One of the biggest challenges in the world of aquaria is what is called "reefkeeping". While the majority of our planet is covered with saltwater, there is a percentage of a percentage of special areas where amazing creatures exist. These are coral reefs. A slightly-crazy breed of aquarium enthusists are dedicated to creating what are called "reef tanks", maintaining very delicate ecosystems and propogating corals and other rare marine life.

For the un-initiated, there are people that keep fish tanks, there are people who keep more challenging saltwater tanks, and THEN there are reef tanks. There is no more challenging area of aquaria.

This site is dedicated to my appreciation of this combination of science and art.

Update: Unfortunately I haven't had the time to update this page so I'm making this domain available for sale if anyone is "in the biz" and wants to make an offer on it, click here.

Hi and welcome to my Saltwater Reef Tank Page!

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I want to say first and foremost that I am a neophyte at Reefkeeping. To me, the key to being successful is never being fully-confident that what you're doing is "it", and my success is exclusively due to the MANY, MANY people who have come before me and have been so noble as to share their wisdom.

Current Status:
My tanks were in the New Orleans area. When hurricane katrina hit and the Army Corps of Engineers' levy system failed, the city was flooded and power was off for several months and citizens were barred from getting into the city for awhile. As a result, the tanks and the reef creatures didn't make it. : ( The tanks are all now retired and i've been looking into selling the equipment. It was a lot of fun but the loss after Katrina really makes me sad and not terribly motivated to recreate my reef setup. Thanks to everyone who wrote and enjoyed the pictures and information!

NEW PICTURES!

• fish: 03/29/02 - A fresh new batch of pictures, taken with Nikon Coolpix 990 and good quality; lots of growth and new stuff!
• fish: 12/01 - A tour of the US National Aquarium!
• fish: 11/11/01 - Tank views, new corals & stuff.
• fish: 08/27/01 - Perry Mysterious Wrasse Pseudocheilinus Sp., Sun Polyp and Candy Coral growth.
• fish: 08/15/01 - Gorgonian, Painted Fairy Wrasse, Galaxia SP
• fish: 06/19/01 - Taken with a friend's Nikon Coolpix 850 - good quality
• Fish: 05/12/01 Updates on fish aquarium and coral pictures
• fish: 04/22/01 More pictures of fish and corals and invertibrates

Tank Configurations:

• Main Tank:
  Equipment: 55g, 480w light setup (2-65w PC actinic, 2-175w Metal Halide), BakPak II, Millennium 2000, Jaubert/plenum "natural" substrate/filtration system with .75" plenum (capped UGF), 2" CC/aragonite, 1" (55#) Live Sand from Florida Keys, 50# live rock: mostly Fiji with a few aquacultured - all rock hand picked
  Maintenance: I am dripping Kalk into the tank at a rate of about 80-125 ml/hr. My Kalk is mixed in a 7g boat gas tank and lasts about 7-14 days. I am also adding some trace minerals, Magnesium, Strontium and Iodide via various supplements - none of which I'm sold on just yet. I'm using a medical enteral dosing pump I got off eBay to do the dripping and it works very well. As for feeding, I am constantly adding different things to the tank on a daily basis: frozen mysis shrimp, formula I/II, Emerald Entree, live brine shrimp, Tori (dried seaweed from japanese market) and standard marine flake food.
  Livestock: Fiji Fungia pink & green, nice colony of green star polyps, green striped button polyps, 3-4 varieties of unidentified corals growing on live rock
  Fish: Coral Beauty (Elvis), Percula clown (Moe, because he ignores the anemone), Pearly Jawfish (Casper)
  Inverts: TONS - I can't even begin to list or identify the life in the tank - very cool, but there are at least 3 brittle stars, 2 sea cucumbers, 20 scarlett reef hermit crabs, 10 burrowing snails, and an uncountable assortment of Mexican Turbo Snails, Astrea and other algae eaters

• Legacy Tank
  This is a 10g tank that's been running for approximately 2.5 years - it is very stable and I'm determined to run it until the end of time - further proving that UGF-based saltwater tanks are very viable. This is a basic 10g with an undergravel filter with 2" of crushed coral and a little bit of aragonite and live sand.
  Note The legacy tank is now on its way out. I have cannibalized the substrate in this tank to start a new "micro reef" 10g using a similar setup as my main 55g - to see if I can run a "closed system" using the Jaubert/plenum method with a 4-5" DSB. My new tank represents an attempt to "home brew" a good reef tank.
  Livestock: 2 Fiji rocks and various snails and hermits. I put the aggressive (non-scarlet) hermit crabs in this tank and let them duel for the shells. This very live tank was also seeded by a reef anthropod kit from Indo Pacific Sea Farm in Hawaii so it's teaming with all kinds of creepy-crawlies

• Q-Tank
  This is my Quarantine/new tank, which will be a general purpose tank where I may cure live rock (i.e. make sure no scum-sucking mantis shrimp invade my main tank). It's a 10g with a Millennium 2000 and a Skilter protein skimmer. Lots of current and filtration, some of which may be disabled depending upon what's in the tank.
  Fish & Livestock: The Q-tank is pretty loaded right now as I help cycle it: my 4 damsels are in this tank, along with a white burrowing starfish that I've found out will kill the life in the sand bed so he's been exiled to the Q-tank until I figure out what to do with him.

• NEW - Micro Reef Experiment (est 08-01-2001)
  This is a SPECIAL project - an attempt to create a solid, closed reef tank with a 10g and no special materials. You'll see what I mean... This new tank is built with a .75" plenum which consists of a plastic flourescent light fixture cover that has been cut down to fit in the bottom of the tank, then covered with fiberglass screening, then covered with 1" of CC from my legacy tank, mixed with aragonite, covered with a screen, and a small layer of aragonite upon which I lay down approximately 20 pounds of "live sand" that came from the LFS as that bio-active live arago-sand stuff... we'll see how it goes but the seabed should be "live". This 3-level substrate is similar to my 55g except that instead of a capped UGF, I'm using a plastic 1/2" checkered light fixture as a standoff for the 0-oxygen plenum. I'm hopeful I can get the Kreb cycle happening here.
  For lightning I'm using standard cheapie "growlight" fixtures I purchased from home depot for $16/ea - these are the self-adhesive 36watt grow lights, in addition to the standard 18w NO light that came with the 10g. I am also experimenting with a special full-spectrum array of white LEDs made by my friend Kevin at genlight.com - we are working on some low-voltage, high-output, low-maintenenace lighting systems that are quite promising and use a fraction of the electricity conventional lights use.

This chronicles my 55g saltwater tank project. I thought I might share my trials and tribulations. Hopefully you can learn as I do without the expense and problems - hehehe. At least I hope you find it entertaining.

At this point a lot has happened so I've broken the page down into parts, each outlining a major phase in getting the tank going:

• Fish World: Part I - Initial Setup
• Fish World: Part II - Converstion from UGF to Jaubert/Plenum/DSB system
• Fish World: Part III - Installation of state-of-the-art Metal Halide/PC lighting system
• Fish World: Part IV - Adding new stand and moving the tank; my first real coral
• Fish World: Part V - Building an auxillary tank stand, more coral pics

While Fishworld.com may not be the most appropriate domain, it's one I've had for awhile so I'm using in. If someone wants to make me an offer to purchase the domain, contact me or otherwise, enjoy the site!

(This Domain is for sale contact us to make an offer.)