Hi All
Our tank has been running for over 7 months now and felt it's long overdue it's own tank thread.
Just a quick background, my husband and I are serious ocean lovers and have always wanted a marine tank. After spending a few long cold years in Europe and the UK, we moved back to our sunny hometown and decided that having the sea as our backyard was not good enough and that we needed a piece of the ocean in our lounge. So we went out and bought a secondhand 1.2m set-up off gumtree. Fortunately we found the MASA community early into our new found hobby and haven't made too many newbie mistakes so far or so we think...
So here is our set-up specs:
DT - 1.2m wide x 0.4m deep x 0.5m high
Sump - 1.2m
Skimmer - Reeftek TS2
Return pump - Sicce 45W 2500l/hr
Powerheads - 3x JVC101 sunsuns
Lighting - 4x 54W T5s
Sump - The tank came with a trickle filter on the side, we took out the bioballs and ceramic rings and converted it into a mini refugium with chaeto (with the overflow runnning through some filterfloss first). Our first chamber in the sump contains the heaters and a 'sock' of carbon which we change every week, this is followed by the skimmer and then the DSB, a few mangroves and more chaeto which run on reverse lighting. We then have a DIY auto ro top-up in the last chamber with the return pump.
We do weekly 25l water changes with Seachem reef salt or NSW if the sea conditions are good. We manually dose the kalk, iodine, magnisium etc etc...
I feed the fishes twice a day and wish I could feed them more...I have to regularly restrain myself from putting in more and more food... I can't help myself as they get all excited when they see me pick up the bottle of fish food and start dancing up and down the glass...how can you resist
Food wise, they get ocean nutrition pellets, cyclop-eeze and are treated with freshly hatched brine shrimp or chopped up seafood mix a few times a week when we target feed the corals and nennie.
So here is the LS list:
Fish:
6x locally caught anthias (husband can't help himself when he goes freediving)
3x blue green chromis
2x nemos
1x midas blenny
1x local cleaner wrasse
1x blue dot sleeper goby
3x local algae munching blennies and 1x hitchhiking blenny
1x yellow tang
1x local angler fish which lives in the sump and gets fed live fish from the rockpools
Inverts:
1x porcelain crab
1x clam
1x nennie (think it's a sand nennie and before anyone comments, it was given to us and we have now had it for 5 months and it definitely grown so must be happy)
1x local seahare
1x local boxer shrimp
lots of local hermies and snails
Corals:
Various local zoas
Mushrooms
Sinularia
Sarcophyton
Torch coral
Open brain (the lfs called it a rose coral)
Yellow black coral
So now for the long awaited photos...
Our tank has been running for over 7 months now and felt it's long overdue it's own tank thread.
Just a quick background, my husband and I are serious ocean lovers and have always wanted a marine tank. After spending a few long cold years in Europe and the UK, we moved back to our sunny hometown and decided that having the sea as our backyard was not good enough and that we needed a piece of the ocean in our lounge. So we went out and bought a secondhand 1.2m set-up off gumtree. Fortunately we found the MASA community early into our new found hobby and haven't made too many newbie mistakes so far or so we think...
So here is our set-up specs:
DT - 1.2m wide x 0.4m deep x 0.5m high
Sump - 1.2m
Skimmer - Reeftek TS2
Return pump - Sicce 45W 2500l/hr
Powerheads - 3x JVC101 sunsuns
Lighting - 4x 54W T5s
Sump - The tank came with a trickle filter on the side, we took out the bioballs and ceramic rings and converted it into a mini refugium with chaeto (with the overflow runnning through some filterfloss first). Our first chamber in the sump contains the heaters and a 'sock' of carbon which we change every week, this is followed by the skimmer and then the DSB, a few mangroves and more chaeto which run on reverse lighting. We then have a DIY auto ro top-up in the last chamber with the return pump.
We do weekly 25l water changes with Seachem reef salt or NSW if the sea conditions are good. We manually dose the kalk, iodine, magnisium etc etc...
I feed the fishes twice a day and wish I could feed them more...I have to regularly restrain myself from putting in more and more food... I can't help myself as they get all excited when they see me pick up the bottle of fish food and start dancing up and down the glass...how can you resist
Food wise, they get ocean nutrition pellets, cyclop-eeze and are treated with freshly hatched brine shrimp or chopped up seafood mix a few times a week when we target feed the corals and nennie.
So here is the LS list:
Fish:
6x locally caught anthias (husband can't help himself when he goes freediving)
3x blue green chromis
2x nemos
1x midas blenny
1x local cleaner wrasse
1x blue dot sleeper goby
3x local algae munching blennies and 1x hitchhiking blenny
1x yellow tang
1x local angler fish which lives in the sump and gets fed live fish from the rockpools
Inverts:
1x porcelain crab
1x clam
1x nennie (think it's a sand nennie and before anyone comments, it was given to us and we have now had it for 5 months and it definitely grown so must be happy)
1x local seahare
1x local boxer shrimp
lots of local hermies and snails
Corals:
Various local zoas
Mushrooms
Sinularia
Sarcophyton
Torch coral
Open brain (the lfs called it a rose coral)
Yellow black coral
So now for the long awaited photos...
Last edited:
He also only comes home with the tiny ones. 
