J. Charles Delbeek

In this regular column I answer questions dealing with reef systems and their inhabitants, the combination of which we commonly refer to as miniature reef aquariums. I also try to provide you with the latest information about the animals we keep, the technology we use keep them, and the many different ways we can maintain these systems over the long run. But now, the editor has asked me to tell you a little bit about myself.

I began keeping marine fish when I was 10 years old. My father introduced me to the aquarium hobby much earlier, but it was not until I was 10 that we started to keep marine organisms. I began to snorkel at the age of five, and by the time I was 12, with glass jar in hand, I was collecting baby angels, damsels and butterflyfish around the docks and rock jetties of the Florida Keys during my summer holidays.

I would keep them in a 5-gallon tank with an air-driven external filter containing some filter floss and activated carbon. The tank was bare bottomed, but I would add small live rocks and clumps of Halimeda algae. I could keep the fish like this for weeks with only small freshwater top-offs. At the end of my vacation I would then either let them go or bring them back home with me.

When I turned 14 I enrolled in the only SCUBA course in Toronto that would take me at that age, and a whole new world opened up. I began taking underwater photographs at 16, and progressed slowly from those first efforts, which consisted of totally blue-colored shots with little specs in the distance that I insisted were fish during slide shows to my parents. Sitting there patiently, my mother would smile and nod, and always "Oohhh!" and "Ahhhh!" at the appropriate times. My father would just chuckle at all the inappropriate times!

I went on to study zoology at the University of Toronto, obtaining my undergraduate and graduate degrees, and a Bachelor's in education. After leaving university I taught high school science for eight years. In 1996 I decided on a bit of a change and applied — and was hired — for a position at the Waikiki Aquarium in Honolulu, Hawaii, where I am currently working as an aquarium biologist.

During the late 1980s I began to experiment with reef aquariums using live rock and corals as the basis of an ecosystem approach to aquarium keeping. After meeting George Smit — who popularized the mini-reef aquarium in this country — in 1986, he encouraged me to begin writing articles about what I was doing and what I had learned. This has led to more than 40 articles in various aquarium magazines over the last 10 years, including an eight-part series in AFI beginning in early 1989. In 1991, my friend and fellow reefkeeper, Julian Sprung, and I began to work on our first book together. With the skills of our friend and partner, Daniel Ramiriez, we published volume one of The Reef Aquarium in 1994. We are currently completing work on the second volume.