For the second installment of our Coral Morphologic Tank-of-the-Month, we’ve gone to the other side of the reef tank spectrum…the BIG side.

This beautiful reef tank is owned by Rudy Munis in Indiana. It measures a whopping 10 feet long by 2 feet tall and 30 inches wide for a total volume of 390 gallons. It is illuminated by sixteen 54 watt T5 fluorescent bulbs and four 110 watt VHO actinics.

This impressive mixed-species tank is the 6th incarnation of Rudy’s reef after 11 years in the hobby. He has had the system for the past 5 years, but about 9 months ago it was dismantled completely, in order to re-work the aquascape. An additional 200 pounds of live rock were added and his older, massive leather corals were sold off in order to make room for his newer collection of ricordea and other corallimorphs. Additionally, Rudy has been piecing together an attractive collection of zoanthids, SPS, Favia spp., Acanthastrea spp., and other LPS corals.

Depsite his collection of rare corals, Rudy is most proud of his Heliopora sp. (Blue Ridge Coral) that started off as a 2 inch frag over 10 years ago, and is now the size of a basketball. Truly impressive. He is also fond of a colony of brown Protopalythoa sp. button polyps that he has had since his earliest days as a reefer that has now grown into a towering 14 inch tall colony. Any captive coral as old as these grandads deserves utmost respect no matter how ‘ordinary’ the species may seem. It is obvious in Rudy’s aquascaping that these two colonies are displayed prominently, and provide a striking focal point amongst his other more gaudy corals.

These red Indo-Pacific Discosoma sp. corallimorphs are exceptionally fluorescent. The purple ones in the background are also a beautiful and seldomly encountered morph.

We’ll look forward to what this tank develops into over the next year or two. It is a great example of how a well-managed and arranged reef tank can host such a wide variety of animals in harmony, literally from Anthias to Xenia.