FEATURED AQUARIUM

Owner: Carlos Borges
Location: Miami, Florida

CARLOS BORGES

Tank setup

My setup is very simple. It is a modified Berlin system. A 125-gallon tank is the display tank. I have about 200 pounds of very high quality live rock from the Marshall Islands, Tonga, Fiji and Florida. I hand picked all pieces. I have a mix of about 3-inches of Florida Key’s live sand and Carib Sea reef sand on the bottom, and no plenum.

The tank also has a refugium that flows freely by gravity to the main tank. I have tested different kinds of refugia during my almost 20 years in this hobby, and find that the ones situated above the main tank work better. This allows the water to return from the refugium tank without a pump, which preserves much more plankton than pump-driven returns. In this refugium I grow different kinds of corals, critters and macroalgae.

As for the macroalgae, I have found that refugia that do not contain Caulerpa work better. Caulerpa release lots of terpenoids, which are not good for corals. In my refugium I grow mostly calcareous algae. Halimeda is the one I prefer. To illuminate the refugium I use a single metal halide 175-watt 5500 Kelvin (K) bulb. The amount of different life-forms that this refugium adds to my tank is unbelievable.

CARLOS BORGES

Filtration

In my overflow I use a bag of HydroCarbon from Two Little Fishes, which is changed every two weeks. My skimmer is an ETS 800 that is driven by a Gen-X pump. Another Gen-X pump returns water to the display tank from my 29-gallon sump, and the return is divided into two outlets. The refugium is fed by a RIO 2100 from the sump, and drains freely to the main tank. All this equipment is situated in the fish room that is located behind my tank.

Additional Water Circulation

For extra circulation, I have two RIO 600s and two Hagen 401s inside the tank. There is also a RIO 2100 in the back of the tank that moves water in the back of the tank to provide good back water movement and to keep detritus in suspension. I think I have a sufficient amount of water circulation inside my tank.

I do one extra thing to remove detritus, which I think is a good idea to share: I have a Hagen 802 in the sump, attached to a timer. About every 20 minutes, daily, this pump is activated. This keeps my sump clean by keeping detritus in suspension until it is removed by the filter feeders and my skimmer. The pH, redox potential and lights are controlled by an Octopus 2000 controller.

Lighting

The display tank is illuminated by two Iwasaki 250-watt 6500 K bulbs, two German 175-watt 10,000 K bulbs, and two URI 160-watt very high output actinic bulbs. Of all the combinations I have tested, this one is giving me the best results. I provide my corals with about 12 hours of light per day. The lights are controlled by an Octopus 2000 controller.

Additives

This tank runs with a Knop Calcium Reactor, model C. The substrate I use in the reactor is working very well for me. It’s called Super Calc Gold. Of all calcium substrates I tested, I find this one the best. This, together with kalkwasser, keeps the calcium at 450 milligrams per liter (mg/L), the daytime pH at 8.45, and the alkalinity at 3.2 milliequivalents per liter (mEq/L). I dose kalkwasser from Warner Marine in all makeup water, which amounts to about 2˝ gallons per day. The kalkwasser is dosed continuously with an Aquatune pump. Other additives I dose are potassium iodide and strontium (from Warner), Sera Marinivit and Thiel’s Vital Gold.

All these additives are dosed everyday. Sometimes I dose molybdenum as well, and add Epsom salts to replace depleted magnesium.

Water Chemistry

All the nitrogenous waste is below the detection level of my test kits.
Orthophosphate = 0.01 mg/L
Alkalinity = 3.2 mEq/L
pH = it ranges from 8.45 during the day to 8.2 at night. (Note: The refugium is illuminated when the display tank lights are off. This helps maintain a relatively stable pH.)

CARLOS BORGES

Tank Inhabitants

Fish

Right now the tank houses one yellow tang (Zebrasoma flavescens), one purple tang (Zebrasoma xanthurum), one sailfin tang (Zebrasoma veliferum), one powder blue tang (Acanthurus leucosternon), five green chromis (Chromis viridis), one blue damsel (Chrysiptera cyanea), one yellowtail damsel (Pomacentrus trichorous) and one percula clownfish (Amphiprion percula). The fish are fed a variety of foods everyday. All food is enhanced with Selcon for added vitamins.

Corals

There are too many corals in this reef to list. They vary from soft corals to small-polyped scleractinian corals, clams and so on. I have more than 50 corals well positioned in my reef. I feel that this is one of the most important factors in reefkeeping today — coral placement. A great number of reefkeepers today don’t know how to position corals correctly, which leads to dead corals and poor polyp expansion, as well as growth and health problems. Coral aggression, light intensity and water movement are also extremely important for a successful reef aquarium.

Other Invertebrates

I have a collection of cleaner shrimps, brittle stars, sea cucumbers and so on.

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