d'Espresso Islands of Paradise

d'Espresso · **Posted:** Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:44 am

Islands of Paradise

Greeting Everyone!

First of all i would like to thank Mike for inviting me over to the Reef Hub. My name is David from Hattiesburg, MS. had just resided to beautiful Orlando, FL with lots of attractions and many amazing fish stores. It is very simple! keeping a very clean, modern looking, and up-to-dates automated system is what i am all about. This can be seen clearly in my previous tank setup on a different website or my facebook. Likewise, I planned on keeping the same philosophy with this tank.

October 2012

The Technical Specifications
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The 40 gallon (Breeder) reef is running with the following devices:

Aquarium Display:

Stand:

Lighting:

Bulbs choices:

LED Spotlight:

Main Controller

Filtration:

Circulation:

Power Backup:

Skimmer:

Overflow:

Dosing Pump:

Top Off:

Reservior:

Heater:

Others:

Water Parameters and Circulations
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Water circulation is very important issue that is inside the aquarium when having mixed reef and keeping the sand bed clean. I am using two Vortech MP10w’s, mostly running on the reef crest mode because I like the different flow that the pumps are pushing out throughout of the day and night. To keep the tank clean, I use a Mag-float everyday on the glass, along with a toothbrush to get the hard to reach corners, and a Kent Pro-scraper once a week on all reachable interior surfaces and bottom sand bed. Calcium and alkalinity levels are maintained almost daily with a 2-part additive. Magnesium is added when needed.

Maintenance Routine
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Daily feed fish 1 or 2 times per day using Spectrum flakes and pellets + frozen Mysis
Twice weekly I feed Oyster Feast, PhytoFeast, and Trace Element.
The night before a water change I would make a batch of frozen Mysis, trace elements, brine shrimps, and cyclopeeze. I then turn off all my pumps to stop the flow from pushing the food away and I would carefully feed each individual to the RBTA, acans, and scolys.
I am very religious in performing routine water changes. I think a 10% water change every 2 weeks has been critical to the success of my tank.
Fill the automatic top off reservoir with distilled water, and change my filter sock each month.
Purigen and Chemipure Elite are utilized for water polishing and removing chemicals including those released by the corals. New Purigen and Chemipure Elite are exchanged at least once a month.
Biweekly I clean the skimmer, pumps, and overflow. As needed I scrape the overflow clean off coralline builds up. I also remove the Vortech wetsides and return nozzles and soak them in vinegar to kill the coralline every 2 months.
Other tasks include stirring up the shallow sand bed with an acrylic rod, basting the live rock, cutting back macro algae, cleaning the glass corner with a toothbrush, cleaning and inspecting powerheads and filters.
Visually inspect the corals daily and make adjustments for maximum growth and color if necessary.

Inhabitants
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My tank is filled with about 13 fish. I like to keep many of the same species so that they will swim in a group, such as my Apogons. My tank includes:

Aquascape
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Besides the contents inside the aquarium, this tank is designed for minimalistic with a very diverse group of corals, inverts, and fish. I am always moving my scape and pruning my corals to make them happy. Aquascape has a direct influence on water circulation and should be tested when first setting up the aquarium. The rock is consist of about 25.lbs of Florida macro rocks carefully placement them together by the uses of zip-ties, gel glue, rods, and reef safe putty. I got inspired from the bonsai tree element. It gives the viewer an impression of unique style with an overhang while providing lots of space for placing SPS, LPS, and Softies corals. It also gives the fish and the inverts a lot of nooks to hide and swim through. So with the Aquascape, there should be open space to promote good coral placement, growth and flow.

Goals
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I have decided that this tank will be my journey progress of the new reef garden system that I will be building and achieve those expectation goals on keeping a simple reef. My tank is about 7 month young and still maturing. I will let everything grow out and try not to add any more corals and fish. However I am very fascinated about keeping SPS and Zoas/ Palys, so my goals are to have a mainly dominated mixed reef with some of my favorite fish. Those are the elements that I have followed in my past experience.

Transfer/ Established April 2012

d'Espresso Islands of Paradise

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