Tropical Fish Hobbyist - October 2010

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Iggy Tavares photographs by the author Thomas Siodmok, a Conservation-Minded Reef Aquarist

Thomas Siodmok’s coral reef aquarium.

Thomas Siodmok from Duisburg in Germany had been keeping freshwater fish for a very long time when, some five years ago, he decided he wanted something much more challenging and decided to move to marine fishkeeping.

In those days, he did not possess a computer or even have access to the Internet, which in some ways made gathering information about marines a little difficult. He had to resort to the good old-fashioned method of reading books. He was lucky enough to come across the six-volume set of The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium by Svein A. Fosså and Alf Jacob Nilsen (Birgit Schmettkamp Verlag, 1996), which he highly recommends.

The Setup

Having read the books, Thomas decided
to design his first large marine aquarium
himself, as in those days there were no
other marine hobbyists he knew in his
area that he could call upon for help.
He made some drawings to scale for his
approximately 250-gallon, 200 x 60 x
70-cm ( 75 x 25 x 30-inch) aquarium
and its sump and gave them to a glazier
for production. The cabinet for the large
aquarium was also designed by Thomas,
but he, being a good craftsman, actually
built this himself.

Adding Livestock

In the beginning there was a very strong growth of algae, which worried Thomas as he tried to figure out what he was doing wrong and what he should do to counteract this problem. From the books, he learned that some species of surgeonfish are fairly robust and can be introduced to marine tanks for the purpose of controlling algae. He found that worked as a solution to his problem.

When it came to first corals, there were no half measures here, as Thomas’ selection included hard corals such as a mushroom coral Herpolitha limax, a trumpet coral Caulastrea curvata, brain coral Cynarina deshayesiana, and a net coral Alveopora tizardi, while first soft corals were a finger leather coral Lobophytum sp. and Kenya tree coral Capnella imbricata. All these corals, apart from the net coral, are thriving in his show tank today.