I want to start off by saying, thank you. I have watched and drooled over the RC TOTM for close to a decade now and feel extremely honored to be nominated. Many of the systems I've seen earn the title are very elaborate and usually large systems. I'm not sure my little 90 gallon with the sump in the stand deserves to be in the same class but none the less I am extremely excited.
I've been in the hobby for as long as I can remember and like most started out with cichlids at a young age. I branched out to a number of tanks, too many to count, and ended up getting my first saltwater tank in 2004. Naturally after having cichlids for so long my first saltwater tank was a predator tank. It was 150 gallons, PC lighting, wet/dry and very underrated coralife skimmer. As crude as it was, this tank was by far the best teaching tool I've had. Understanding the importance of water quality, proper husbandry and I don't think there is a better hobby to apply "œyou get what you pay for" to. This tank also spawned my username on Reefcentral.com, Nitr8. Between the inadequate filtration, neglect, over stocking, crushed coral substrate and many other factors brought to my attention the nitrate levels were off the charts which is how I found this community. Desperate for help I turned to the internet and in no time I had the issues resolved and started to slowly replace groupers, eels, lionfish and damsels with community fish and coral.
In 2007 I completely turned to a reef system and said Good Bye to fresh water and predators. This 65 gallon tank was my pride and joy as a new reef keeper. I was constantly testing parameters, key word google searching and lighting the forums up with questions. Sadly this tank was short lived and never got a chance to mature. At about the one year mark I moved from Michigan to Massachusetts and sold my system piece by piece. I was definitely down but far from out. For close to 4 years I planned and gathered for the system I have now. I didn't have a tank to care for but the itch still needed to be scratched so I turned to the forums to feed my obsession and research "œthe perfect tank" for me. I told myself that I was going to do my next system the right way no matter how long it took and refused to cut any corners. Little by little I acquired the necessary components and left them sitting in the original boxes until it was time to start up. So long that the warranty on most of my equipment was expired before even touching water. In 2011 a job offer moved me to Florida where I continued to research and gather equipment and knowledge to have the SPS dominant tank I had dreamed of. By this time I had most of the stuff I needed but was still moving around a lot and now the focus was on getting to a comfortable position and calling a place home. I didn't want to set this tank up and have to move it around so again, I'm waiting. I settled into my career path as well as my home in 2013 and soon after that I had my tank set up and cycling.
Much of my system is still the same from the day I set it up but I have made a few changes to some of the components over the 3 ½ years the tank has been running. The display is a custom built tank made by Miracles in Glass. I made a large mistake in the beginning and built the stand first for a 36" x 24" x 24" tank and found out later that 36" x 24" is not a standard aquarium size. My options were to start over with the stand or go custom. I had done a lot of research on the external coast-to-coast overflow and really didn't want to rebuild the stand so it was an easy decision. The specifications I sent the builder were the above mentioned dimensions and overflow, two returns, rimless and low iron glass on the front and sides. While the tank was being built I put the finishing touches on my DIY stand and built my sump and refugium. The sump is roughly 35 gallons (30" x 18" x 15") made out of glass and consists of four chambers. The first chamber takes two of the three drains from the Bean Animal over-flow and starts the filtration process with filter socks. The second is my filtration/dosing chamber and holds my NYOS 160 skimmer, GEO618 calcium reactor with Eheim 1046 feed, JBJ 500w heater, MP40wES for circulation, Eheim 1046 feed pump for BRS carbon reactor and Eheim 1250 feed pump for BRS GFO reactor. The output of the GFO reactor feeds the refgium. It is about 12 gallons and sits little taller than the sump at 15" x 9" x 20". This allowed me to drill the top of the refugium and allow it to gravity feed back into the filtration chamber of the sump. The refugium has a AI SOL super blue for lighting, MP10wES for circulation, 36lbs of Figi Mud and is pretty much only used for pods to reproduce, chocolate chip starfish to await the death penalty and increase overall water volume of the system. The third chamber of the sump is an ATO reservoir on a float valve fed by a 50g drum on the opposite side of the wall that is kept full via my BRS 75gpd 6 stage RODI unit. I have a Tunze Osmolator that pumps water over a baffle into the 3rd chamber. The last chamber of the sump is my return section. This chamber holds the Eheim 1262 return pump, receives the last drain of the Bean Animal overflow and regulating components of the ATO. The stand also houses all of the APEX controller components including two EB8s, WXM module, VDM module, 2x pH probes, temperature probe and auto feeder. I have the feeder programmed to dispense a small amount of food 4 times/day. In addition to the auto feeder, I also feed one cube of various frozen foods every evening. The last items in the stand are a BRS dosing pump and vertex dosing container. I don't have anything in particular that I dose on a regular basis. Most of the time it sits empty but if adjustments to parameters are necessary I'll use this system to do so. Target parameters are maintained at 1.025 salinity, 80 degrees, less than 5ppm nitrates, .05 phosphates, 8.1 pH, 400ppm calcium, 10dKh, 1300ppm magnesium. Usually 10% partial water changes on a monthly basis keep everything pretty close to these targets.
