Wednesday 1 March 2017

My Marine aquarium

Its long past time I do an update on my marine aquarium. Not the best photo but I have some nicer individual shots of some of the fish later. I would describe the Aquarium as a bit of a mirror for the rest of the my life. A bit of a mess but so much going on. The corals, macro algaes and fish are all healthy and thriving mostly. There is a bit of unsightly algae around, but the urchin needs something to eat so I leave alone and he periodically Mows down all the extra algae.


First some background. The aquarium has just gone past its first birthday. The tank is a Kent marine bio reef 94l. I removed all media from filter area, except the odd bag of phosphate absorber when I remember. I replaced the Kent nano skimmer with a cheap Boyu WG308 skimmer because it fit in the compartment, was a bit bigger skimmer, and is far less fiddly than the Kent skimmer. Also in the back compartments is a heater, the return pump that came with the set up and another small pump that pumps up into my refugium. So the only filtration my marine aquarium has is the skimmer, refugium and about 20kg of live rock in the front aquarium.

My refugium is a converted Fluval spec 19l. The Fluval spec has a boxed in end which house sponges and a return pump. This makes it ideal to use as it already has a weir and syphon box. first once again I got rid of all the media, then block a small whole which stopped the filter draining if the media was blocked. I placed the spec aquarium on a surface higher than the main aquarium but so that its bottom half was lower than the main aquarium water level.I then added multiple fail-safe syphon tubes to keep the water level in the specs syphon box the same as the level in the main aquarium. I have drawn a quick diagram to show how this works. (its been a while since I showed off my mspaint skills!)
The other thing I changed from the original spec is I added a much larger Led light. There is a few good points about this system that should be highlighted. First if the power goes off or if I turn it off for maintenance. The refugium does not drain into the main aquarium. As soon as its feeder pump goes off it stops overflowing its weir and only the water in its syphon box can flow into the main aquarium and only if the main aquarium has a lower level than the box. the second advantage to this system is copepods and other plankton can travel from the refugium to the main aquarium without passing through a pump or filter. this hopefully Supplies Eric, My green spotted Mandarin plenty of food.

The refugium currently houses all the frags I cut of my colt coral. It also has several macro algaes growing around in there. Mostly caulerpa racemosa but also taxifolia. It is difficult to get a good photo as the coral frags are in the way but here is some quick photos.

Ok so onto the residents in the main Aquarium. They have been pretty much the same fish since I started, I think the last addition was in about April last year. Some of the fish are getting a bit large, but as they seem happy/healthy and as it would involve taking apart all the rock-work to get at them, I have left them alone.

First we have my pair of clowns. They are Black saddleback clown fish. Both are black and white, the female is larger and pretty much the boss of the aquarium. The male is smaller with a yellow face and yellow on his pectoral fins. when I tried to keep an anemone in the aquarium the clowns were far too rough with it. I may try a larger one again another time to see if they have calmed down.


Next up I have two Lemon damselfish (Peal and Tart), The larger of which I would like to remove. but haven't found an easy way yet. These are pretty calm fish as damsels go, although Tart is getting a bit belligerent Now shes getting quite big.


Next Is my Blue Sapphire damselfish Chrysiptera springeri. This can go from almost black one minute to bright blue the next depending on its mood. it has been very calm so far perhaps because it is scared of the larger lemon damsel.

Next is another fish that has a reputation for being trouble is my Orchid dottyback. I got this fish because a customer returned it to the shop. luckily all the residents in my aquarium can handle themselves so it doesn't seem to have been a problem. a striking active fish that likes to hide in small wholes between the rocks.


There was a few residents I didn't get a photo of this time round. Eric my spotted mandarin is doing well and is always hunting round the tank, just didn't manage to get a good photo. Then there is the fire shrimp I only see at feeding time. There is also two peppermint shrimps that I had not seen for about 6 months, til recently when I was watching the tank at night with just blue light on, they poped out to say hello.

On the coral front The colt coral has recovered from it hack back. and is starting to branch out once again from its stump. the zooanthids and green star polyps continue to spread themselves around and battle it out for space. I added a small rather damaged stump of a toad-stall that was looking sorry for itself in the shop and it has recovered well. you can see it behind the dottyback in the photo above.
Colt coral 

The Short spine urchin was hiding somewhere when I was taking photos but is still around helping keep algae in check.

That's all for now. Overall the aquarium does very well with little or no maintenance from me. I just feed it and change some water once in a while. I will do some further photo updates when I can get a picture of my mandarin as hes a fish worth his own update.

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