# Any Reefkeepers on here? Here is my current one.



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

Do we have any Reefkeepers here? In case your wondering what reefkeeping is it's maintaining a real live flourishing coral reef in your home. I have a 100 gallon reef aquarium at the moment housing many corals grown in captivity known as frags which are basically small cuttings cemented onto rocks and allowed to grow. I also have 21 small fish which in nature are found on and in coral reefs.

Here are a couple of pic's and a video of my current reef setup.









The lights are very important and are what's known a full spectrum which are powerful LED units (4 x2in each) each of the 4 being rated at 90w each.

The filter system mainly DIY situated under the tank in what is known as a sump which houses the main filtration for the tank.










The electrics cupboard housing most of the electric's , top up reservoir, controllers for pumps and calcium reactor.










A couple of the fish, these are Purple Fire Fish.










A short video.


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

What nobody else? :?


----------



## Grizzlebear (Oct 2, 2015)

Nice 1 m8
Ive just broke mine down and am planning a bigger tank, The current 1 never had a sump and i struggled a bit with it.
As im the only other member reefing i know where to come for my frags, lol


----------



## Hoggy (May 8, 2002)

Hi, Wonderful 8) 
Hoggy.


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

Grizzlebear said:


> Nice 1 m8
> Ive just broke mine down and am planning a bigger tank, The current 1 never had a sump and i struggled a bit with it.
> As im the only other member reefing i know where to come for my frags, lol


Will be a while before my frags are big enough to be fraged. BTW I have a Facebook group called Aquareefers if you want to join us we have over 550 members.


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

Hoggy said:


> Hi, Wonderful 8)
> Hoggy.


Cheers Hoggy


----------



## Hoggy (May 8, 2002)

les said:


> Hoggy said:
> 
> 
> > Hi, Wonderful 8)
> ...


Hi, More interesting to watch than TV, lots of work/time has gone into that. [smiley=thumbsup.gif] 
Hoggy.


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

Hoggy said:


> les said:
> 
> 
> > Hoggy said:
> ...


Thanks mate and you are right on all counts of course. Once the initial work of setting up and fine tuning is complete it's not such hard work from then on in truth.


----------



## Danny732 (Jan 4, 2015)

I'm not a Reefkeeper, nor even a tropical fish keeper, Wouldn't even like to look after a gold fish!
That's a whole different level and some set up.
How much time does it take you to look after it, setting it up, then maintenance, cleaning etc?


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

Danny732 said:


> I'm not a Reefkeeper, nor even a tropical fish keeper, Wouldn't even like to look after a gold fish!
> That's a whole different level and some set up.
> How much time does it take you to look after it, setting it up, then maintenance, cleaning etc?


 Some good questions there and I will do my best to answer them.
It all starts with the planning which can take weeks or some months. Personally I have a concept i want to achieve in my case without going into great detail a biotope and like taking a portion of a real coral reef and replicating it.
I do a fair bit of research into what I want and add that to my experience gained over the last 35 years. Am.not saying you need that length of time or experience but it helps. 
The initial set up took days but a lot happened in the last 6 hours to complete but even then I made small adjustments and what I will call fine tuning which went in for weeks after. You see it's never really finished as things evolve over time.
Maintainance doesn't take up that much time as I have automated some of it. It would be hard to put a figure time wise on maintenance but no more than a couple of hours a week.
To give your questions and full answer would take a book but I hope the above gives you a snippet of what goes into a successful home coral reef.


----------



## Danny732 (Jan 4, 2015)

Thanks for the detailed reply Les. 
I even know what a biotope is now, after looking it up! 
I knew that there was Marine Tropical fish set ups that I've always liked (the look of the fish, not looking after a aquarium). I take it your reef aquarium is a further progression from that.
Rather than ask more questions here, I'll maybe have a look at your FB group, if that's okay.
Cheers Dan

Sent from my Vodafone Smart ultra 6 using Tapatalk


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

Danny732 said:


> Thanks for the detailed reply Les.
> I even know what a biotope is now, after looking it up!
> I knew that there was Marine Tropical fish set ups that I've always liked (the look of the fish, not looking after a aquarium). I take it your reef aquarium is a further progression from that.
> Rather than ask more questions here, I'll maybe have a look at your FB group, if that's okay.
> ...


