Talk given to Burlington Fish Club in 2000
I am a relative novice in the hobby: been doing it for about 16 months.
I Started in October of 1998 with a 75 gallon reef tank
Added a 44 gallon carnivore tank 6 months later
Upgraded to 180 gallon reef tank in the Fall of 1999.
Went straight to salt/reef; never did fresh. My successes are
due to Gerry Hine (Green Mountain Aquarium).
180 gallon Reef Tank:
- dual overflows
- 20 gallon water change each
week (over 10%)
- vacuum sand once per month
- salinity, pH, trace element control
- add ¼ tsp. of reef buffer, buffer, and Aragamite
in 1 gal makeup
water daily
- add iodine 4 timer per week
- lighting:
- dual fluorescent lights 12 hours/day
- dual 175 watt metal halide
lights 8 hours/day
- ceiling light for 30 minute "dawn" and
"sunset"
- night light for "moon" all night long
- controlled by X10 controller
- pumps/filters:
- main (filter, protein skimmer) pump (800 gal/hour)
- venturi protein skimmer
- filter sponges in each overflow; 3 => 1 =>
0 filter pad in sump
- power head for in-tank circulation
- controlled by X10 controller
- thermal control
- metal halide lights add heat every day
- in tank heater in case of emergency cooling in
winter
- manual addition of frozen 2 liter bottles of
water in summer as needed
- feeding:
- main pump turned off for 30 minutes/day during
feeding time (8:00 AM)
- fresh hatched (48 hour) brine shrimp 3 days per
week
- flake food 4 days/week
- frozen food tablet once per week
- turkey baste rocks 2-3 times/week (when I
remember)
- 10 gallon hospital tank
- used to house nudibranchs
- left alone for a month, lots
of critters just appeared
Digital camera
- Enables you to:
- Review of history of specimens (size, condition)
- Detect onset of disease after you
first notice it
- Measure expansion/contraction/motion of specimens
- Send pictures over the web for species
identification
- You can take good photos with a lot less light
than with even a good film camera.
- Important camera features:
- Macro/closeup for details
you don’t normally see
- Ability to attach filters/closeup lenses
- Large (14x) zoom range for perfect composition:
no cropping required
- Color balance: fluorescent vs metal halide vs
indoor vs outdoor
- Spot metering:
precise exposure control
- Manual focusing: when images exist both near and
far
- Nice features
- Image stabilizer for use with extreme zoom
- Manual exposure controls
- Multiple image displays
- Viewfinder: easy to compose picture,
essential for use out of doors
- LCD screen: reviewing images and showing
things to other people
- Diskette transfer/storage medium: convenient and
inexpensive
- Automatic focusing
- Unimportant features
- Flash: can’t use it because of the glass
- Video/audio: poor quality, and reef tank
specimens move too slowly
- Specimens
- current vertebrates
- current invertebrates
- anemones
- corals
- crustaceans
- misc
- notable successes :
- bubble coral
- colt coral (propagated, nutrient scrubber)
- kenya coral (propagated)
- flower pot coral (supposed to be
difficult)
- fish traps
- notable failures:
- elegance corals
(supposed to be easy)
- xenia
- sun corals: too
little to eat?
- sea pen (but
lovely): too little to eat?
- pseudochromis (too aggressive)
- large boxer/coral
banded shrimp (ate smaller shrimps?)
- medium tobacco
basselet (aggressive towards fire
fish)
- more than one algae blenny
- more than one sally light foot crab
- bicolored blenny
(sea mat anemone)
- octopus (too shy)
- carnivores in general (too much food
biomass)
- hairy green algae epidemic
- too many fish in 75 gallon tank (yellow
tang, tobacco basselet, sleeper
goby)?
- accidental dumping of plankton?
Protein skimmer?
- no vacuuming of substrate for
months?
- changed to actinic fluorescents: burned
fox, anchor, hammer
- favorites no longer with me
