Tank of the month: June 2018

MICHELE BIANCHELLI

For June we decided to review the beautiful tank of Michele Bianchelli from Falconara Marittima (Ancona).

It is almost entirely dedicated to SPS corals and is run by Michele with great dedication and passion.
What is striking is the layer of only 2 cm of sand on the bottom: despite this, Michele has no problems with pollutants, as the beautiful colours of his SPS testify.

So we give him the floor to tell us his story as an aquarist:

"I have been a passionate aquarist since I was 17; I went through various kinds of freshwater aquariums (Dutch planted, South American cichlids with plants, African cichlids), and I came to marine partly out of curiosity and partly thanks to a present (a nano reef my partner gave me for Christmas).
Here is my current tank, dedicated exclusively, except for a few LPS, to SPS hard corals. A custom-made 120 x 70 x 60 (h) tank, all in extra-clear glass, impeccably built by an aquarium shop in Falconara, the town where I now live. An aluminium stand clad in marine plywood with an aged-wood finish. Lighting comes from an ATI Powermodule 10 x 54 W, with switching handled by a Gembird programmable power strip. The current combination of tubes (5 blue, 4 white and one pink, all Korallen-Zucht) aims for a bluish light that I really love, but which makes it hard to take good-quality photos of the corals. Water flow from two Vortech MP40s, which I am particularly happy with, managed by Reeflink, with which I alternate different programmes during the day.
A Nyos 160 skimmer, deliberately not pushed too hard, since I currently keep few fish for a 500-litre tank. Besides the skimmer, the sump houses an Aqua Medic kalkwasser reactor, a Gyf algae reactor loaded with Chaetomorpha and lit by an LED bar on a cycle opposite to the tank lights, and a modified JNF calcium reactor.
I do not test the values very often; I go by the famous "eyeball test" and, if something does not satisfy me, I check with test kits whether there really is a problem.
As a husbandry method, knowing that many will frown at this, I chose an SSB, adding right from the start, when setting up (actually a transfer from a previous 300-litre tank), a couple of cm of CaribSea "live" aragonite sand. To date, considering the tank is now three and a half years old, I have had no problems with excess phosphate or nitrate, partly because I believe that keeping these pollutants at absolute zero is harmful to the animals' health in the long run.
The setup is completed by about 45-50 kg of rock, mostly live, and a few kg of CaribSea dry rock, which in the long run became indistinguishable from the rest.
As for the animals, I have about ten fish, actually few for my volume, but I am seriously thinking of adding more, perhaps a school of Anthias.
I have many SPS, some with me for several years and others I add by swapping with enthusiasts (or "reef addicts") like me. A complete list would be almost impossible, but to mention a few at random: Acropora spathulata, Acropora anthocercis, Millepora Rainbow, Acropora secale, Acropora insignis, Acropora willisae, etc."

We thank Michele for his kindness and, renewing our congratulations, take our leave of him by looking through his beautiful photos.