Introduction

Let me introduce myself. My name is Slobodan Lazarevic, for most of local fish keepers and close friends of mine better known as Laza. I'm from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia (former republic of Yugoslavia, SE Europe). I'm a member of several fish keeping web portals word-wide under the nickname Octopus or OctopusBG .

I've been deeply involved in marine fish keeping for about last 20 years. Besides, I have been keeping plenty of freshwater fishes and planted tanks for many many years.

Decision made by your admin team to take my reef tanks into consideration and to announce it as a tank of the month November/December 2007 is highly appreciated and personally, it's a great honor. My personal satisfaction is even a bigger having in mind the fact that we have no any available LFS capable to offer any tropical fishes or corals in our local market and that I live so far away from tropical seas ( SE Europe). Therefore, I was forced to be in touch with a lot of fish keepers from neighboring countries as well as with fish keepers from Germany, Holland and even Singapore, in order to find needed marine organisms I intended to breed in my tank and to find the easiest way to be supplied with them. According to the above-mentioned, it is needless to say that I have started to collect corals for my reef tanks a long time ago.

I would like to thank to all my friends worldwide that make me able to rise and continuously enlarge my coral collection. Of course, I would specially like to thank to your citizen and my dear friend TK. Also I want to thank my good friend form Belgrade, Black is his nick name, who help me a lot with coral and equipment supply.

Ever since I was a child, my parents have had aquarium so my first footsteps had been made by the aquariums and their inhabitants. Love for the living beings under the water surface has been shown to me by my parents, who are BTW veterinarians. Thanks to that and my wish to know as much as possible about those living beings, I have decided to attend Biology at University of Belgrade. As I've already said, I was involved in marine fish keeping long time ago but I am still glad when I recall my first steps in this hobby. I am quite sure that I will never forget my first successes as well as a certain disappointments that each of us simply have to face soon or a latter. It is hard to explain my excitement every single time I was waiting to be supplied with some particular fish, coral, equipment or even related book.

Today, fish keeping is my business, my hobby and still my obsession. Apart from the above - mentioned reef keeping, I am also a breeder of freshwater fishes and aquascaper as well.

I have a plenty of tanks, but today I will try my best to represent you something that is for sure the dearest thing to me. As you know, that is my Reef System, my dream...

The most of my tanks are located in separate space which my wife has named Laza's Green House. My plan for future is to make in that space some kind of Reef Center, where all Serbian marine fish keepers will occasionally meet each other and exchange their experiences. In light of that, few years ago, I have established one of the most respectable fish keeping Web Site in Serbia, www.akvaristika.org.yu (unfortunately, web portal in Serbian language only).

Tank Information

As shown on the first few picks, as you can see, there are actually two tanks that are placed that way to make “L” shape. First tank has been started about year ago and its size is 200 by 55 by 50 cm. The other one was formed 6 months ago, in May 2007. Both tanks are connected to same sump (150 by 40 by 40cm). Also, there is a separate tank as a refugium (180 by 40 by 30cm) as well as a tank specially for coral frags. The last mentioned tank with coral frags is located behind sump and therefore, it is practically impossible to take a shot of that one.

Total water capacity of whole system is approximately 350G.

Lighting:

First tank:

2xAquaconect LUMIMASTER 4x80W dimmbar, 8 x T5 lamp = 640 W (2x aquascience blue, 4x aquascience special, 2 x aquascience duo

Second tank :

Arcadia 3 series (3 x 150 W MH 14000 K) 4 x T5 80W aqua science blue and aqua science duo)

IMO, high quality lighting is one of the most important things in reef keeping. Over the years in past, I have used various lighting but have to emphasize that I am more than satisfied with the lighting that is currently in use as it provides excellent growth and color of corals.

Photo period

Moonlights: 21.00 ON - 4:00 OF
Refugium: 22 :00 ON - 8:00 OF

Filtration

My previous (many years ago) reef tanks utilized a deep sand bed or trickle for filtration and nutrient processing. But I wasn’t satisfied with that system. In my new system filtration is arranged with 200 kg live rock (Fuji, Tonga) and Bubble King 250 internal DeLuxe in sump + ozonizer (Sander)
This is big and very good skimmer. IMO, efficient skimming is also very important.

Sump:

In sump is calcium reactor Deltec PF 601 Regulated with Tunze pH CO2 controller set and Tunze CO2 bottle 5 kg
Also Fluidized reactor is placed in the sump. In reactor are 1000 g Rowaphos and 1 kg Grotech active karbon. carbon removed monthly.

During the summer season , Temperature is controlled by Aquamedic Titan 1500 and Tunze temperature controller set and IKS aquastar Bassisistem (triple control) In winter I turn ON 4 x 300-watt heaters also on a controller.

