Marine Aquarium Society of Toronto

Mark Howarth

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HISTORY

I decided to start keeping fish in 1989, I went to my local fish shop (having never kept fish before ) and hey presto decided to set up a 4'x18"18" reef system.

Being the fool I am, I didn't bother with books etc, I just went in head first.

I moved house in 1992 taking my reef with me. I was having good results keeping soft corals, inverts and fish, unfortunately the tank split one night in 1995 killing everything.

Because of the usual wife trouble ( wet carpet, etc... ), I decided not to carry on with the hobby.

I moved yet again in 1997 (into my present house in Warrington).

The house has a large conservatory with a purpose built Victorian plinth used for watering houseplants.

Just the site for a new 6'x3'x3' reef aquarium. The tank was built with internal mini reef filters and up and running using externals and live rock.
1998 and the tank was full of hair algae and not looking to clever. I installed a small sump with phosphate remover, external skimmer etc, but by the end of 1998 the tank was still full of hair algae. My LFS was only interested in supplying and was reluctant to have a look at the tank, setup etc.
By this time I was seriously thinking of giving the whole hobby up.
By now we are in 1999 and my wife notices an advert in the local newspaper.

AQUA WORLD opening soon. The guy is a marine biologist ( maybe just maybe he can help ).

Visited the shop and MR.A.Cain seems to know what he is talking about, his advert says that he is willing to visit tanks and give FREE advice.

I explain that my 6ft tank is suffering badly and asked if he will have a look. He seems reluctant, maybe it was the fact that the tank was in a conservatory or maybe just the fact that I was looking like a tramp in my work clothes.

Never the less he came ( and still says to this day that it was the worst thing he ever did ).

1st thing we need is a sump at least half of the tanks capacity, but there was nowhere to put it. Never say nowhere was my answer. I have cellars 100ft away, we can pipe to and from.

To cut a long story short, I installed a new sump ( 13'x3'x30" ) in my cellar, replaced the tank with a new 6ft Fit Filtration tank and all of the associated equipment. Then we were off and running.

Noticed rowaphos over the net and suggested that we try some. Excellent results (no stopping me now). The tank over the next year matured and started to look stunning.

I advanced and was fascinated in hard corals and got immense satisfaction in breaking all marine rules. I had triggers, lionfish, eels etc all in my reef.

By the end of 2000, I had been thinking for some time about expanding my tank. I had a couple of problems, namely the lion fish and eel were now huge and needed removing.

I felt as we all do, that if I was to change the tank then I needed to get the largest tank that I could afford. But where do we put it?

I decided to situate a new tank in an outhouse that was used for coal storage. My father being a master at building work, decorating etc, was the ideal person to turn to.

I had been talking with Andrew for a good few months about various tank sizes, 8ft, 10ft no 12ft long. He had been supplying me with various prices and seemed to be getting a little annoyed.

At the beginning of 2002, I had decided. I went to Aqua-World and started talking to Andrew. He fell of his chair.

I ordered an L shaped tank.

10'x8', 4' wide, 4' high , using existing sump etc , etc.

That was around 18mth ago. The tank is now looking good, even after all of the problems that it has been through.

Firstly, as the live rock matured, my calcium level dropped from 450 to 220. I was using 3 deltec calcium reactors (2 * 5000ltr capacity and a small rector with out gas addition ) , still no increase , so I started adding powdered calcium ( 5ltrs at a time ) , still no real increase. After 6 months my levels had slowly increased to 390 , but whatever I did I just couldn't raise it above the magic 400.

Then I decided to change the lighting above the tank , I was advised that 1000w/m2 was the ideal and I was running around 600w/m2. So off came the 5 * 6 tube t5 units and on went 5 * 400w 20000k radium lights.

I then experimented with 24hr feeding and the addition of phytoplankton (64ltrs a week). After 6 months I got a really bad cyno outbreak and so stopped the phyto (thinking that it may be going off in the warm cellar) and the 24hr feeding as this could also be breaking down. The cyno eventually disappeared 6mths later.

Whilst in the middle of the outbreak , I was called to work in the early hours of the morning, on leaving the house I noticed that the tank room was lit, this was at 2.30am when the lights (that had been fitted by a qualified electrician), should have gone off at 11.30pm. Upon investigation, the lights had been wired directly into timers and not contactors (as I had asked). The result was the loss of numerous fish and corals as the radium halides had been on 24hrs for some 3-6 months.

I then started to frag sps corals and started acropora-house to sell them through. For a time I thought of stripping the tank down to go larger, but because of the additional time fragging etc, I decided against it.

The frags started to sell well and people started to ask about corals / fish etc etc. So I added a further 2 coral/frag tanks to allow me to supply corals (mainly sps/lps) but with a few soft corals as well.All being supplied via TMC.

