An insight into Ger's reef

(not to sure if he's a member, i think he is still pending to be one.)



I first met Ger whilst buying some live rock off him. At the time I was unaware of the tank that he harbours. When I arrived at his house to collect the live rock I first laid eyes upon his tank.
This tank is exactly up my alley- stocked with soft coral 's and fish; now its down to personal preference but i'm a much larger fan of softies to hard corals, as I find them alot more therapeutic and calming to watch.

The tank itself is very impressive with 10ft of lenght and iirc 30" depth. The equipment list is most impresive and Ger's attention to detail is second to none.
I was very impressed with his wiring and ingenious use of an immersion timer for his lighting.


The working end of his reef housed a Deltec AP701 skimmer, which being a tech geek, I instantly fell in love with the sheer size of it, also it is very very quiet and pulled an impressive amount of, lets say, "protein" from the water. This was followed by a Deltec FR501 phos reactor and some cheato in there to give a helping hand.






This was all pumped back up with an Ocean Runner 6500 through Ger's very neat and well thought out plumbing .
His lighting system consist's of a T5 54w x4, Tmc Aquaray 600 ultra LEDS reef blue x6 and the white and blue x 2 to give perfect optimal lighting-and it shows, with his very impressive and healthy coral collection.

Ger's live stock was quite large and very healthy looking. They all seemed to get on very well together, all ate and there was no fighting; nor did any look stressed at all- sure why would you when provided with this much room and healty diet?



Ger feeds his fish with brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, spirulwa flake, some nori algae, topped off with seafood mix- prawn, mussel, squid rings all diced and left soaking in garlic.
What more could you want?!

Now it was still bright out and there was a shine on the tank which made it rather hard to take pictures of his fish and I was really pushed for time, so unfortunately I only got a few pics of them. Here's a list of his stock and whatever photos i have of them:


Lipstick Naso Tang


Mimic Tang


Orange Shoulder Tang


Clown Tang


Blue Throat Trigger


Black Onyx Clowns x 2


Jewel Blenny


Yellow Tang's x 4

And the ones that managed to stay away.
Blue Spoted Naso Tang
Purple Tang x 2
Regal Tang
Dussimeri Tang
Comet Betta
Gold Spotted Rabbitfish
Foxface Rabbitfish
Yellow watchmen Goby
Convinct Worm Goby
Yellow Headed Sleeper Goby
Flame Angel
Potters Angel
Coral Beauty
Black & White Ocellaris CLowns x 2
Six live Wrasse x 2
Blue Streak Cleaner Wrasse
Ghost Cardinal x 4
Pasama Cardinal
Purple Firefish

Now, I can't remember names of the corals, so I'll let the pictures do the talking:

























This is my favorite picture taken on the day.


Ger's enthusiasm, knowledge, charisma and sheer passion towards his fish and coral become very apparent through the quality of everything within his reef, and I can honestly say, Ger, that your tank is a credit to you and keep up the great work.



The man behind it all:

wow, some fantastic shots there and wat a tank, them corals are amazing

well done, thats a very well put together post. it is a very impressive set up and the fish etc. look very healthy and well cared for.
imo that is the only way (commitment and large tank with good equipment) to properly keep marine fish successfully for any lenght of time.

Yep; have seen the tank few times now; pictures dont do it much justice; i.e. that naso/lipstick tang is almost a foot in lengh to put it in perspective. Very majestic looking!

Thanks KDAK for giving a quick run through too on the specs.

Excellent post and what a tank. Great stuff KDAK, try and get Ger to join up!

Jay

wow that tank is amazing.
Maybe some day i can have such a beautiful setup as that

Thats some tank, great! And the photographs are stunning, especially like the coral close-ups!

Melander

That is just outstanding - something for us all to aspire to.

Thanks for posting the pics!

This is my baby

That's spectacular, thanks for sharing.
L

She's A Beauty Ger looks the business!



Mark

Thats one special tank you have there Ger,stunning )))

Ger

That is a stunning tank, could you give us some details about the filtration as your water quality must be second to none

i must say well done ....

u think this is nice wait and yas see his new project ill let him tell yas him self but all i can say is just watch out for it

sean

cant wait to see the pics

Thanks for the comments Tank is ran through an external skimmer that is gravity fed from the weir boxes and then flows into a filter sock which is in the first chamber in the sump. Seven chambers in total in the sump. Carbon in a sock in the second chamber and then a two foot chamber which i grow chaeto in and water flows over this. All other chambers have live rock and then a phosphate reactor in the second last been fed into the return pump chamber.
Nothing fancy just basic filteration.