Tank of the month: September 2018

ALESSANDRO SCARAMUZZA

We dedicate September to Alessandro Scaramuzza's tank, as beautiful as it is unusual.

We are in Cittadella (Padua), where Alessandro has set up this fantastic reef in his home.
What strikes us first is the shape of the tank: a "drop-off", as he calls it, with a deeper area and a shallower one. This creates a whole in which there are both brightly lit areas for light-hungry corals and areas where the light arrives "softer", hosting corals that feel better in these conditions and can therefore show off all their special beauty.

As you can easily imagine, the idea of such a system grew out of several other experiences and paths in the aquarium hobby.

So let's let Alessandro describe the aquarist's journey that brought him here:

"The underwater world has fascinated me ever since I was a child...

I placed my first aquarium in the living room; it measured 100x40x50, and I had made the stand myself in fir wood because I have always loved DIY. I modified the water outlet of the external filter because I liked seeing movement and bubbles: the gushing water created a sort of fairground for the fish, and I loved the magic it created...
Every evening I checked whether the tank was leaking, it was my nightmare!!!
How many days I spent going around aquarium shops, browsing, looking, learning...

Marine was a dream... its colours fascinated me, the fish enchanted me... the sore point, though, was that money was tight back then and I reluctantly had to give it all up.

A break that lasted almost 15 years for various reasons, until, two years after I got married, an Askoll Pure L aquarium (my current sump) arrived as a present, together with its inhabitants: goldfish! One day I happened to find an aquarium shop and there my passion was reborn! I ordered my first marine tank, a 50 cm cube with a rear sump; of course I built its stand myself in natural slate, and everything came back to life. A central Berlin-style rockscape, mixed LPS and SPS, a Chinese but excellent CTLite G2 light: a success for me. I was making my dream come true!
The shop owner, who is now one of our sponsors, has always helped, advised and encouraged me.

For my part, I have always wanted to know, learn, study... days spent on books, Google, Facebook... there in particular I found the various groups, some better known than others, but I fell in love with one: BALLINGMANIA. Then came my wife's first complaints, "you spend more time there than with us"... but I wanted to know, to learn.
Our hobby is like a drug... you always want more... and that is how my current tank was born! I wanted something unusual, and Fabio of L'Arca said: let's do it!
So my drop-off was born: 110 x 62, low area 45, high area 80... 400 litres of fun.

All handmade: 15 mm glass, a stand in 2 cm square iron, painted and then clad in wood and stone.

Equipment: Deltec 1660 SCC skimmer; between the sump and the tank a 40-litre refugium fed by a Sicce 0.5 pump, with Caulerpa and Chaetomorpha algae, which overflows into the sump to the Sicce 3.0 return pump.
Home-made lighting: 400 W of LEDs dimmable on 5 channels, 20,000 kelvin, 12,000, blue and royal blue, controlled by smartphone (I work in lighting); Tunze flow pumps.
Aquaforest Balling with a Jebao dosing pump.

The low area is mostly LPS and soft corals, the high area easy SPS and Acropora.

Fish: Anthias squamipinnis, Chromis viridis, Ocellaris, Acanthurus pyroferus, Hepatus and Synchiropus marmoratus, plus a Lysmata and a Stenopus hispidus, two Mespilia globulus urchins and a Tripneustes gratilla.

P.S. I now help run the marine department in that shop!"

We say goodbye to Alessandro and thank him for his kindness.

Now let's enjoy the photos of this very special and fascinating marine aquarium.