Tell us about yourself: 

My name is Joe Clyde, I’m a retired (read: burnt out) 54 year old Air Traffic Controller with an incredibly understanding spouse, something much more important than lighting or skimming if you are going to succeed in this hobby. I was fortunate to be able to grow up on Whidbey Island north of Seattle, my career allowed me to live in other parts of the beautiful Pacific Northwest, but I am happy to have retired back on Whidbey outside of Langley, we have a beautiful view of the sound, islands and the Cascades. Brenda and I share our home with 4 dogs, 3 senile cats, and our 2 year old grand daughter who we will be raising. I’m already planning Amelia’s Nano.

How did you get involved in the saltwater hobby?

I set up my first FW tank in 1964 at the age of 10, my parents took my sister and I to any available pet store whenever we traveled, I was dazzled every time we went to a store that had salt water livestock, I dreamed of the day I would have a tank filled with blue damsels. Since my first tank I have never been without an aquarium for any length of time. In 1975 I vacationed in Hawaii and snorkeled in Hanama Bay on Oahu, that was the hook that fueled my interest in SW tanks, love them mixed metaphors... In 1977 I took the plunge and set up my first saltwater system, a 40 gallon plex tank I purchased at the Fish Store in the University District. I set it up with state of the art equipment, the undergravel filter featured 4 lift tubes, each tube had a dedicated Silent Giant air pump running it’s single airstone. I used crushed dolomite for the substrate due to its well known incredible buffering capacity. Lighting consisted of not just 2 but a total of 4 30 watt standard output fluorescent bulbs for a blazing 120 watts of light. An Eheim canister filter was employed to ensure that NH3 and NO2 were rapidly converted to Nitrates, frequent water changes kept my nitrate levels below 100 ppm. Foolish European ideas such as protein skimming were of course out of the question as I was well aware that skimming would rapidly deplete all essential trace elements dooming the animals in my charge. I was very interested in the variety of invertebrate life available; my set up was basically a primitive reef system. At this time no one had any concern about raping the reefs in Florida, I was able to order a box of sea mat and LR direct from a collector in the keys and inoculate my tank with a variety of life. To this day one of my passionate loves of this hobby is enjoying the sudden appearance of new unexpected life in a system.

Tell us about your tank 

I started working on the design of my system 16 months ago, tank, sump & fuge were crafted out of acrylic by my friend Jason Gregory, owner of Clear Fabrications of North Bend, the hood and stand skin are brushed stainless and were built by Kessler Construction of Tacoma, Randy Harp has designed and installed a lifting system for my hood that simply has to be seen to believe, and Eric Dustin of Veralte Aquatics has and is assisting in the design, installation and maintenance of my system. Here's a brief synopsis of my setup:

1000 gal system by Clear Fabrications: 600 gal tank w/ 250 gal sump/fuge & 150 gal RBTA Fuge. 600: Iwaki 70 sump return, Iwaki 55 w/1 HP Tradewind Chiller, 3 Sequence Hammerhead pumps, each with an Oceans Motions 4-way powering 12 closed loop outlets. Bubble King 300 Internal Skimmer, Precision Marine 622 Ca++ Reactor. 4 x 400w MH, 4 Icecap Ballasts, Luminarc Mini Reflectors, 6 x 140w VHO actinics, 2 Icecap 660 ballasts, 6 Icecap 4" variable speed fans, ReefKeeper 2 Controller.

The 250 gallon sump/fuge is located directly under the tank, Built into the sump is a 55 gal DSB Cheato fuge illuminated by 2 x 96w power compacts, I'm exporting 5 pounds of chaeto per month. A second fuge chamber has about 25 gallons of volume, it is totally packed with coral rubble and is not illuminated, so I guess it is cryptic.

150 Fuge: Geissemann 3 x 250 MH HQI, Iwaki 40 return, 2 Sequence Reeflo Snapper Gold pumps, each powering a Wavysea Plus closed loop return (150 fuge is the last phase of this project, it will be installed and running in approximately 1 month).

My current Fish Population:

1 Azfur Angel
1 Coral Beauty Angel1
1 Golden Angel
2 Flame Angels
2 Lemonpeel Angels
2 Potters Angels
1 Lawn Mower Blenny
1 Longnose Butterfly
1 Copperband Butterfly
2 Maroon Clownfish
1 Ocellaris Clownfish
2 Yellowtail Damsels
1 Kupang Damsel
1 Black Spot Foxface
1 Yellow Clown Goby
2 Pink/Blue Spot Watchman Gobys
3 Firefish Gobies
4 Geometric Pygmy Hawkfish
1 Naso Tang
1 Vlamingi Tang
1 Purple Tang
2 Yellow Tangs
3 Hepatus Tangs
1 Powder Blue Tang
1 Kole Tang
5 Blue Flasher Wrasses
1 Exquisite Fairy Wrasse
1 Whipfin Fairy Wrasse
1 African Cleaner Wrasse
1 Sixline Wrasse

I’ve got 30 or 40 assorted sps frags going, over 100 assorted Ricordea polyps (once I hit 1000 I’ll start passing them around), assorted snails, and a few oddball softies and LPS. None of those little delinquent hermit crabs allowed…..

How did you become involved with Reef Frontiers? 

I used to believe that the internet was the world’s largest bathroom wall. Then I got involved with PSAS, I kept hearing nothing but good things about RF, I checked it out, I wish I would have found it sooner. I love the strong regional presence, I’ve made a numbers of friends here and I have found this site to be a wealth of information thanks to the members and staff and their willingness to help their fellow reefers.

What is your reef keeping philosophy? 

I believe that our hobby will survive only because of the efforts we are all making to enhance captive propagation. I do not think that reefkeeping related collecting leads to decimation of reefs, I think our impact is insignificant compared to destruction of reefs for road building materials, global warming, toxic chemicals, etc., in fact I believe our overall impact is positive with the education and awareness we promote regarding our planets fragile reefs. Never the less, our reefs our declining, we will inevitably see more and more restrictions and prohibitions, Anthony Calfo’s “Book of Coral Propagation” is my bible.

What is your dream tank? 

If my current system is thriving 10 years from now it will be my dream tank.

Do you have any advice for others? 

Plan your system to provide optimal skimming, lighting & flow for your pets, if your budget won’t allow you to do this just downsize to something you can afford to go first class on. As my friend Eric says, “Bigger isn’t necessarily better”, although I can’t be 100% sure that he is referring to reef tanks…..