Tank of the month: October 2018

DIEGO ALLOCCO

The tank we are reviewing this month is nothing short of spectacular.

It is what we aquarists like to call a "monster tank"; not only for its size, but also and above all for the myriad of corals it houses and the fish swimming in it!
It is brilliantly run and proudly owned by our friend Diego Allocco, who introduces himself like this:

My name is Diego Allocco, I am 34, I live near Stuttgart in Germany and, after a 10-year break from aquariums, about a year and a half ago I decided to start again.
I must say that a lot had changed in 10 years and that I was not up to date with the latest "novelties", so I decided to make the most of what I had learnt with my previous marine tank.

I had a 200x80x80 tank built (1,300 litres), with the front and right-hand panels in 15 mm extra-clear glass.
The stand is in 90 cm high box-section aluminium. Between the stand and the tank I put a 10 mm wooden board and 15 mm of polystyrene.
The tank is clad in wood treated with water-repellent varnish.
As for equipment, I tried to buy only "proven" and reliable gear. Since, to avoid arguments with my wife, I decided to drill through the floor and put the sump downstairs, I needed a reliable return pump. After reading several reviews and seeing it at work at various trade fairs, I chose an electronic Abyzz A200, 17,500 litres/hour, as the return pump.
I must say that this pump makes the same noise when it is on as when it is off and, although that was not very important to me, it is interesting for anyone who wants to put it under their aquarium. The pump pushes water up about 5 metres and is set at 85% of its power. In more than a year I have cleaned it once.

I fitted all the pipes and fittings myself: for the return I chose a 32 mm pipe that pumps the water to the right of the tank, and the overflow box is on the left, with a 50 mm drain and an additional 40 mm emergency drain. Since a 5-metre drop through a 50 mm drain would have been annoyingly noisy, especially in the living room, I fitted a valve on it in advance, so by closing it a little, about 30%, it is now so quiet you would not know it was there.

Another thing I am proud of having fitted is a "semi-automatic" water change system: I can change 150 litres of water every week in about 5 minutes without flooding anything, without stressing the fish and without putting any hose in the tank.
It is a very simple system: I close the drain that sends water to the sump and open the valve that sends water into a 150-litre container; while this is happening, I put the new water in the sump, and it is then pumped into the tank.
I am happy because I remembered very well what it was like doing water changes in the living room... a never-ending argument...

For water flow I initially decided to use just two Tunze Turbelle 6255s, and later I also added two Jebao RW8s for movement at the back of the reef. I have a Tunze Smart Controller 7000, which does not satisfy me, and I think I will soon replace it with the old Tunze 7095. So the pumps run at full power 24 hours a day.

As a skimmer I chose a Bubble King Supermarin 200, which really impressed me both for the quality of the materials and for its skimming power. I personally asked for a Supermarin with the Red Dragon pump instead of the Speedy pump. I got it, and I can assure you this skimmer is really remarkable. I clean the pump every 4-5 months.
As a calcium reactor I got the tried-and-tested Schuran Jetstream 1, which since it started running has never been cleaned or taken apart, has never had any problem and has never clogged. I connected it to a 10 kg CO2 cylinder so I do not have to replace it every month.
I put in a Deltec 500s kalkwasser reactor connected to the Tunze Osmolator. This way I always keep the pH at 8.4.

For lighting I had decided, wrongly, to go for a proven ATI Powermodule 10x80, because I did not trust LED lighting... and that was a mistake... about 3 months after the start several ballasts in the light unit burnt out, so I plucked up courage and bought 10 Easy LED bars, 7 of 1,450 mm and 3 of 742 mm.
From then on the tank shifted gear and the corals began to grow very fast, with the resulting stability in pollutant values. Photoperiod: 13 hours FULL and 30 minutes of sunrise and sunset with the blue LEDs on.

I also installed a 2-litre Knepo zeolite reactor, a Deltec FR 509 fluidised bed filter for carbon, a Tropic Marin filter for Bacto Tricks, 1 GroTech TEC4 NG dosing pump, 2 Jäger 300 W heaters, a Milwaukee 887 refractometer, a DeBary 25 lamp and a Sander C200... as RO unit, given my considerable water use, I got a 5-stage 2,200 litres/day unit + anti-silicate resin, set 1 to 1, meaning one litre of RO water for 1 litre of waste water.
I must say that, even though I have not changed the filters yet, it keeps producing water at 0 TDS. The resins are changed every 3-4 months.

