I have been interested in fi sh
from a very early age indeed I
can remember going fi shing at
every opportunity just to get
out in the fresh air by a lake
and to watch the wildlife. It
was a natural progression then
that I would have ponds in the
garden in later life. Around
2010 my sons were keeping
marines and they encouraged
me to go on visits to LFSs on
a regular basis. They were
struggling with getting decent
lighting and one asked me
to make him some LED lights
as I had been an Electronics
Engineer and always enjoyed
making things. After several
attempts, I eventually had
a couple of units up-and-
running but sadly no tank
of my own to test them on.
As such, I jumped for an ND
Aquatics 30’’ cube in 2013
then, one thing led to another
and before long I was hooked.
At this stage though, I didn’t
know much about water
quality and livestock, so my
‘journey’ began and after
some success, I progressed to
the next level with an upgrade.
In 2015, I purchased my
current tank from a reef-
keeper in Wigan as he could
not complete his project.
The system hadn’t even had
livestock in it but the cabinet/
sump needed fi nishing
as it only had 2 sections.
Once readied structurally, it
took several months to get
the Aquaroche rockscape
completed and initially I had
the metal halides and T5s
which came with the tank.
These produced a brilliant
light but it was hard to get
the control I wanted and I
also had heat issues. As a
result, I went down the LED
route which is a long story
with units either failing or not
living up to expectation...
and plenty of reefers warning
“you won’t grow SPS with
LEDs”. As already said, I have
an electronics background
and had already built LED
units for my fi rst tank, so I did
have some experience as to
the limitations, and I’d already
achieved some success. I have
had my fair share of issues
with equipment failures which
set me back with coral and
fi sh loses in the early days,
so I persevered with lots of
reading around. I do have
a reasonable knowledge in
freshwater aquaria and have
kept Japanese koi for 35 years
(which I still have and are now
jumbo size!).
My main aim when choosing
equipment was to make it
as easy as possible for me
to maintain water quality
parameters without dosing
as, although I think I am good
at the husbandry routines, I
am still learning the chemistry
side. So, the fi rst thing was to
select a quality salt and, as
I had used Tropic Marin Bio
Activ in my fi rst tank with no
issues, I thought ‘why change?’
The rest of the equipment
included a calcium reactor
which again I had used one
previously (a Schuran pico
controlled with an Aquamedic
computer and pH probe).
This had worked well albeit
with a lot of checking and
testing, so this time I went
with a Dastaco and the bucket
of media that came in the
package. I have had several
issues thinking this was just
a ‘plug and play’ solution
with the main problem being
the poor availability of spare
parts at short notice. Again
lessons were hard learned
here with stock losses so I
defi nitely adopted a ‘boy
scout approach’ keeping
back-up stocks of all critical
equipment. I am now using
Triton media in the Dastaco
for the fi rst time and it’s been
running for approximately 4
weeks ‘so far so good’. I found
that other brands dissolved
66 http://www.ultramarinemagazine.co.uk
