Osler
Community Member
I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. As you can see, my screen name is Osler and I live in Flower Mound, Texas. I have been a lurker on R2R for a while and finally decided to join at the end of January 2020. I’ve been in the reef keeping hobby for many years now, so I figured I’d give a little background on myself and how I got started.
I first started keeping freshwater aquaria in 1988 at the age of 16. I maintained mostly small volume tanks throughout high school and as I started college in 1990. During my first year of college I came across two books by C. W. Emmens that would put me on a path toward keeping what, at the time, was known as a mini-reef aquarium and what we now refer to simply as reef keeping.
I probably read these books hundreds of times cover-to-cover. I was not only introduced to the corals and other invertebrates, but also cutting-edge (at the time) filtration equipment like sumps, trickle filters (bioball and gravel tray), and foam fractionation (protein skimmers). Sadly, I have lent these books out to others so many times that I have lost track of them.
As today, you had to be resourceful to get started in this hobby on a limited budget. There was a lot of trial and error and sometimes you’d plop down what felt like a ton of money on a new, cool invertebrate only to see it wither and die over the next week. The only real source of knowledge came from publications like Freshwater and Marine Aquarium (FAMA) and the periodical SeaScope put out by Instant Ocean. The internet was not really mainstream at this time.
The other source of knowledge was other reef keepers, what I refer to as fish buddies. Reef keeping changed for me when I met someone I will refer to as the clam whisperer. That’s all he kept…Tridacnid clams…in a 55 gallon Rubber Maid tub sitting on the floor of his apartment where furniture was supposed to go. His approach was minimalist but the equipment he used would have been considered the best at the time. He ran a 250W metal halide from Ultramarine (now defunct) and an Iwasaki bulb (the original 6500K bulb designed to make retail items look more appealing by shifting toward a higher color temperature). He also ran what was, at the time, probably the best retail-grade protein skimmer on the market…a Tunze rail mount version with venturi, tangential injection, and recirculation. These two items combined with a few live rock and daily additions of kalkwasser allowed him to grow stunning clams. This approach would later be popularized by Julian Sprung and referred to as the Berlin method.
My first tank to use this approach was a 20 gallon long. I couldn’t afford to run an Iwasaki bulb so I ordred the cheap 5500K 175W bare-bones metal halide that was advertised in the back of FAMA. Prior to this I had been using only flourescent lighting in numbers that, given todays standards, were insfufficient to grow most things. The metal halide was mounted over the tank in what had to have been the most precarious and dangerous manner possible. It was just a box of wood with no top that allowed me to mount the bulb. The reflector was just a piece of sheet metal I bent into a U-shape and wedged over the top of the bulb. If you looked at the tank wrong, there was a good chance you might be blinded, sun burned, or both. I built my own 4-foot tall counter-current protein skimmer out of 4” OD acrylic tube and used the largest air pump I could find to drive two basswood airstones. I also had a corner overflow and a 10 gallon sump that I used to run carbon. Amazingly, this tank flourished and I was able to enjoy it during my junior and senior years at college (1992-1994).
Here are some shots of my old 20 gallon:
20 gallon, full tank shot.
20 gallon, left side.
20 gallon, right side.
20 gallon, center.
20 gallon, center, T. gigas, T. crocea, T. maxima.
20 gallon, top down, T. gigas.
20 gallon, top down, T. crocea, T. maxima.
20 gallon, Catalaphylia sp.
After college (1994), I went on to graduate school and upgraded to a 58 gallon acrylic tank manufactured by an aquarium store that was local to me. Many of the critters in my 20 gallon successfully made the move with me. The tank ran two 175W 5500 K bulbs and had an integrated air driven protein skimmer in the back that I had designed. I don’t have a full tank shot of this tank, but here are some photos:
58 gallon, left.
58 gallon, center.
58 gallon, right.
58 gallon, T. squamosa x 2, T. maxima.
58 gallon, top down, T. squamosa x 2, T. maxima.
58 gallon, Catalaphylia sp. (3 years old).
The 58 gallon did well through graduate school. I eventually built a 6 foot tall venturi driven protein skimmer for it and also built a second shallow lagoon tank out of acrylic that I used to grow a ton of pulsing xenia and clams. No pictures of this tank...sorry.
