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Several years ago, Aquarium Design Professionals took over the care of this 380 gallon residential coral reef aquarium in Northfield, IL. The aquarium was incorporated into the design of the home pre-construction. Unfortunately, there were numerous flaws in the design that made it difficult to achieve the level of success and aesthetic quality the client had hoped for.
After taking over the management and maintenance of this residential coral reef aquarium, we performed an initial rehabilitation and redesign of the system. We rebuilt the rock structure, replaced the entire aquarium life-support system, and corrected other issues that were preventing corals from surviving and thriving. Those improvements were very successful in terms of creating a healthy ecosystem, and corals, fish, and invertebrates flourished.
However, some of those initial design flaws continued to cause problems, and we had a difficult time creating an aquarium display that was not cluttered and unstable. The decision to completely redesign the aquarium was made, with the goal of opening the space within the aquarium while creating permanent structures that would allow for stable structures for coral to grow on. The following shows our process for rehabilitating a coral reef aquarium.
The initial phase of an aquarium rehabilitation involves the planning of the new design, establishing a system to care for the animals and materials in the aquarium, and then draining and emptying the aquarium. Once the water, fish, corals, invertebrates, and live rock are removed, all remaining sand and detritus is removed and disposed of. The aquarium is now ready for interior rehabilitation and creating live rock structures.
The most significant design issue in terms of impacting the display is that there is a black acrylic wrap-around that surrounds a support for the home. The reason that is is problematic is because it adds a visually intrusive bottom-to-top black box in a critical viewing area of the aqaurium.
Prior to the redesign, this black box was concealed by piling up live rock pieces. However, due to the height of the aquarium, this structure needed to be very bulky in order to stay in place. Even then, despite cementing rocks in place, the structure was still unstable. The rock structure would sometimes collapse as animals moved between and under the rocks, injuring coral and scratching the acrylic.
Before working on rock structures, we used aquarium-safe blue epoxy paint to replace the unsightly black background, which creates more of a ‘marine’ look as blue light is reflected off the panels. Then, we buffed the many scratches out of the acrylic viewing panels to make the tank look new again.
The solution to this was to construct a permanent structure out of actual live rock. This structure would create a low-profile but dramatic vertical rock wall, with several shelves for corals to grow upon, and for fish to utilize as habitat. This structure’s low profile allowed for ample room between the rock structure and the viewing panels.
Once the live rock structure covering the acrylic box was cemented in place and secured, the remaining rock structures would be added and cemented together where permanent structures are desired. Finally, the aquarium is filled with water and prepped for animals.
Once the aquarium has been restored, the structures within the aquarium have been built in and cemented, the sand has been added, and the aquarium has been filled with water, it is time to reconnect the life-support system.
To be safe, we run the system for 24 hours before adding the livestock back into the tank. While a renovation such as this one has very little biological and ecological impact to the system, it is still best to allow particulate to settle or be filtered out, and to allow for solution equalization.
At this point, fish, corals, and other invertebrates are added back into the aquarium. To promote high diversity, a substantial amount of the overgrown Sinularia coral was removed, and replaced by numerous species aqua-cultured coral fragments and anemones to help us reduce our impact on wild coral reefs. While it might not initially look as full as it was before the restoration began, the coral quickly grows and fills in the available space. Within a year, the reef has regrown.
