Justin Sullivan's Salt Water Aquarium

I've always had a fondness for things that live in the water. In the past I've mostly kept goldfish, although we did have a (sad) family tropical tank when I was a kid. In 1997 I became enthused with fish-keeping again and so far it's been pretty good.

Some pictures of my salt water aquarium are available below. I also have a separate Marine Images Gallery that is well worth a look if you like marine life.

There are times when it's hard to keep track of water conditions etc but basically it's been pretty low maintenance and very rewarding to watch.

"Hardware" setup

My current salt water tank hardware setup is as follows:

5' glass tank (300 litres / 80 gal) with a pine base and hood
3' + 2' Aqua Glo lights
Eheim 2227 wet-dry canister filter
Coralife marine salt in dechlorinated Sydney tap water (good enough to bottle and all that...)

Current inhabitants

Hook mouthed clown fish (Premnas biaculeatus). The show piece of the tank, for now at least. About 10 cms in length and very striking in its colouration. Fun to watch, especially at night when the room is dark and the tank still light for an hour or two after sunset. He likes hiding in various rock caves in the tank, with one particular favourite spot, for much of the day.

Yellow and black horizontally striped fish, approx 5 cms in length, identified as "Stripey". Identified by someone else as a "butter fish". Scientific name is Microcanthus strigatus. Don't know a whole lot about them but it has grown reasonably quickly and is starting to look more attractive at this larger size.

Two silver torpedo fish, very much top of the tank swimmers, although they sometimes venture down further in search of food if none's on offer up top. Probably baby mullet but I'm not 100% sure. These have grown very quickly, from about 1.5 cms each when they were caught to about 8 cms now, about six months later.

"Bluey", a Blue Devil Damsel. Sometimes shy but does get out a fair bit too. The blue stripes are quite fluorescent under the tank lights.

Past inhabitants

Past inhabitants include:

Big Silver Drummer, almost 30 cms in length. Had a bit of a hard time get ting him to eat at first. He seemed happy to eat small bits of bread (approx 1 to 2 cms) and peeled prawns. Decided he was a bit too big for the tank and probably happier thrashing around rocks on stormy nights so I put him back in the harbour after about 10 days.
A handful of baby prawns. I think sadly one of the fish ate these as they disappeared without a trace at one point, although they had been in the tank for some time and growing well. Quick to investigate (and clean up) all sorts of floating matter and food scraps that roll along the bottom of the tank.
Some marine plants, which did particularly poorly. First, I tried Dead Man's Fingers which seemed to go alright for a week or so but then soon became limp and darker green and over several weeks broke up into pieces. Secondly, Neptune's Necklace, which I'd heard was easier to keep but this in fact did considerably worse and was all but gone within one or two weeks. If anyone has any successfully growing marine plants please let me in on the secret!

Some algae tips - I'm no expert, but since someone asked...