After graduate school life became very busy. I’m pretty sure I had an aquarium during this period but I don’t have any pictures and I have to admit my husbandry of my critters during this time left much to be desired. I distinctly remember wondering where my yellow tang was one day and then realizing that there was a tang-shaped skeleton sucked up against one of my pump intakes.
We moved again for additional training and I opted to construct a new aquarium out of plywood and acrylic. The tank was designed after one pictured in The Reef Aquarium, Volume I that was manufactured by Royal Exclusiv.
I love how the tank overhanging the pedestal gives the illusion of lightness. It is also visually appealing and prevents you from ending up with a huge monolithic box-shape to the aquarium install. The tank I built was constructed out of 3/4" plywood and lined with acrylic.
150 gallon, full tank shot.
This tank never really got off the ground. The day I had my fish buddies road-trip from elsewhere in the state to christen the tank and go fish store hopping was the day that my wife went into labor with our first child. Needless to say there was not much time for reefkeeping in the ensuing months and years. We evenually sold the house this tank was in and most of what I could salvage was housed in a 55 gallon tank in a rental house while we waited for construction on our new house to be completed. I ran this tank with the halides salvaged from the tank above as well as rail mounted Tunze equipment. Half of the live rock was transferred and the other half was allowed to dry out for later use.
55 gallon, full tank shot.
55 gallon, Reefer Madness coral.
55 gallon, T. squamosa, T. crocea.
55 gallon, T. squamosa.
Sadly, upon completion of the new house in 2005 I decided that it was too much trouble to try to move everything in the tank with everything else going on. All livestock in the 55 gallon was sold off and the live rock that remained was put into dry storage in the hopes for later use in an aquarium at the new house. I had the framers rough-in for a built-in aquarium when the house was built; however, I did nothing with the space until 2010. Needless to say, there is a long backstory about the build of my current aquarium…but I did finally get my built-in aquarium with a dedicated fish room!
The tank has been up since 2010. It had some initial ups and downs but has been pretty stable for the past 5 years or so. I will put up a dedicated build thread for the tank in the near future. Thanks for looking and I have greatly enjoyed the community here at R2R.
Osler
I first started keeping freshwater aquaria in 1988 at the age of 16. I maintained mostly small volume tanks throughout high school and as I started college in 1990. During my first year of college I came across two books by C. W. Emmens that would put me on a path toward keeping what, at the time, was known as a mini-reef aquarium and what we now refer to simply as reef keeping.
I probably read these books hundreds of times cover-to-cover. I was not only introduced to the corals and other invertebrates, but also cutting-edge (at the time) filtration equipment like sumps, trickle filters (bioball and gravel tray), and foam fractionation (protein skimmers). Sadly, I have lent these books out to others so many times that I have lost track of them.
As today, you had to be resourceful to get started in this hobby on a limited budget. There was a lot of trial and error and sometimes you’d plop down what felt like a ton of money on a new, cool invertebrate only to see it wither and die over the next week. The only real source of knowledge came from publications like Freshwater and Marine Aquarium (FAMA) and the periodical SeaScope put out by Instant Ocean. The internet was not really mainstream at this time.
The other source of knowledge was other reef keepers, what I refer to as fish buddies. Reef keeping changed for me when I met someone I will refer to as the clam whisperer. That’s all he kept…Tridacnid clams…in a 55 gallon Rubber Maid tub sitting on the floor of his apartment where furniture was supposed to go. His approach was minimalist but the equipment he used would have been considered the best at the time. He ran a 250W metal halide from Ultramarine (now defunct) and an Iwasaki bulb (the original 6500K bulb designed to make retail items look more appealing by shifting toward a higher color temperature). He also ran what was, at the time, probably the best retail-grade protein skimmer on the market…a Tunze rail mount version with venturi, tangential injection, and recirculation. These two items combined with a few live rock and daily additions of kalkwasser allowed him to grow stunning clams. This approach would later be popularized by Julian Sprung and referred to as the Berlin method.
