| MAIN TANK | SMALL TANK | INHABITANTS | FRESHWATER PLANTED TANKS |
AN INTRODUCTION
Having lavished care and attention on building a reef tank, with the emphasis on corals, it used to annoy me when friends looked at it and said "what a nice fish tank", until I remembered that what first attracted me to the hobby was in fact the highly coloured fish.
The beginning of my obsession happened on a visit to my son before I had thought of keeping things in little glass boxes. One day he was wondering what to do with his elderly relative and asked whether I would like to visit his local fish shop. I forget the name of the shop, which has now closed, but when we got there I remember being absolutely amazed at the colourful fish. Just like many of my visitors today.
Within a month of that visit I had set up a four foot tropical tank, which later became my sump. I kept this for about a year before changing to marines and so began another journey of discovery. I became friendly with the owner of the local shop who invited me to his home to see his 500 gallon reef tank and of course I was hooked. Two weeks after I told him I was saving for a reef he told me he had just arranged a facility with a finance company for "interest free" loans so instead of having to save hard I found I could have what I wanted instantly and pay later!
That was in 1994. When I retired I brought that tank with me to my new home where, three years later, I stripped it down and rebuilt the reef to give a more open aspect. I also added a second, smaller tank, in my bedroom and now suffer the usual reefer's complaint that the house is no longer big enough.
With the borrowed money the first set-up was state of the art for it's day and included twin overflow towers filled with bio balls, a large Thiel trickle filter with carbon chamber and coil denitrator, a Red Sea ozoniser and two Arcadia 150 watt 6500 k metal halide lights. The two lights were still operating eight years later and the two Eheim 1060 return pumps are still in constant use after nine years!
Over the life of the tank there have been many changes in its inhabitants, the equipment, the method of filtration and of philosophical ideas culminating, I think, in the present arrangement which was aimed at a simplified system to keep me happy in my retirement.
THE BEST LAID PLANS----
In 2007 the energy supply company caught up with me and discovered that I was using much more energy than my neighbours and told me if I did not cut my usage my charges would increase substantially so I faced the thought of closing the reefs.
However I reckoned that by cutting out halide lighting and the many pumps involved in the reefs I could manage to keep freshwater planted tanks instead.
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