The following are various shots of the system over the last 18months from construction to present day.

01/10.01                                                            11/11/01

21/03/02                                                      06/09/02

22/12/02                                                                  5/01/03

20/02/03

(above) Most of the base rock is in place apart from the far right hand side, plus some of my retrieved corals. These will be placed in their final positions once the finishing rock is in place. And a further inch of fine sand is added.

06/03/03

As you will notice. I now have a bit more live rock in the tank, with a good proportion of the reef structure now built up. The only sections still outstanding are the far right hand end that needs building up a little more (you can see the exposed egg crate in the photo on the right), and then the final section of the reef column on the left, of which there is about 10" remaining until it sits just below the water level. The sand bed in the tank has also had another inch or so added on top of the original layer, and has been well mixed to ensure a good spread of diversity. There is still about 1" to go until this sand layer reaches level with the top of the egg crate islands, but already the features are starting to look more natural rather than appearing as though the live rock were on pedestals, as they do in the previous shots.

11/04/03

As you will notice. Things are coming along nicely now, with the tank showing a more settled appearance. This also shows in the fact that several of the coral frags are now settled to the degree that they are spreading at the bases and are starting to increase the size of the branches. Running without cover lenses on the lights has shown its effect in the branching Acro' colony that is central in the bottom right picture as this previously brown colony has taken on blue/purple colouration at the tips.

Well,,,,,,,,Its now June the 8th and all is going exceedingly well. As you will notice from the shots above, The Acro's are growing rampant, and the tank has taken on a good growth of coralline algae. The shorter of the two main Acro colonies has really colour'd up lately, with a glorious blue/pink sheen to the top of the branches. surprisingly, this is not just at the tips but along the entire top part of the branches that get the most direct light. Parameters remain stable, although I have to admit a small discrepancy in Alkalinity of late, which was due to me overdosing slightly. It seems that my pH now stays above 8.2- 8.3 24/7 due to my permanently lit sump. Consequently I have to be careful when dosing Kalkwasser as not to push the pH up so high that the addition of further Kalkwasser, starts pulling 'down' my Alk instead of raising it. All is well now though, with a stable reading of 420ppm Ca and a dKH of around 8.3 with pH running between 8.2 in the morning to 8.4 in the evening just simply by cutting back a little on the Kalkwasser addition which is now at approximately 1ltr per night.

 'A MASSIVE 'thank you' must go to Simon Clarke who has donated nearly all my SPS frags of which there are now around 26 or so colonies   

See next page for a a July O4 update........