Aquarius Marinus

I figured I'd create a short blog about my past tanks. Unfortunately, I can't find most of my pictures. If I come across them soon I will add more, but for now this is all I have.

I started my first saltwater tank in college. It was a 55g with a 40g sump. The sump had a Vertex IN-100 skimmer, a small section with a DSB and cheato. I had a Mag 9.5 return with a SCWD. The display tank had a Koralia 2 and two Koralia 4s. My lighting was a 6 bulb Current Nova Extreme pro T5 fixture. This tank ran for about two years. I started it with live rock, and the pictures are a few months after I set it up. The few stalks of Xenia grew to cover about TWO SQUARE FEET of the tank. It looked very cool, but I don't think I would put Xenia in a display tank again.

I had two anemones, The orange and green one I got for "free" with a live rock because the store thought it was dying, but I managed to bring it back around and within the next two years it quadrupled in size and looked beautiful. Unfortunately I don't think I have another picture of this anemone, but I hope to find one with similar coloration again.

Once I moved from VA to OH in 2010, I started a 180 gallon tank (which I only have one picture of) with a 100g Rubbermaid sump directly below it in the basement. My 180 tank ran for a year until we moved. During the process of moving I set up my old 55g tank in the garage to put my livestock in while I was setting up the 180 in the new house, but the heater that I used got stuck on, and when I woke up the next morning the water was 98 degrees and everything was dead or dying. I wrote a little more about this in a previous blog post http://www.reefaddicts.com/entry.php...-Reef-Addicts! , but basically I decided to stay out of the hobby until we bought our own house that we knew we would be staying in for years to come (we had been renting and moving on a yearly basis).

The first 8 pictures are in my 55g, and the last one is the only picture I seem to have of my 180g. I know I have more pictures of the equipment in the basement, but I can't find those right now either. One of my favorite pictures is my male maroon clown trying to fit in the small anemone.



For my 180 I took large PVC pipes and cut an angled section out of them length-wise to make a VHO bulb holder. I painted them black and you can see them sitting on the top of the tank. These worked very well, and I thought they looked great. The stand for the 180 came with the tank from the previous owner, I planned on making nicer siding for the stand but never got around to it. I ended up selling the 180g to my cousin a few months ago when we moved (it had been sitting in the garage empty since 2011).

On my 180 I ran 3 Lumenbrite reflectors with 250w Radium bulbs and M80 ballasts, and two VHOs, a 454 and Super Actinic on an IceCap 660. The tank had an MP40wES on each end, and I had an SRO-3000int in the Rubbermaid stock tank in the basement, with two 500w heaters and a Blueline 70HD return pump. I used my 55g tank in the basement as a refugium with Cheatomorphia. I had an Apex full version with WXM that I sold to my cousin with my 180.

And I just bought an Apex Lite for the 60 cube!