Tank of the Month

Chadchawin Rueangdech's (Last Version) Reef Aquarium

Introduction

Hello to every Reef Central member! Above all, I want to thank Reef Central for giving me the honor to share my aquarium. It felt great upon hearing that I received this honor and has given me encouragement to further my reefing endeavor. I hope that what I share here will help to encourage everybody too. I am very proud to be part of Reef Central.

Background

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My name is Chadchawin Rueangdech. I was born and raised in Thailand. When I was a child I loved to keep animals. This included dogs, cats, birds etc. However, I never had a passion similar to that when I handled marine fish and coral. I have been in this hobby for about 12 years now. During this time I have had both good and bad experiences. Some days I find myself discouraged and tired, but overall I feel that I have gotten a lot more back from it in happiness than anything else. I can’t deny that my knowledge about marine aquarium increased significantly after meeting Mr. Chingchai Uekrongtum. He inspired me to create the perfect marine aquarium. If it weren’t for Mr. Chingchai there would not be my tank! So I want to thank you Mr. Chingchai from the bottom of my heart.

The start of this aquarium began when I inherited nearly the entire system from Mr.Chingchai. Some equipment from then is still used on this system and several pieces have been modified to better match my goals. The main goal of this tank is to grow out SPS while making it as easy as possible to maintain. I do this because I don’t have much time and also suffer from severe chemical allergies. Therefore I always rely on equipment more than maintenance.

Current System

I'm quite happy with the system at this time. Although some areas are still not perfect, I believe it will develop in the future. I will do this with continued use of my same principles and focusing on equipment providing me the easiest care.

System Profile

• Display tank: 66 x 36 x 30-100 inchs 1500 litres system
• Sump: 300 litres (water amount is approx. 80 US gallons)
• Skimmer: Bubble King 300 external, Reeflo Cat3, and Deltec 902
• Lighting: 400 watt BLV 20K (left and right side), 400 watt Ushio 20K (middle); on CoralVue and Icecap Eletronic Ballast with Luminarc Reflectors by CoralVue
• Other Lighting: 60 inch VHO, 2 Actinic White bulbs, one Super Actinic, LED's by Eco-Lamp 66 inch KR99M 2 lines of 10K and one line of 20k
• Cirulation: Tunze 6305, 6250, 6105, and a wavebox
• Calcium Reactor: Schuran Jetstream 2
• Kalk Reactor: Siam Ocean Reactor
• Chiller: Coil Titanuim 1 HP with compressor
• Other Reactors: 2 x Phosban Reactor 550 by Two Little Fishes for carbon and GFO

Filtration

The filtration system is hidden in my service room, which is split from the main tank in other room. My service room consists of a filter tank, a quarantine fish tank, a frag tank, and a refugium. I found that when I have sufficient space in the service room, it helps me to take care of the system more easily. Many modifications have occurred accordingly.

Lighting

I have tried and used many different kinds of lighting. Until now I was quite satisfied with the variety of lighting I was using. I currently use 3x 20000K metal halides, a Ushio on a Icecap ballast in the center and 2x BLV on Coral Vue Ballasts flanking it. I also augment the coloration with a VHO 60" Actinic White and 2x Super Actinic tubes. As the tank grew I began to notice that coral’s coloration at the bottom of the tank lessened due to the decreasing amount of light reaching the sand. Due to the insufficiency of light I decidedly added LED supplementation. I am using 3 sets of the LED line KR99M. Two sets are 10000K and the other set is 20000K. After adding the LEDs the color of corals below look better but it is still not the best situation. In near future, I will be adding more light.

Water Movement

I try to have every corner kept with some type of circulation avoiding dead spots inside my aquarium. To do this I use high-power pumps such as the Tunze 6305 on long pulses and smaller pumps are kept hidden within the live rock. Trying to simulated waves similar to that as the sea still is still difficult to do within my tank. So I chose to make turbulence by using a Multi-Controller Tunze 7095 to control all of my Tunze pump. In addition I use a RR controller to control a RR Wavebox and RR Stream. In the future, I would like to hide all the pumps and wiring within the live rock.

Aquascape is important and should be thought of when first designing the aquarium. Aquascaping has a direct influence on water circulation and should be tested when first setting up the aquarium.

Maintenance, Feeding and Additions

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Regular maintenance is very challenge for me. I write down and keep a schedule of everything that I have to do. This includes a specific date for water, carbon and other media changes. I also have dates in which I clean all the equipment. I chose to use Reef Crystral salt and RO / DI water. I believe in the good quality and standard of Reef Crystral. It is suitable for all kinds of coral whether it be a SPS, LPS, or soft coral tank.

I use C-balance once per day. I dose at 150cc / part and for coral food I use DT’s Oyster Egg and Nutrakol once a week.

Feeding my fish just once a day, my main fish food is Ocean Nutrition flake mix with spirulina powder. Sometime I use Hikari brine shrimp FD series too.

Livestock

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With a desire to keep Angelfish species I made the choice on keeping only SPS. With so many SPS filling the aquarium it makes it difficult to keep every piece growing due to the changing lighting and circulation conditions. At times I find myself moving pieces around to help when other pieces over grow them. Other corals that were faster growing have been moved to a frag box. My dream fish is the Conspicillatus Angelfish (Chaetodontoplus conspicillatus). I once had this beautiful species before but it died due to the catching method from the ocean.

Acknowledgements

Thank you everyone for the honor to display my tank for TOTM. Hopefully, this visit will be one of inspiration for many people who actually strive to create excellent aquariums. Again, I want to thank Reef Central that has helped me create this aquarium.

Finally, above all else, I want to thank you, Mr.Chingchai, who told me “You never walk alone” and has helped me so much in my endeavor to create a beautiful reef aquarium.

Feel free to comment or ask questions about my tank in the Tank of the Month thread on Reef Central.