 and I recently fitted the Ecotech Radion XR15W diffuser. I am using the SPS AB+ program from the Ecotech Marine Coral Lab Guide at 100% for 10 hours per day.

Circulation

The circulation is provided by a single Ecotech Vortech MP10w Quiet Drive on the LHS of the tank. The program used consists of the lagoon, gyre and reefcrest modes with a maximum flow rate of 50%. This provides ample variable flow around and within the aquascape. The orignal return pump was replaced by a Newa Jet 800 (9W 8y 00LPH) mainly because the original pump was noisy.

Heating

There is an Eheim 75 Watt heater in the rear sump and I have never had to worry about cooling.

Filtration

There is approximately 7Kgs of Real Reef Rock and 20lb of Caribsea Fiji Pink live sand, which act as the main biological filter. I use filter floss and coarse filters to remove and large particles from the water. In the rear sump is 1L of Seachem Matrix biomedia, phosphate remover and granulated active carbon. The phosphate remover and carbon are changed every three weeks while the filter floss is replaced every three days. When deciding on a skimmer I found not many would fit in the rear sump compartment of the tank. I did try the Innovative Marine Desktop Skimmer but found it noisy and not very effective. I replaced it with a TMC Reef-Skim Nano 50 and found it was very good for its size. Even though the TMC skimmer was performing well, I was still on the looking to upgrade my skimmer. In Feburary 2018 after much online forum searching, I bought a Tunze DOC Skimmer 9001 DC, however, it was too large to fit in the rear sump compartment. One of the aquarium sump baffles was removed, which then allowed the skimmer to fit. I have found that the Tunze skimmer is the quietest and most efficient of all the skimmers I have owned.

Monitoring/Control Systems

The Ecotech lamp and powerhead is controlled using the Ecotech Reef Link, while the temperature is controlled using an Inkbird ITC-308 Thermostat. Up until recently I was using a Seneye Reef and Seneye Web Sever to monitor temperature, pH and ammonia. I am now monitoring the pH, salinity and temperature using my custom Aquarium Monitor which is based on a Raspberry Pi 3 and uses Atlas Scientific components.

I monitor the alkalinity, calcium and phosphate levels using Hanna Checkers (Handheld Colorimeter), magnesium using a Nyos test kit, iodine and nitrate using Red Sea test kits and manually check salinity using a refractometer from D-D.

Feeding

Typically the fish get fed ½ to 1 cube of frozen food per day (usually Mysis, Brine shrimp, Copepods or Lobster eggs), spread over several feeds. They occasionally also have small feedings of Easy Reef Masstick.

Supplementation Methods

I started using Seachem Salinity Salt and Seachem Reef Advantage Calcium, Seachem Reef Advantage Magnesium and Seachem Reef Builder as supplements. However, I found it difficult to maintain stable conditions using Seachem Salinity. After much research I changed to the Aquaforest Probiotic Method and have had great success using it. I think partly due to my knowledge and understanding of reef aquariums improving but also considerably by the products.

I currently use the following Aquaforest products Component 1+, 2+, 3+, Pro Bio S, -NP Pro, Fish V, AF Amino Mix, AF Build and AF Energy. I am also using an AquaMedic Reefdoser Evo 4 dosing pump.

Husbandry

The tank is now actually quite low maintenance. I use an Aqua Smart ATO to replace any evaporated water with RO water. The glass is cleaned every couple of days with a magnetic cleaner and water changes (6 or 8L) are performed weekly using Aquaforest Probiotic Reef Salt. The skimmer is cleaned weekly and the pumps are stripped and cleaned every 4-6 months.