Duane family
Active Member
Hi all.
My son and I are building ourselves a 7ft lagoon style reef tank. I have been absent in the reef keeping hobby for a few years due to career and travel requirements. I was also separated from my family for a year as I began work in a new country and now 1 year later they have all joined me in Abu Dhabi. So what better time than this for us to begin a reeftank project together. The goal is really to build a nice simple but neat system which does not have much automation, this way I get to teach Kaylem as much about marine biology and husbandry as possible.
We received the stand and base board a few days ago and the glass for the display, sump, ATO and quarantine tanks will be delivered this evening. This means we can really get started with our building work, in fact a have a few assembly brackets printing right now. The plan is to get the tanks built, scaped and circulating in the next 3 weeks. After that we have a bit of traveling to do so while we are away the tank can circulate without lights or a skimmer and when we return we can start tracking water quality daily then get the other components installed and running as required. We are in no rush at all but I expect that by the second week of October we should put our first livestock into QT which will be snails and hermits and a few Anthias.
We are targeting a select group of tangs and angels with some anthias and two sets of percular clowns. I am a very experienced fish keeper but I would consider myself very much an experienced novice with keeping corals. So in general I'm a fish guy, specifically rarer fish and angels. But with this tank I would like to keep some acropora and montipora when we feel that we have stable water so likely between months 8-14 ish, but we will see how that goes.
After months of research we have decided to use:
Hydor ESK 1000 skimmer
Jebao EP3500 DC controllable return pump
Magtool ATO
Magtool Gyer crossflow pumps for display tank circulation (multiple pumps)
Durags water quality meter system
Noopsyche NP K7 Pro 3 lights, we will have 3 rock formations with one light over each rock formation
Magtool 800watt dual element heater
We will use IQuatics dry rock which we will use to piece together our scaping
Our substrate will be 80% aragonite with some carefully selected local live crushed coral from the region (200km away from city) We will also use some live sand (smaller particle size) for our in sump DSB.
I have never yet used Fritz Turbo Start 900 (in general I'm not a guy who believes in starting with externally dosed bacteria) but we will give this a go more for the educational aspect than anything else.
Unfortunately we do not have much space available and we have been forced to house our QT tank next to the sump and inside the display tank stand. This is not ideal as pathogens and parasites can potentially be transferred over. But we just have no other option so to mitigate this we will be building a overhang lip lid over both the QT tank and sump tanks, then also I will have a divider panel between the two. I think that with these measure and briefing everyone in the house about how important it is to keep these two sources of water completely separate we should be ok.
As for the reefkeeping environment in the UAE, well its pretty much ok. From what I've seen so far its possible to create a long term sustainable system which was the first consideration I had months ago. From a quality of livestock point of view, again its doable with strict quarantining practices. The quality of coral is actually very good, the fish quality is average though.
Often people comment about the extreme heat in the middle East, and while this is a factor its actually a very small factor. The fact is that most buildings are extremely well temperature controlled between 22 and 26degC (72-78F)so while it can be over 50degC (122F) outside you really don't need to bare those temps for more than a minute when walking from a building to your vehicle for example. In fact we are going through what I think is our final heat spike for this summer and yesterday the temperature measure 53degC (127F) in my car at 4pm when I left the airport. I would guess that would mean an measurable high of +-49 degC (120F) for the day. So its very hot but we are very much protected from the heat. This means no need for chillers and I suspect that the heater will see very little use in a daily cycle.
I think that's a fairly detailed report on what we have planned, now we need to execute this and we will post some pictures of the process as we go along.
Best Regards Trevor
My son and I are building ourselves a 7ft lagoon style reef tank. I have been absent in the reef keeping hobby for a few years due to career and travel requirements. I was also separated from my family for a year as I began work in a new country and now 1 year later they have all joined me in Abu Dhabi. So what better time than this for us to begin a reeftank project together. The goal is really to build a nice simple but neat system which does not have much automation, this way I get to teach Kaylem as much about marine biology and husbandry as possible.
We received the stand and base board a few days ago and the glass for the display, sump, ATO and quarantine tanks will be delivered this evening. This means we can really get started with our building work, in fact a have a few assembly brackets printing right now. The plan is to get the tanks built, scaped and circulating in the next 3 weeks. After that we have a bit of traveling to do so while we are away the tank can circulate without lights or a skimmer and when we return we can start tracking water quality daily then get the other components installed and running as required. We are in no rush at all but I expect that by the second week of October we should put our first livestock into QT which will be snails and hermits and a few Anthias.
We are targeting a select group of tangs and angels with some anthias and two sets of percular clowns. I am a very experienced fish keeper but I would consider myself very much an experienced novice with keeping corals. So in general I'm a fish guy, specifically rarer fish and angels. But with this tank I would like to keep some acropora and montipora when we feel that we have stable water so likely between months 8-14 ish, but we will see how that goes.
After months of research we have decided to use:
Hydor ESK 1000 skimmer
Jebao EP3500 DC controllable return pump
Magtool ATO
Magtool Gyer crossflow pumps for display tank circulation (multiple pumps)
Durags water quality meter system
Noopsyche NP K7 Pro 3 lights, we will have 3 rock formations with one light over each rock formation
Magtool 800watt dual element heater
We will use IQuatics dry rock which we will use to piece together our scaping
Our substrate will be 80% aragonite with some carefully selected local live crushed coral from the region (200km away from city) We will also use some live sand (smaller particle size) for our in sump DSB.
I have never yet used Fritz Turbo Start 900 (in general I'm not a guy who believes in starting with externally dosed bacteria) but we will give this a go more for the educational aspect than anything else.
Unfortunately we do not have much space available and we have been forced to house our QT tank next to the sump and inside the display tank stand. This is not ideal as pathogens and parasites can potentially be transferred over. But we just have no other option so to mitigate this we will be building a overhang lip lid over both the QT tank and sump tanks, then also I will have a divider panel between the two. I think that with these measure and briefing everyone in the house about how important it is to keep these two sources of water completely separate we should be ok.
As for the reefkeeping environment in the UAE, well its pretty much ok. From what I've seen so far its possible to create a long term sustainable system which was the first consideration I had months ago. From a quality of livestock point of view, again its doable with strict quarantining practices. The quality of coral is actually very good, the fish quality is average though.
Often people comment about the extreme heat in the middle East, and while this is a factor its actually a very small factor. The fact is that most buildings are extremely well temperature controlled between 22 and 26degC (72-78F)so while it can be over 50degC (122F) outside you really don't need to bare those temps for more than a minute when walking from a building to your vehicle for example. In fact we are going through what I think is our final heat spike for this summer and yesterday the temperature measure 53degC (127F) in my car at 4pm when I left the airport. I would guess that would mean an measurable high of +-49 degC (120F) for the day. So its very hot but we are very much protected from the heat. This means no need for chillers and I suspect that the heater will see very little use in a daily cycle.
I think that's a fairly detailed report on what we have planned, now we need to execute this and we will post some pictures of the process as we go along.
Best Regards Trevor