Cheers Dan, here is a link to my FB group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1644566385786686/


----------



## nicademus2k1 (May 4, 2014)

I've always wanted a big fish tank with a reef set-up like yours, and that was my intention when I moved to where I live now. I also wanted something else, and after a bit of looking bought a snake.

Now I have 6 snakes and no room for a fish tank


----------



## BMBM (May 14, 2016)

Wow, that looks awesome,

I used to have tropical fish but found them too time consuming to maintain tbh. We also had issues when fish would breed and then get eaten by others in the tank, you had to be really careful about which breeds you put in.

Coral always looks much more impressive than the tropical tanks!


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

BMBM said:


> Wow, that looks awesome,
> 
> I used to have tropical fish but found them too time consuming to maintain tbh. We also had issues when fish would breed and then get eaten by others in the tank, you had to be really careful about which breeds you put in.
> 
> Coral always looks much more impressive than the tropical tanks!


Thanks, the corals are more difficult to keep than most of the fish in truth.


----------



## jjg (Feb 14, 2010)

Thanks for posting.

Not something I've ever read about before. Really interesting, blinking hard work by the looks, but interesting.


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

jjg said:


> Thanks for posting.
> 
> Not something I've ever read about before. Really interesting, blinking hard work by the looks, but interesting.


The hard work (if you want to call to that) is in the initial setting up after that it's a lot easier with mainly general maintenance.


----------



## Danny732 (Jan 4, 2015)

I showed my wife and daughter the YouTube link in your original post. 
They both loved it, in fact my wife didn't see the very beginning of it and thought it was footage of an actual coral reef, which I suppose it is, not an aquarium.


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

Danny732 said:


> I showed my wife and daughter the YouTube link in your original post.
> They both loved it, in fact my wife didn't see the very beginning of it and thought it was footage of an actual coral reef, which I suppose it is, not an aquarium.


And that my friend is the highest praise indeed thank you and esp your wife for her thinking it was taken in the ocean.


----------



## Danny732 (Jan 4, 2015)

les said:


> And that my friend is the highest praise indeed thank you and esp your wife for her thinking it was taken in the ocean.


 [smiley=thumbsup.gif] [smiley=thumbsup.gif]


----------



## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Very nice Les. Reminds me of snorkeling of a Greek island. A friend of mine who is a marine biologist bred discus fish and maintained a number of tanks he'd set up for clients such as dentists and doctors waiting rooms. He used to make his own custom tanks. It's a good business model - expanding your rental market to the point it suits you and living off the income.


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

John-H said:


> Very nice Les. Reminds me of snorkeling of a Greek island. A friend of mine who is a marine biologist bred discus fish and maintained a number of tanks he'd set up for clients such as dentists and doctors waiting rooms. He used to make his own custom tanks. It's a good business model - expanding your rental market to the point it suits you and living off the income.


I kept Discus fish some years ago but I found them a pain in the butt to be honest. Discus aren't marine fish of course but tropical freshwater. I had a couple of friends who went into the business but it just wrecked their love of the hobby. I have been told often I should get into the business but who wants to come home after servicing so many tanks only to start on your own.


----------



## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

My friend was quite lazy in a way, or was that shrewd?. He'd set up a number of tanks and give the owners instructions on feeding etc then he'd go round once a week to check. He'd build up the round to the point he was happy maintaining then think about a retired helper to work part time to deal with the extra workload.

The discuss breeding was an eBay extra with weekend clients but I remember figures of £90 or does my memory fail me?


----------



## les (Jul 24, 2006)

John-H said:


> My friend was quite lazy in a way, or was that shrewd?. He'd set up a number of tanks and give the owners instructions on feeding etc then he'd go round once a week to check. He'd build up the round to the point he was happy maintaining then think about a retired helper to work part time to deal with the extra workload.
> 
> The discuss breeding was an eBay extra with weekend clients but I remember figures of £90 or does my memory fail me?


Depends on the strain of which there are many John along with size and colouration. Yes £90 plus could easily be asked for some Discus.


----------

