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845 l aquarium (200 x 65 x 65), 170 l refugium and 90 l sump.

About 150 kg of live rock. Most of the rocks are from previous aquariums starting from the year 1993. There is 3-5 cm of coral sand (0-2mm) in the bottom of the aquarium and 5 cm in the bottom of the refugium.

The light comes from Giesemann System 230 3 x 250w metal halide lamp. There are three Aqua Connect Performance 14000K bulbs in the lamp. As additional lighting there are four Osram 67 blue 80w T5 fluorescent tubes. The metal halide lights are on 10 h per day and fluorescent tubes 13 h per day. The refugium is light by three 39w T5 tubes (3 x Aqua Medic Ocean White) on for 13 h per day in opposite daylight rhythm.

The protein skimmer is a Aqua Medic Turboflotor 5000 Shorty Compact modified with Becket-like injector and a higher neck in the skimmer cup. Water flows from the aquarium overflow directly to the skimmer and from there to the sump. Aquabee UP 2000/1 pumps the water from the sump to the refugium, from there it overflows back to the sump near return pump. As a return pump there is Ocean Runner 3500. Water movement in the aquarium is achieved with two Tunze Stream 12000 and one Tunze 7410 pump connected to Tunze 7095 Multicontroller. Calcium reactor is DIY reactor and kalkwasser reactor is a Deltec KM500. Water level is maintained by DIY mechanical level switch connected to pressurized RO–DI water containers. Salinity is of the aquarium water is kept at about 35 ppt measured with refractometer.

Activated carbon (1.0 l in passive circulation, changed once a month) is used continually. 120 l water change is done every two weeks with RO-DI water using mainly Tropic Marin Pro-Reef or Aqua Medic Reef salt. Iron supplement is added every week and amino acids are added every day the dose recommended.

Fish are fed usually every other day with small amount of frozen (mainly artemia and mysis) or flake food. Very small amount of dried phytoplankton like PhytoPlan, ZoPlan, Cyclop-eeze, UltraMin-F and live phytoplankton is given at night time to feed corals, clams, filter feeders and so on.

Over 12 years of reef keeping, I have kept tanks run with pure Berlin system, Jaubert's plenum plus skimmer and DSB plus skimmer with and without algae refugium, and lately with ZEOvit system. All systems have maintained healthy corals and good growth in my hands. Some systems have worked better in some points, but also in every system there has been some negative aspects. At the end of July 2005 I cut down many of the overgrown corals and removed some live rock and started to experiment with skimmerless setup. I removed my protein skimmer and now the water flows from main tank directly to the algea refugium and from there to the sump and back to the main tank. The refugium is illuminated 24h per day and there grows different macroalgae species in it.


Marko Haaga