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A tabulate Acropora sp. in the authors aquarium.
This coral has grown and thrived in the system, despite its large size
Tank Size/Age:
My tank is a 120-gallon, Reefready. LR in the system is about 3.5
years old. I move once a year (unfortunately) and when I do I always use new sand. I nuked
my tank once moving the sand bed, and it took a solid year to recover from the nutrient
bomb released by moving the old sand bed.
Lighting:
(2) 175 watt MH. I use the German 10K's in
diamond horizontal pendants.
Filtration:
No
"formal" filtration. I took the cup off the skimmer and use it solely for
aeration. The tank had a little hair algae for a while, but a balance was reached and the
algae never came back.
Calcium/Alkalinity
Supplementation:
Kalkwasser dripped via a Kent Aqua Doser
Fish/Corals:
I got the majority of my corals from
making the local fish stores (LFS) rounds here in Houston. If you are persistent you come
across some nice stuff. I also traded a lot of frags with the local "Marshians."
James Wiseman contributed a lot of my plating corals. My fish were also found cruising the
reef stores or by having Aquatic Designs special order me fish. Keith the owner scored me
a perfect tusk that was only about 1.5-inches long. Perfect reef fish, but you may lose
your shrimp
Proud sponsor of this column
A foliose Montipora sp. This coral was obtained
as a 1" fragment from James Wiseman. James obtained the coral from Sanjay Joshi
Oldest fish/Coral:
My oldest fish (3.5-yrs) would be
"Sam" the yellow tang. He was my first fish. My oldest coral is a yellow leather
that is also 3.5-years old. When I got the leather it was the size of a baseball; now the
beast is the size of a soccer ball.
Feeding/Maintenance:
I feed flake (OSI spirulina flakes), alternating with
frozen (Formula 1, Formula 2, prime reef, angel formula and mysis shrimp). The only
maintenance that I do is to scrape the glass and replace evaporated water with make-up
water, which comes straight from the tap!!! No RO (reverse osmosis) for this tough tank!
No skimmer, water from the tap, and no water changes. I DO NOT recommend doing this. I
think I was very lucky for a long time.
Anything else you want
to add that you think makes your tank special:
I kept fish that were not supposed to be reef safe in my
tank. I think that my reef was kind of special in that aspect. Full-blown adult angels,
harlequin tusks, grouper, butterflies etc. I think I was very fortunate to not have all my
stony corals munched on, but every time I tried a suspect fish, it always worked out.
Well, except for the grouper. I also think that my tank’s coral focus (Montipora
plating species) is really cool. I have red, green, purple, and brown Montipora
morphs. Big colored Montipora plates growing from the rock look really nice.
A beautiful photo of the Favia's sweeper tentacles
