Eddy
03-07-2007, 12:50 PM
Hi I'm Eddy
I'm coming back to reef keeping after losing my reef tank in '99. I started keeping marines back in the mid 70's, it was fish only in them days with the odd anemone for sale (although i do remember Pets and Gardens in Gypsyville having an 18 inch turtle and a blue ring!!!!! octopus for sale once). Anyway, in the early eighties after reading about trickle filters in FAMA and then meeting Albert Thiel (at a WYMAG meeting) i decided that i would give it a go with a reef tank. Trickle filters were not avaiable in the UK at the time and cost 500+ dollars in the US, so three of us set off and built trickle filters (one of the 3 was Acro Pete Luter). Initially they seemed to be a vast improvement over undergravel systems but after a year or so, the old nitrate problems reared their ugly heads and it was back to normal. Hobbyists in those days did not know about such technical things as Phosphates. I didn't lose to many corals because in those days only relatively hardy xenia and other soft corals were available. In the mid eighties after reading Seascope and the great success in keeping previously impossible to keep hard corals at the Monaco Aquarium, by Dr. Jaubert, using a plenum system Acro Pete and i decided we would give it a go and set up plenum systems. I set up a 3 x 2 x 2 with the plenum in the tank whereas super daring Acro Pete set up a 4 x 2 x 2 and we were even more at the cutting edge because we also corporated the latest new fangled device what we all now call a sump (Pete's plenum was in the sump). We also built our own Metal Halide lights (250 watt 6500k Osram powerstars). I'll never forget the number of so called experts in shops that told everything would die if we didn't use Growlux tubes. We also incorporated big skimmers by building our own venturi's but then Pete went to Florida for a holidayand came back with (amongst other things fom a vast list) 2 proper matzzei venturi's. These were fantastic. The plenum systems really did sort out the nitrate and to some degree the phosphate problems and my tank went on to run succesfully for 10 years without to many problems. Acro Petes tank is still running, very successfully, today after more than 20 years. Some of his hard corals are now in excess of 15 years old. If you meet Pete ask him when he last did a water change ar added anything other than calcium to his tank i guarantee his answer will leave you gobsmacked. Anyway, in 1999 my tank had to be stripped down (it was in the living room) for a major redecoration. My wife never liked my tank from day 1, so bought some new furniture that meant that the tank no longer fitted and since then i have been without a tank.
I have always kept an interest and in the last year or so i read about Nano tanks and decide to take up the challenge of keeping SPS's in a 90 litre Aqua One 620 tank which i bought off E.Bay. I got it dirt cheap because it didn't have the lid (which i would of thrown away anyway, to allow for my metal halide/actinic combination). I then set about incorporating a filtration system into the tank. Using blue acrylic i have built a partition in the back to incorporate a Tunze nano skimmer (anybody got a cheap second hand one for sale) and a refugium, so thay are hidden from view. I have also put in a one and a half inch sand bed in the tank but i'm having second thoughts about this now. I have just got a couple of kilos of LR in the tank at the moment but the intention is to have maily SPS's with a pair of Royal Grammas.
Anyway, enough of my ranting and I look forward to meeting some of you at the next meeting at Marine Tech.
Eddy.
I'm coming back to reef keeping after losing my reef tank in '99. I started keeping marines back in the mid 70's, it was fish only in them days with the odd anemone for sale (although i do remember Pets and Gardens in Gypsyville having an 18 inch turtle and a blue ring!!!!! octopus for sale once). Anyway, in the early eighties after reading about trickle filters in FAMA and then meeting Albert Thiel (at a WYMAG meeting) i decided that i would give it a go with a reef tank. Trickle filters were not avaiable in the UK at the time and cost 500+ dollars in the US, so three of us set off and built trickle filters (one of the 3 was Acro Pete Luter). Initially they seemed to be a vast improvement over undergravel systems but after a year or so, the old nitrate problems reared their ugly heads and it was back to normal. Hobbyists in those days did not know about such technical things as Phosphates. I didn't lose to many corals because in those days only relatively hardy xenia and other soft corals were available. In the mid eighties after reading Seascope and the great success in keeping previously impossible to keep hard corals at the Monaco Aquarium, by Dr. Jaubert, using a plenum system Acro Pete and i decided we would give it a go and set up plenum systems. I set up a 3 x 2 x 2 with the plenum in the tank whereas super daring Acro Pete set up a 4 x 2 x 2 and we were even more at the cutting edge because we also corporated the latest new fangled device what we all now call a sump (Pete's plenum was in the sump). We also built our own Metal Halide lights (250 watt 6500k Osram powerstars). I'll never forget the number of so called experts in shops that told everything would die if we didn't use Growlux tubes. We also incorporated big skimmers by building our own venturi's but then Pete went to Florida for a holidayand came back with (amongst other things fom a vast list) 2 proper matzzei venturi's. These were fantastic. The plenum systems really did sort out the nitrate and to some degree the phosphate problems and my tank went on to run succesfully for 10 years without to many problems. Acro Petes tank is still running, very successfully, today after more than 20 years. Some of his hard corals are now in excess of 15 years old. If you meet Pete ask him when he last did a water change ar added anything other than calcium to his tank i guarantee his answer will leave you gobsmacked. Anyway, in 1999 my tank had to be stripped down (it was in the living room) for a major redecoration. My wife never liked my tank from day 1, so bought some new furniture that meant that the tank no longer fitted and since then i have been without a tank.
I have always kept an interest and in the last year or so i read about Nano tanks and decide to take up the challenge of keeping SPS's in a 90 litre Aqua One 620 tank which i bought off E.Bay. I got it dirt cheap because it didn't have the lid (which i would of thrown away anyway, to allow for my metal halide/actinic combination). I then set about incorporating a filtration system into the tank. Using blue acrylic i have built a partition in the back to incorporate a Tunze nano skimmer (anybody got a cheap second hand one for sale) and a refugium, so thay are hidden from view. I have also put in a one and a half inch sand bed in the tank but i'm having second thoughts about this now. I have just got a couple of kilos of LR in the tank at the moment but the intention is to have maily SPS's with a pair of Royal Grammas.
Anyway, enough of my ranting and I look forward to meeting some of you at the next meeting at Marine Tech.
Eddy.