I fed the fish once a day, using a different food each day, including marine flake, spirulina flake, frozen brine shrimp, and as a treat, some live adult brine shrimp once a week.

For my first reef tank, I chose a 55 gallon Plexiglas tank with a wet-dry trickle filter, a canister filter, and a protein skimmer. I decided not to use any substrate, since I would be loading up this tank with live rock and did not want to have to worry about inaccessible areas where the sand would not be able to be cleaned.

All together, I spent a little over $400 for this set-up. If I had to buy the tank, it would have added about another $75. If you were to buy everything “new”, you could very easily top $1000 for this same set-up. I have found it pays to check the classified ads and local bulletin boards for used tanks and accessories. If you have the patience, you can obtain everything you need at a very reasonable price.

During the first year of this tank, the main disadvantage I found was the Plexiglas front was hard to clean the algae off without leaving fine scratches, despite using the so-called “safe for Plexiglas” algae pads. Because of the partially closed in top of the tank, it was difficult to get into the tank during maintenance. The one thing I liked about using a Plexiglas tank was how bright and crystal clear the tank looked when compared to all-glass tanks. Despite that one advantage, this would be the first and last saltwater Plexiglas tank set-up that I would use.

For lighting, I built a canopy to house two 36 inch Corallife 50/50 tubes with reflectors. Plans were to expand the lighting at a later time, since lighting is one of the most expensive accessories for a reef tank, and I was trying to keep costs to a minimum.

The canister filter, which had three separate containers for filter media, was loaded with a sponge, activated carbon, and bio-balls for biological filtration. The wet-dry trickle filter was loaded with bio-balls and a sponge filter. I hooked up the canister filter and wet-dry trickle filter to the tank and the protein skimmer to the sump of the trickle filter. Then I mixed the saltwater up and filled the tank. Now I was ready to turn the pumps on and hope there would be no leaks. Of course, there was a small leak where the tubing meets the return from the canister filter. A little tweaking on the connection and the slow leak stopped. I later found a rubber ring used on the Marineland Magnum filters worked well on these connections and could be purchased in a 6-pack at That Fish Place. This set-up was allowed to run for about a week.

Livestock also have natural processes as has all life. All of these processes continue in an aquarium and have to be dealt with. Failure to supply the means to deal with these processes equals a deteriorating environment and disease and/or death for the livestock.

Believe it or not, I accomplished the move with no casualties by the wee-hours of the morning of the fourth day. Setting up from existing systems does make for a faster transition to a mature tank. I detailed this out in my “Moving a Reef Tank-” article in the Oct/Nov issue of the Gravel Gossip. I can email a copy by request.

Tags: Fish

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