Tank of the month: May 2020

ANDRE BALLONI

Hello to all you Ballingmaniacs, my name is Andrea Balloni, I am 49, and I was born and live in L'Aquila.

I have been cultivating my passion for fishkeeping since I was a child; like most aquarists, I started with small home-made freshwater tanks built by my dear dad.

Over the years I discovered the beauty of marine, and about 30 years ago I made my first tank (130x50x50), this time siliconed by a glazier in my town!!! Those were different times, little was known and it was also very hard to research and find useful information. Equipment was almost non-existent, but that was my small research lab. The tank was next to my bed, and the sounds of the pump (the one and only) lulled me to sleep at night. Then, for work, I left my town and moved to Rome for 15 years, where I enjoyed setting up a few mini reefs.

After the 2009 earthquake I returned to L'Aquila and for a long time I did not devote any time to fishkeeping, but the passion was always inside me...

In November 2019 I set up my current tank (a 50x50x50 cube), trying to make it my small underwater paradise!

After a lot of reading online (almost all at night), I decided to start the tank using the ZEOvit method and fully embraced its philosophy. So I followed the procedure to start the tank in 14 days to the letter, and the results were exactly what I expected! I am extremely precise in everything I do and so I found this method really suits me!

Of course mistakes happen (they are essential to understand, correct yourself and so grow) but, honestly, I did not have any with the method. I did, however, make the mistake of buying some second-hand or questionable-quality products. The inevitable consequence is buying a top-end one again (but the difference is tangible).

I believe ours is an extremely complicated and expensive hobby, in which the famous "knack" or "blue thumb" is essential, but you certainly cannot do without good equipment!

Hoping I have not bored you too much, let's move on to the description of the tank, which even has a name: ZEOcubo50!

DIMENSIONS

50x50x50

LIGHTING

EcoTech Radion XR30 G4 Pro with diffuser (12-hour photoperiod)

EQUIPMENT

Skimmer: Deltec 600i

Zeolite reactor: Ultra Reef UZ120

Dosing pump: H2Ocean Pro

Water flow: Vortech MP10 wQD

Return: Jebao Sine DC Pump MDC-3500

Top-off: Smart ATO Micro

Fluidised bed: a small Chinese gadget, enough to keep the KZ carbon moving

I run the tank mainly with the ZEOvit method, dosing quite a lot of products

Balling is handled by ATI Essentials PRO

As salt I use ATI Absolute Ocean, and also from ATI I am using Nutrition (N and P only)

I make weekly changes of about 10% of the aquarium water.

The current tank values are:

KH=7.5

Ca=415

Mg=1280

K=390

Salinity=35 PSU

NO2=0

NO3=1 ppm

PO4=0.015 ppm

At the moment I mainly keep SPS in the tank (see photos), and my absolute favourite Acropora are spathulata, millepora and humilis. I tried to place the corals according to their growth, but I paid particular attention to placing them so that the colours always create the right contrast, to bring out the colours of each animal.

There are also LPS (mainly Scolymia and Trachyphyllia) and some Zoanthus.

As for fish, the tank has a Zebrasoma flavescens, a Ctenochaetus truncatus, a Centropyge argi, a Macropharyngodon bipartitus, two Domino Amphiprion ocellaris and an Ecsenius stigmatura.

I thank the whole BallingMania staff; the trust you placed in me is an honour, and thank you for choosing my little "puddle" as "tank of the month"!!! I hope sharing my experience can be useful to some of you... even just one!!!

Happy reefing to all!"