Because of pressure from many different sources, I had to then look at importing my stock as I was being forced to buy a variety of corals that I didn't want as well as the lps/sps I wanted. I now have 2 or 3 imports a week from all over the world.

The next stage was to add the isolation and fish tanks, these are now up and running, all fish being quarantined for 2 weeks before going into the fish tanks. This mainly being because of the threat of disease to the whole system.

When this was all starting, I was asked to buy a Schuran Jetstream 2 calcium reactor for a friend ( capable of supplying calcium to a 10000ltr system ). When it arrived, it was, to say the least small ( around the size of the deltec ). My friend was not too impressed, so I sold him one of my deltec reactors and added the Schuran to my system. Bearing in mind that the Schuran only uses coral gravel and the fact that the calcium level had been at 390 for the last 6 mths. I tested the calcium after 24hrs and it was sat at 480.

The tank at present is looking really well, for how long, god only knows. It seems to me that just when you think you have it sorted, something crops up and brings you back down to earth.

Mark

THE WORKS

DISPLAY TANK

10'x8'x4'x4'.

LIGHTING

Above the tank I have 12 * 400watt lowbay halide lights , (7 * white , 5 * blue ). These are controlled via an aqua medic light computer.

The lighting regime is as follows :

07:00 - 08:00 all 400watt actinics on.
07:30 moonlight off.
09:00 - 10:00 all 400watt whites on.
18:00 - 19:00 all 400watt whites off.
22:30 moonlight on.
22:30 - 23:30 all 400watt actinics off.

FILTRATION

In the tank there are 9 * Tunze 12000ltr Streams and 4 * 20000ltr Streams, these are controlled via the Tunze controller and are on 100% / 50% pulse 24 hours a day.

The tank has a total of 1400kg live rock that is the primary biological filtration.

The temperature of the display tank is controlled via a J & E Hall air conditioning unit cable of heating and cooling. There is also a de-humidifier working constantly.

An Iks computer also monitors ph, orp , salinity and temperature.

THE SUMP

The sump tank is 13' long, 3' wide and 30" high.

There is also a mixing tank of 160 gallons used for water change ( 160 gallons per week ).

I have a Deltec commercial ro unit controlled via float .

Connected to the sump is the following :

1 * Deltec AP1006 skimmer with self cleaning head. Suction from the front of the sump and returning to the rear. To be replaced in the future by a Deltec AP2006 or an additional 1006.

1 * 400mg ozonisers each with built in redox probe, only used for a couple of hours after water changes.

1 * Aqua-Medic Kalk-Stirrer connected to Aqua-Medic PH computer and probe with peristaltic pump.

1 * Schuran 2 Jetstream calcium reactor connected connected to co2 via a bubble counter and 1 * Deltec PF500 without co2.

1 * fluidised Rowaphos reactor , installed october 2002, running at approximatly 200ltrs/hr. early days yet, but seems to be running well.

Titanium plate heat exchanger to heat water when appropriate.

Titanium plate heat exchanger to cool water when approprate

1 * Infamous magnet ( Eco-aqualiser ) rated for 5000 gallons

the 2 3" returns from the main tank are situated above a prefilter.

2 ITT Marlow pumps , 1hp and 1.5hp deliver water via 2 1.5inch feeds to the main tank.

All pipework was placed underground from the celler to the main display tank.

DOSING

I use 2 Iks Peristaltic 3 channel pumps on timers to deliver measured amounts of the following.

HW Strontium
HW Essential elements.
HW Vitamins.

FRAG TANK

300 gallon frag tank approx 2.54mtrs long 1.52 mtrs wide.

fed from the sump via ITT Marlow 1.5hp
returned via 6 1.5inch returns into sump.

lighting via 6 * 250watt halides and 12 * actincs using 3 * Aqua-Medic light computers.

6 * 1200 power heads for circulation.

NEW FRAG TANKS

2 * 8ft*4ft*1ft coral tanks.

fed from sump with ITT Marlow 1.5hp pump
returned via 6 1.5inch returns to sump

lighting via 1 * Deltec twin 250 halide , 2 * twin 150 halide units with actinic 3 * 4ft 6 tube D&D t5 pendants. The addition of 2 more Deltec twin 250 halides within 10 days.

18 * 1200 power heads (9 per tank) for circulation

ISOLATION TANKS

1 * 4ft*2ft*1ft isolation tank and sump.

1 * Deltec Protein Skimmer
1 * heater
1 * 6500 return pump

This tank is solely used to isolate direct fish imports, the fish are treated with a TMC all in one medicine for 1 week and then are added to the main fish tanks.

FISH TANKS

4 * 4ft*2ft*2ft Fit Filtraction fish tanks
4 * twin Deltec t 5 units

All tanks fed to the system as a whole.