My whole life I have been raising freshwater fish, avoiding taking the plunge into salt water. Then one day when I was visiting my local fish store (lfs) I glanced to the salt water section and was taken aback. Everything just clicked and I knew that I could’t resist any longer. What changed my mind so suddenly wasn’t the fish, though I do not deny that saltwater fish are some of the most beautiful and interesting fish on the planet, it was the amazing corals that were growing right there in the store. So instead of taking one step up to a saltwater, I took two in attempts to house some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet.
Instead of buying a new tank, I decided to consolidate some of my larger cichlid tanks and convert a fresh to a salt water tank. With reef tanks the water parameters must be much more consistent than salt water tanks alone. While some corals can be pretty forgiving, others can be near impossible to grow let alone keep alive, and it has only been with some of the more recent advances in aquarium equipment that people have been able to grow some of these expert level corals. With that said, converting a freshwater tank to a saltwater I needed to make sure everything was perfect, else I might have an ammonia outbreak or an unwelcome algae bloom, both of which would take a lot of time and effort to reverse, let alone these disasters might claim the lives of some of my corals, which are no means cheap.
The tank is a 65 gallon, 36″ long, 25″ tall, and 18″ deep all glass aquarium. Many people recommend against reef tanks that are higher than 19″ due to the fact that most of the light gets diffused in the water and you need more wattage for the corals to get their light requirements. While this is all well and true, in my opinion I want to give the animals that I keep the most realistic environment as I can, and if this means spending a little more money on proper lighting then so be it. Though they can survive, the fish and organisms will be happier and more secure living in deeper water. spending there entire life in 19″ of water seems cruel, and though I wish I could provide for them the biggest environment possible, a tall tank seems a good compromise.
The lights are Corallife 96 watt bulbs, with half of them being 10,000k and the other half Actinic Blue. When I have all three of them on, the 288 watts of light beating down on the inhabitance make the tank practically glow. One day I hope to move to metal halide lighting systems, but as it happened I already had these lights in my fairly extensive collection of aquarium equipment so a couple new bulbs was all I needed to buy. I placed two 300 watt heaters in the tank, one on each side. This is overkill but it ensures that the inhabitance won’t get too cold if one would to all of a sudden fail, also it heats the tank evenly so there aren’t any hot or cold spots. Lastly I have a power head that operates at 750 gallons per hour. This provides plenty of water circulation, which is important for salt water animals as they rely on the tides and currents of the ocean to bring them nutrients. The last piece of equipment I have is a Fluval 404 which provides even more circulation, and further filtration, and it essentially acts as an unlit sump next to my aquarium. Instead of buying Bio Balls, which are porous materials from which beneficial bacteria live and grow from, I decided to use crushed coral in my sump to keep everything as natural as possible. It just so happened that I had a number of hard coral skeletons lying around, so it was a quick and effective solution to simply break them up with a hammer to use what I had readily available.
A picture of the tank in its beginning stages
So far I have seven corals doing very well in their new environment. I have two kinds of Mushroom Corals, two types of polyps, one of which is the Yellow polyp while the other is some unidentified one that was tank raised (the polyps are purple and teal in color while the skeleton is purple), two Purple Kenya Tree Corals, and a beautiful Green Goblet Coral. I also have a few heads of Candy Coral but this guy isn’t doing so well. I am hoping that I can resuscitate him yet so far he has been slowly dying. Despite my efforts of researching what could be wrong with him, and following known care tips on raising this type of coral, so far I have been unsuccessful. This just goes to show that even by following “the directions” there are still times when success can elude you.
The middle portion of my reef tank
The right side of the tank
The Goblet Coral is my favorite
Along with the corals, I have a few invertebrates as well. A Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp can be seen throughout the day chasing down copepods and the occasional feeding of Mysis Shrimp. This guy is probably my favorite; hes extremely friendly and non aggressive with the Corals and other inhabitants. He even comes right up to my hand to give me a “cleaning” as he would with fish in the wild. This species eats parasites off of fish and in the oceans many large predators value his services so highly that they allow them into there mouths without eating them.
The Scarlet Skunk chasing after Mysis shrimp
You can see tiny Copepods living along the glass. There are thousands of them in the tank.
Giving my hand a cleaning. I just love this little guy!
Another shrimp I have is the Coral Banded Shrimp, a much more macho variety, and known to be semi aggressive. I bought him knowing that he might chase around the cleaner shrimp because these guys are well known to love the taste of Bristle worms. While Bristle worms are not exactly the plague to corals as they once were known for, their numbers should be controlled as an outbreak might spell disaster if they become hungry enough. I just dont want to risk it.
The Coral Banded crawling along the back wall. These guys can get pretty territorial so its good to provide plenty of hiding places throughout the tank
Lastly I recently found a hitchhiker amidst my live rock, A Emerald Green Crab! These guys are generally bought to control Bubble Algae, but since I found him crawling around the other night I decided to give it a shot and try and keep him anyways. He must have been hiding in some live rock when I bought it, such a sneaky little bugger. These guys while being great at controlling algae, can be dangerous to corals if they are not fed enough. I will have to keep a close eye on him as the weeks go by, but hes a really beautiful little crab and I wouldn’t mind keeping him.
You can see the Crab hiding in the rock work. They are mostly nocturnal so its no wonder I didn't see him till now
So far I am very happy with this tank. aside from the Candy Coral everyone seems to be doing great. I plan on adding some fish, and much more corals, yet with these kind of systems, it is best to move slowly and add things piece by piece. Happy fish keeping!
