What is the longest lasting reef tank you've seen?

[kazzoo]

Along the same lines as another post, how long has the most established tank you've seen/had been going, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, or longer? If it is an old tank (10+ yrs for example), what was it's condition? What did it look like? How big is it? How different is it from when it was first set up? Has the owner modified it in any way or have they/you simply been doing routine maintenance? What have been the secrets to their/your success?

Just curious.

 

[Litoria]

The oldest tank in my personal experience is my 10 gallon microreef. I set this tank up in 1991 to try out keeping a small reef aquarium. Orginally, the tank was set up with an ordinary HO powerfilter. Lighting was 2-15" NO bulbs. In 1994 a plenum was added along with a skilter. Lighting was upgraded to 2-28w PC bulbs. In 1998 the skilter was replaced with CPR backpack. In January, the backpack was replaced with a TF100. In addition, a small sump was added in January, along with a wavemaker and additional powerheads. This tank looks better every year that passes by. All the orginal live rock is still in the tank, nice and purple. The centerpiece of this aquarium is a pagoda cup coral that I lucked out on finding. Originally, in 1992, the coral was about 1/2" across with about 6 polyps and was attached to a huge piece of rock at the LFS. I broke it off and have had the piece ever since. It adds about 1/2" per year around and is now about 5 1/2". In addition to the pagoda cup, other "old" corals include a Pocillopora that started out as a frag and is now baseball sized, a colony of encrusting pumping anthelia, and a blastomussa. Although I have many other larger tanks, the 10 gallon is my favorite as it has done so well for so long.

 

[Anonymous]

There was an LFS in Tucson AZ called Saltwater Solutions owned by Roger Bull. The had an 800 gallon reef that had been set up since his store opened. I think by the time the store went under the reef had been around about 25 years. It was an awesome tank! 1500 pounds of live rock, no big fish, just tons of small ones. I believe he was the original importer of mexican turbo-grazers.

 

[DaveR]

I was reading some back issues of FAMA from the early 90s recently and saw the ads for Turbos from Algae Solutions. I was wondering what happened to them (I was out of the hobby from 1995-2000). Too bad -

Dave

 

[Anonymous]

Roger also opend the other "solutions" businesses, Reptile solutions and Coral Solutions. I think that may have led to the demise of his business. It went under in 1995.

He did a lot for this hobby in my opinon. He pushed live rock as a filter system starting over 20 years ago....

 

[bowfront]

Hi, my reef is 11 years old. I originally set it up in a 55g in 1990 and transferred everything to my present 72g in 1999. I still have the original Florida "wild", Fiji and Tonga LR mixture that I started with as well as some additional Fiji that I added when I moved into the bigger tank. I also still have my first ever piece of coral a toadstool leather, which has grown from the diameter of small orange to a small watermelon and now lives with over a dozen siblings of various sizes. My oldest stony is a torch, which I added about 8 years ago. I also have a red serpent star that I collected myself about 10 years ago. This guy once dropped all of his legs and somehow survived and rejuvenated. I used to dump a lot of chemicals into the tank (strontium, iodide, and magnesium). Now I just dose kalk and supplement it with ESV.
BTW the tank never looked better. My wife considers me a fanatic bordering on the lunatic fringe sometimes but she likes looking at the reef enough to allow me to continue.

 

[Anonymous]

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