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I decided to start keeping fish in 1989, I went to my local fish shop (having never kept fish before) and hey presto decided to set up a 4ftx18x18 reef system.
Being the fool I am, didn’t bother with books etc, just went in headfirst.
I moved house in 1992 taking my reef with me. I was having good results keeping soft corals, inverts and fish, unfortunately the tank split one night in 1995 killing everything. Because of the usual wife trouble (wet carpet etc), I decided not to carry on with the hobby.
I moved yet again in 1997 (into my present house in warrington). The house has a large conservatory with a purpose built Victorian plinth used for watering houseplants. Just the site for a new 6ftx3x3 reef aquarium. The tank was built with internal mini reef filters and up and running using externals and live rock.
1998 and the tank was full of hair algae and not looking too clever. I installed a small sump with phosphate remover, external skimmer etc, but by the end of 1998 the tank was still full of hair algae. My LFS was only interested in supplying and was reluctant to have a look at the tank, setup etc.
By this time I was seriously thinking of giving the whole hobby up. In 1999 and my wife notices an advert in the local newspaper.
AQUA WORLD opening soon.
The guy is a marine biologist (maybe, just maybe he can help).
Visited the shop and MR.A.Cain seems to know what he is talking about, his advert says that he is willing to visit tanks and give FREE advice.
I explain that my 6ft tank is suffering badly and asked if he will have a look. He seems reluctant; maybe it was the fact that the tank is in a conservatory or maybe just the fact that I was looking like a tramp in my work clothes. Never the less he came (and still says to this day that it was the worst thing he ever did).
1st thing we need is a sump at least half of the tanks capacity, but there’s nowhere to put it. “Never say nowhere was my reply!” I have cellars 100ft away; we can pipe to and from.
To cut a long story short, I installed a new sump (13ft x 3ft x 30) in my cellar, replaced the tank with a new 6ft Fit Filtration tank and all of the associated equipment. We were up and running.
I noticed rowaphos over the net and suggested that we try some. Excellent results (no stopping me now). The tank over the next year matured and started to look stunning. I advanced and was fascinated in hard corals and got immense satisfaction in breaking all marine rules. I had triggers, lionfish, eels etc all in my reef.
By the end of 2000, I had been thinking for some time about expanding my tank. I had a couple of problems, namely the lionfish and eel were now huge and needed removing. I felt as we all do, that if I was to change the tank then I needed to get the largest tank that I could afford. But were do we put it.
I decided to situate a new tank in an outhouse that was used for coal storage. My father being a master at building work, decorating etc, was the ideal person to turn to. I had been talking with Andrew for a good few months about various tank sizes, 8ft, and 10ft no 12ft long. He had been supplying me with various prices and seemed to be getting a little annoyed.
At the beginning of 2002, I had decided. I went to Aqua-World and started talking to Andrew.
He fell off his chair.
I ordered an L shaped tank.
10ft x 8ftx4ft wide, 4ft high, using existing sump etc, etc.
That was around 18mth ago. The tank is now looking good, even after all of the problems that it has been through.
Firstly, as the live rock matured, my calcium level dropped from 450 to 220. I was using 3 deltec calcium reactors (2 5000ltr capacity and a small rector with out gas addition), still no increase, so I started adding powdered calcium (5ltrs at a time), still no real increase. After 6 months my levels had slowly increased to 390, but whatever I did I just couldn’t raise it above the magic 400.
Then I decided to change the lighting above the tank, I was advised that 1000w/m2 was the ideal and I was running around 600w/m2. So off came the 5 6 tube t5 units and on went 5 400w 20000k radium lights.
I then experimented with 24hr feeding and the addition of phytoplankton (64ltrs a week).
After 6 months I got a really bad cyno outbreak and so stopped the phyto (thinking that it may be going off in the warm cellar) and the 24hr feeding as this could also be breaking down. The cyno eventually disappeared 6mths later.
Whilst in the middle of the outbreak, I was called to work in the early hours of the morning, on leaving the house I noticed that the tank room was lit, this was at 2.30am when the lights (that had been fitted by a qualified electrician), should have gone off at 11.30pm. Upon investigation, the lights had been wired directly into timers and not contactors (as I had asked). The result was the loss of numerous fish and corals as the radium halides had been on 24hrs for some 3-6 months.
I then started to frag sps corals and started acropora-house to sell them through. For a time I thought of stripping the tank down to go larger, but because of the additional time fragging etc, I decided against it.
The frags started to sell well and people started to ask about corals / fish etc etc. So I added a further 2 coral/frag tanks to allow me to supply corals (mainly sps/lps) but with a few soft corals as well. All being supplied via TMC.
Because of pressure from many different sources, I had to then look at importing my stock as I was being forced to buy a variety of corals that I didn’t want as well as the lps/sps I wanted. I now have 2 or 3 imports a week from all over the world.
The next stage was to add the isolation and fish tanks, these are now up and running, all fish being quarantined for 2 weeks before going into the fish tanks. This mainly was being because of the threat of disease to the whole system.
When this was all starting, I was asked to buy an schran jetstream 2 calcium reactors for a friend (capable of supplying calcium to a 10000ltr system). When it arrived, it was, to say the least small (around ½ the size of the deltec). My friend was not too impressed, so I sold him one of my deltec reactors and added the schran to my system. Bearing in mind that the schran only uses coral gravel and the fact that the calcium level had been at 390 for the last 6 mths. I tested the calcium after 24hrs and it was sat at 480.
Then the nightmare! 4 months ago I returned home from work and noticed that my sump was running high. I opened the drain valve to the sump, which is of course connected to the whole system. I then had some people come round to buy corals. After serving my customers, I had a call for my other job to a breakdown. Went to Birmingham and got back at 12.00 midnight. Went to bed and left early in the morning for work.
At 9.30am I got a call to say that the sump was empty, the sps tank was empty, the coral tanks were ½ full and my aquarium 2ft down. Rushed home and found that I had left the valve open all night. Pumps had run dry and were steaming with the heat. My wife had already moved all of the corals from the empty tanks and put them into my refuge. I had ro water mixed and so within 2hrs had the water downstairs salted & heated. The corals in my tank that were exposed had slimed up and the fish looked ok.
So, started the pumps downstairs and everything was fine. Started the 1st 2hp itt marlow and it tripped straight away. Started the second and everything looked fine. Went upstairs to the tank, to see that it was full of bubbles (being dragged in through the pump). Now it was Friday evening, tried most of the night to find the cause without any luck. Must be the pump. Saturday morning called every shop I could think of. By this time I was starting to loose fish due to the air in the system. Because of the size of the pump, I could not find one anywhere in the country. By 4.30pm, I found that valley aquatics had one and at 6.30pm I fitted it. Started the pump up, and guess what, still air bubbles in my reef tank!!!!!!!!!!!
To cut another long story short, by the time I had found that a cracked solvent weld was the problem, I had lost 90% of my fish. I really felt like shutting the tank down. Over he next few weeks, a few fish reappeared and I only lost 2 sps corals.
This is the hobby that we all love so much. Just as everything is looking stunning, something happens and you face a total wipeout. I am re-stocking my tank slowly with smaller fish and hope that things have settled down.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Mark (posted March 2006)
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