The total power consumption of this tank is around 7,000 watts per year.

The tank started in July 2017 with 100 kg of live rock collected directly at the airport and about 100 kg of sand; for the background I decided to use Riffkeramik, which gives the tank great depth... and creates space for corals.
As salt I use Deep Blue, which in my opinion is one of the best. Anyway, I do not believe in alternating salts... either a salt is good or it is not... I have always used Deep Blue and, after also trying TM Pro Reef... I decided to go back to Deep Blue.
For me Deep Blue is a salt that is not aggressive at all, dissolves immediately and is not overloaded with particular elements.

After building the rockwork and adding the sand, I immediately gave the full 12-hour photoperiod, which sped up the cycling considerably. 10-12 years ago it was different... you still did a month of darkness.
In the photos you can see the nice "English lawn" that grew! Even so, after about 2 weeks the NO2 had disappeared and I started adding the first herbivores: 100 Clibanarius, 100 Nassarius, 100 Cerithium, 50 Engina, 100 Turbo, 4 Gratilla, 2 Mespilia and a Dolabella... in the photos you can see the dirty work the Clibanarius do... really effective!! After about a week the algae were gone and I added the first fish: two flavescens, a small one and a big one! You will not believe it, but the small one beat the big one to death... never seen anything like it... and I started adding the first SPS corals. As I expected, since the water was still very clean, the corals paled a lot, but without suffering tissue loss. I tried to buy nice frags to watch them grow and take shape in my tank... I tried to place corals that could grow with each other and not against each other. In fact, many corals now merge with their neighbours and grow together.

As for the fish population, let's say I am at the limit, as I have about 100 fish living in harmony... each has its place in the hierarchy and there are no fights. Anyway, despite the considerable number of fish, the values are excellent:

NO2: absent (those who use a biopellet filter may often find nitrite)

NO3: 2-5

PO4: 0.02-0.05

KH: 8.1

Ca: 480

Mg: 1350

pH: 8.4 constant

Temperature: 22-26 degrees

Thank heavens I have not had any disaster (touch wood). Only when I started trying Coral Sprint, for about a month, some cyanobacteria appeared. As soon as I stopped dosing it, 7 days later, they were gone. For the rest, I believe husbandry should be as simple as possible. Without thinking there is a miracle product.
The corals grow well and have nice colours... of course you can always do better, but I have no intention of "squeezing" the corals too much and I like to enjoy them as they are. I do not want to use stripping products to get better colours.

I have lots of fish... maybe too many... but that is how I like tanks, well stocked and full of life. The fish are fed 3 times a day with granules and once with nori seaweed, the kind used for sushi. I do not give frozen food.
As for the fish population, I have many surgeonfish, lots of angelfish, some beautiful ones such as Apolemichthys xanthopunctatus, which however are always hiding, and several butterflyfish which, apart from nibbling all my Euphyllia, leave the SPS and Catalaphyllia alone. The Hemitaurichthys polylepis butterflyfish are reef safe and do not touch anything...

What does a lot of damage are the hairy crabs: I must have removed about ten already, but they keep turning up.
In particular there is a HUGE black one... it must be at least 10 cm across... which keeps trying to unglue the corals and eat the muck underneath!
As coral glue I only use Aquarium Münster ORCA Connect. It really is the easiest to use and has the strongest hold... I have tried several, ATI, Fauna Marin, GroTech... but none compares with Orca Connect.
As for feeding the corals, I decided not to make any manufacturer rich with all sorts of little bottles, and to use the simplest things. Lots of light, lots of kalkwasser, lots of food for the fish, weekly changes, a litre of phytoplankton a day, about 50 ml of strontium a day (because of the zeolite), trace elements and a couple of amino acids...

That's all! I think I can be proud of my tank but, as always, the next tank will be even better, since you only understand the mistakes you make after making them...

I want to thank all the people in this forum, who are a great help to everyone and always give excellent advice for achieving great results in our tanks...

A big hug to everyone.

And after this thorough and detailed description of the equipment, husbandry and fauna of his tank, let's enjoy the show it puts on for us!
Congratulations again to Diego from me and the BallingMania staff.