reef

We started this tank about 3 years ago after having a 55 for several years. It was moved (what a job) to it's current location about a year and a half ago. The 55 was preceded by a 30 and that by a ten!
At this time the tank is going through some changes. About 6 months ago I had a crash and lost several corals. I am not sure exactly what caused this, but I think it could have been light related. I had switched from 10,000k MH bulbs to 12,000k bulbs because I had heard good things about these bulbs. Don't believe everything you hear...the tank just never seemed to be the same after that. Corals didn't seem to expand quite as much, polyps didn't seem to extend like before, and I started seeing more algae. I had a bubble algae outbreak along with lots of aiptasia?!? I added some Mithrax Crabs and Peppermint Shrimp and boy did these guys do the job. Then I had a diatom outbreak that I believe was caused by silica in the RO makeup water purchased at my LFS. We have ordered our own RO system so this problem should be a thing of the past. All these things are probably related, so you can see how one mistake (the bulb switch) can cause a domino effect. Be careful about who you take advise from, not everyone's an expert!!
But I can't blame all these problems on light and makeup water alone...less than diligent (read lazy) maintance practices certainly contributed to this situation. I have made a commitment to regaining control of our tank. I also added some maintainance animals and things are looking up!.
Click here for tank specs
Click here for fish pics
Click here for coral pics
Click here for hardware pics
Please be patient with these pages, lot's of pictures!

All tank pictures shot with an Olympus D-490 Zoom Digital Camera.
I Love this toy!