Returned pump: first tank 3x 2500l Red dragon, second tank 2 x 3000 l Tunze Master.

I replace all of my top-off water with kalkwasser. Kalkwasser dosing daily with Deltec KM 500 Kalkwasser Stirrer and Tunze osmolator 3155

UV filtration is provided by De bary aqua UV 25 watt.UV filtration is swished on 24/7.

Circulation
Excellent circulation is important for my tank for two reasons: assuring that the detritus remained suspended in order to travel to the sump for removal via vacuum or skimmer and coral health. My circulation is provided with Turbelle stream Kit TS 48 ( 4 x Turbelle stream 6100 /12000 l/h with multicontroller 7095) + 2 x Turbele nanostream 6055 (for frag tank)

I change 5% of the water every 5 days with saltwater created from the six-stage-RO/DI unit. I use Tropic Marin Pro-Reef salt and Aquamedic reef salt.

Feeding:

I have the Plancton reactor ”Phytobreder 2” Grotech and I dose 500 ml live phytoplankton ( Nannochloropsis aculata, Phaeodactylum tricornutum ) every day except Saturday with Grotech Phytocontrol. Two days in a week I feed my corals and other invertebrates with Brine Shrimp nauply and Oyster Eggs. My fishes are fed with different frozen and flake food daily.

Supplements

With Grotech TEC III + II, it is easy to precisely dose nutritions for corals on a daily bases which provides presence of all important and necessary elements for growth. I used Grotech A,B, C and M additives while ago. As I have already mentioned, it is very difficult to find all needed things regarding the coral nutrients ( there isn’t any specialize marine shop). That’s why I was forced to learn how to make those solutions ... almost everything I add in tanks. I quite sure that my compounds in my mix isn’t much different than ones which Grotech or some other big company sell. Recently, I also add Fauna marin ultraorganic and Fauna marin ultraclam.

Monitoring and testing

IKS aquastar Bassi system (pH modul,redox modul, temperaturemodul, Schaltsteckdosienlieste and IKS Aquastar SMS absolute control help me in monitoring and maintain. .
I have also installed:
Tunze redox controller set 7075/2 (controlling Ozon)
TunzeTunze temperature controller set
Tunze Conductivity meter
Tunze water level alarm

Calibration of all instruments on a monthly bases.

Water parameters

Water parameters testing on a weekly bases.

Test kits: Lammote, Salifert, Tropic Marin, Merck , Elos

This is parameters in my system:

Specific Gravity: 1.026 (refractometer atago, Tunze Conductivity meter, IKS aqua star )

Ca 420 - 430 mg/l (Tropic Marin, Salifert)
Mg 1350 - 1400 mg/l (Salifert, Elos)
PO4 0.00 mg/l (Merck, Tropic Marin)

NO3 5 mg/l (Tropic Marin, Elos)
KH 7- 8 (Tropic Marin)
redox 350 – 400 (IKS aqua star)
pH night 7,9-8.0... day 8.2 – 8.3
temperature 26 – 27 ° C

Livestock fish

Plans for future... Acanthurus lineatus, Acanthurus leucosternon, Macropharyngodon wrasse, Yellow Wrasse...
Pair of Chrysiptera hemicyanea, Green chromis, Manndarins and two pair Ocelaris clown, spawning in my tank (many times).

Invertebrates

Corals

In my reef system live around 90 species of LPS, SPS, Soft corals, Mushrooms and Zoantids. That's why is very hard named all of them and not forget something. The most of species are from Acropora genus, aproximatelly 30 species and varieties. Fortunatelly, my tanks are big enough so it's possibile to keep distance for some more agresive species.

Of all the corals I have, my favorites are the Montipora, Acropora, Stylophora, and Pocillopora species.

Growth

All my corals are growing very fast. But my champion is Australian monti (Montipora hoffmeisteri) In this moment its length is about 30 cm and width its 20 cm. It could be bigger but I've made a lot of frags for my friends.

I'he got this red Montipora around one year. It's also growing very fast. Many montiporas in my tanks are its babies.

Finally, I would like to thank you all again, having in mind that my reef tank has been selected to be the tank of the month. I consider this as a great success, great honor and finally great opportunity to make my tanks much more attractive in future.

However, I consider all aspects about possibility to finally open a first Reef Shop in Serbia. Your decision to select my reef tank just convinced me that I'm moving in a right direction and somehow, I will try to give all my efforts unless I open that kind of specialized shop for reef keepers. I assume it would be the most appropriate and probably the easiest way to approach this beautiful hobby to many hobbyists in Serbia.

 Best regards, a lot of success and all the best in future to all reef keepers.

OCTOPUS from Belgrade