My first tank to use this approach was a 20 gallon long. I couldn’t afford to run an Iwasaki bulb so I ordred the cheap 5500K 175W bare-bones metal halide that was advertised in the back of FAMA. Prior to this I had been using only flourescent lighting in numbers that, given todays standards, were insfufficient to grow most things. The metal halide was mounted over the tank in what had to have been the most precarious and dangerous manner possible. It was just a box of wood with no top that allowed me to mount the bulb. The reflector was just a piece of sheet metal I bent into a U-shape and wedged over the top of the bulb. If you looked at the tank wrong, there was a good chance you might be blinded, sun burned, or both. I built my own 4-foot tall counter-current protein skimmer out of 4” OD acrylic tube and used the largest air pump I could find to drive two basswood airstones. I also had a corner overflow and a 10 gallon sump that I used to run carbon. Amazingly, this tank flourished and I was able to enjoy it during my junior and senior years at college (1992-1994).
Here are some shots of my old 20 gallon:
20 gallon, full tank shot.
20 gallon, left side.
20 gallon, right side.
20 gallon, center.
20 gallon, center, T. gigas, T. crocea, T. maxima.
20 gallon, top down, T. gigas.
20 gallon, top down, T. crocea, T. maxima.
20 gallon, Catalaphylia sp.
After college (1994), I went on to graduate school and upgraded to a 58 gallon acrylic tank manufactured by an aquarium store that was local to me. Many of the critters in my 20 gallon successfully made the move with me. The tank ran two 175W 5500 K bulbs and had an integrated air driven protein skimmer in the back that I had designed. I don’t have a full tank shot of this tank, but here are some photos:
58 gallon, left.
58 gallon, center.
58 gallon, right.
58 gallon, T. squamosa x 2, T. maxima.
58 gallon, top down, T. squamosa x 2, T. maxima.
58 gallon, Catalaphylia sp. (3 years old).
The 58 gallon did well through graduate school. I eventually built a 6 foot tall venturi driven protein skimmer for it and also built a second shallow lagoon tank out of acrylic that I used to grow a ton of pulsing xenia and clams. No pictures of this tank...sorry.
After graduate school life became very busy. I’m pretty sure I had an aquarium during this period but I don’t have any pictures and I have to admit my husbandry of my critters during this time left much to be desired. I distinctly remember wondering where my yellow tang was one day and then realizing that there was a tang-shaped skeleton sucked up against one of my pump intakes.
We moved again for additional training and I opted to construct a new aquarium out of plywood and acrylic. The tank was designed after one pictured in The Reef Aquarium, Volume I that was manufactured by Royal Exclusiv.
I love how the tank overhanging the pedestal gives the illusion of lightness. It is also visually appealing and prevents you from ending up with a huge monolithic box-shape to the aquarium install. The tank I built was constructed out of 3/4" plywood and lined with acrylic.
150 gallon, full tank shot.
This tank never really got off the ground. The day I had my fish buddies road-trip from elsewhere in the state to christen the tank and go fish store hopping was the day that my wife went into labor with our first child. Needless to say there was not much time for reefkeeping in the ensuing months and years. We evenually sold the house this tank was in and most of what I could salvage was housed in a 55 gallon tank in a rental house while we waited for construction on our new house to be completed. I ran this tank with the halides salvaged from the tank above as well as rail mounted Tunze equipment. Half of the live rock was transferred and the other half was allowed to dry out for later use.
55 gallon, full tank shot.
55 gallon, Reefer Madness coral.
55 gallon, T. squamosa, T. crocea.
55 gallon, T. squamosa.
Sadly, upon completion of the new house in 2005 I decided that it was too much trouble to try to move everything in the tank with everything else going on. All livestock in the 55 gallon was sold off and the live rock that remained was put into dry storage in the hopes for later use in an aquarium at the new house. I had the framers rough-in for a built-in aquarium when the house was built; however, I did nothing with the space until 2010. Needless to say, there is a long backstory about the build of my current aquarium…but I did finally get my built-in aquarium with a dedicated fish room!
The tank has been up since 2010. It had some initial ups and downs but has been pretty stable for the past 5 years or so. I will put up a dedicated build thread for the tank in the near future. Thanks for looking and I have greatly enjoyed the community here at R2R.
Osler
cool intro ,love the old school knowledge here,don't be a stranger!!
