Tell us about yourself: 

I am a faculty member at the University of Washington (Civil Engineering), but in addition to saltwater aquariums, my real interests are woodworking, wine tasting, and hat collecting.

How did you get involved in the saltwater hobby?

When we got married (1985), we honeymooned in the British Virgin Islands.  We enjoyed the snorkeling so much that we decided to have our own saltwater tank.  It took until Fall of 1999 before we finally bought the equipment, and until Spring of 2000 before we got everything set up and water in the tank.

Tell us about your tank 

The system is a custom, 100-gallon acrylic tank (24”x48”x20” deep), plus an acrylic sump with about 20 gallons at normal water level.  Lighting is two 175-w MH’s and four 110-w VHO’s.  The tank started as a mixed reef, but is migrating toward a lagoon biotope.  The original sandbed was 2” crushed coral, and this has gradually evolved (with cleaning-related siphoning plus new sand additions) to 3” mostly sugar-sized aragonite.  The feature coral is a 12-inch wide pink alveopora that has been in the tank almost seven years now.

The tank is fairly high-nutrient and under-skimmed.  Inhabitants (corals, two long-spine urchins, two yellow-tail blue damsels, a sixline wrasse and a lawnmower blennie) exist primarily on algae and critters, etc. fed by nutrients still coming out of the sandbed from overfeeding during first two years the tank was set up.  Absolutely no food of any type has been put into the tank for the past four months, and before that I was feeding once every month or two.

How did you become involved with Reef Frontiers? 

I found out about the Puget Sound Aquarium Society (PSAS) from another board, and my son and I attended a meeting a number of years ago at some guy named Chuck’s apartment (way north of Seattle).  We liked the people, liked the discussions, and got on the PSAS mailing list so I could get information about future meetings.  When that Chuck guy (as well as at least one other person who was at the first PSAS meeting I attended) started Reef Frontiers, I received an e-mail from him announcing the new reef-oriented board.  Given the great impression I had of the people starting the board, I visited and have been on the board ever since.

What is your reef keeping philosophy? 

Don’t rush and try to force your tank.  Instead, let your tank evolve into what it wants to be (based on the conditions you have established in the tank).  You will kill fewer corals that way.

What is your dream tank? 

I dream of creating a biotope in a 300- to 400-gallon tank appropriate for an H. magnifica anemone.  I would include a school of clownfish, and little else.

Do you have any advice for others? 

Patience.