Tank of the Month - August 2005

[Skipper]

This month we are featuring Aleksandr Pyndyk's (ealex) beautiful reef aquarium:



More details can be found here or by clicking on the picture above.

Congratulations, Alex!

If you'd like to nominate a tank for Tank of the Month, click here or use the button to the right.

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[AcroSteve]

Simply tunning! Very nice job.

Could you provide any more detail on the automatic phyto reactor / dosing system?

How did you get such a clear shot of the squamosa? It looks to be under the overhanging stag.

Are these fish eggs? From which pair?


The growth of the corals since 2002 is very cool to see. Looks like some heavy fragging is in your future.

[Skipper]

Hey Steve. Yeah, those are clownfish eggs.

[maxpower2112]

Amazing tank, the best I have seen in a very long time. Gonrats.

[Aquaguru]

Great tank and I loved the slide show to show your growth rates. Great job and congrats on such a beautiful aquarium

[TheCoralReef731]

How many gallons is your tank. Sorry, but I am an American, and didn't bother to learn conversions (i probably should have since we are the only ones who are different)

[Skipper]

TheCoralReef: here's an online liter to gallons converter:

http://www.onlineconversion.com/volume.htm

[Electrobes]

His is about 214 gallons or so.

Aleksandr - That is really a beautiful reef, and you should be proud of it. I really love the clams, especially the squamosa, they look so happy I have to admit that thought your calcium is a bit low for me, your tank's growth is undeniable , very well done!

[Ebisan]

Awesome tank. Well deserved.

[reefdadx2]

Slide show made my day. Reach over your shoulder and pat yourself on the back for your great achievement.

[atram]

Simply beautiful! Loved the slide show.

[DAQ]

Tang is bright as *&%#

[JonK]

Gorgeous!!

[NexDog]

Slide show was great. All too often you see tanks rammed with 200kg of rock but as we can see, you don't need that much.

[matt the fiddler]

man, that growth shot is very nice... good work, congrads on the honor...

[SFlogic]

Love the tank! simply Amazing!

[TippyToeX]

Outstanding! It's like a rainbow in there.

Does the peppermint hog cause any trouble for the inverts in the tank? I've always love that fish, but had been afraid to buy one for fear of it swallowing the shrimp up.

[Cosper]

Just when I thought the TOTM couldent be any better... we get this! Great job!

[GregM779]

Awesome tank and some really awesome growth rates. What do you do to get such amazing growth while keeping the colors?

[eAlex]

Thank you all for kind worlds!

My English is not very good, so I would like to thank ReefKeeping staff for editing article and correcting my language, they did huge job to make this article readable.

AcroSteve, phyto reactor is a 2-gallon jar with overflow. One peristaltic pump dose aquarium water to the jar through ~ 50 µm sieve, same amount of phytoplankton will go back to aquarium through overflow. Another peristaltic pump dose phyto food needed for fresh added amount of water. I use ~ ¼ of normal phyto food dosage to minimize unused nutrients in phytoplankton.

Photo of T. squamosa is older, now I cannot make shot of whole clam, this is a best shot after harvesting acropora above it: http://ealex.aqua-web.org/kuvat/alla...5/img_0676.htm

TippyToeX, Peppermint hog does not cause any trouble for invertebrates and seems to be plankton eater from water column. It only may slightly harass fishes with similar eating behavior, like other wrasses or Nemateleotris decora in my case.

[jimcombs9]

Echoing previous posts, the tank is amazing and I really loved the photo timeline.

I was wondering if you could share your general thoughts and inspiration for your homemade Beckett skimmer. I will probably build one myself, and I didn't know if you had a good blue-print or lessons learned.

Thanks, and what a tank!

[tlp]

Great job! I really like the way you've DIY a lot of equipments and particularly admire your attitude of nursing corals and achieve wonderful colours.

So many others would just buy and buy the bright coloured choices from the shops, bidding ridiculous monies for them, and having them turning brown eventually in their own tank!

Congratulations!

[newmoon]

Amazing Reef! And some people say you can't keep colorful/healthy SPS with a sand bed, huh? Riiiiiiiiiight.

Beautifull, colorfull and very natural looking reef tank, congratulations!

[TippyToeX]

Originally posted by eAlex
TippyToeX, Peppermint hog does not cause any trouble for invertebrates and seems to be plankton eater from water column. It only may slightly harass fishes with similar eating behavior, like other wrasses or Nemateleotris decora in my case. [/B]

Very good to hear! Thanks for the info, and again you have an amazing tank.

[Erik]

Very beautiful tank Aleksandr! Congrats to the TOTM - you really deserve it. Keep up the good work.

Is the DIY wavemaker you made still working? I did not finish mine unfortunately...