700 gallon tank, or how i spent my daughters inheritance

[Reefski's]

i need to get a humidistat. i know we have a lot of marine influence here. the temps here are always 10-20 degrees cooler and moister that just a couple more miles inland.

tank low is about 80 and that is where i have my temp set also which is not needing additional heating now. heaters are not needed now.

temp regulation is just me turning the fans on and off as needed.

i hope to eventually have a Reefkeeper Elite controller.

i believe most people keep their tanks at too low of a temp. there is much research indicating optimal calcification and growth of corals occurs in the low 80's and a natural daily fluctuation of a few degrees is not bad.

it does take them a while to adapt to the higher temps though. i have had a couple of corals bleach which came from hobbiest tanks that i know were several degrees cooler and probably not much fluctuation.

i think of it kind of like us and the sun. if you are slowly acclimated to being out in the sun you get a tan. if you go out for too long you burn up.

i have turned the fans on now. i will eventually have it all on a controller. i think i will be able to not have a chiller and just use fans. the sump/garage will also have a few hundred gallons of water and will have some lighting eventually over the frag tank seen above. this will be on a reverse photoperiod cycle and maybe some on 24/7 over macroalgae, phytoplankton, et al.

 

[boviac]

Very cool. Yes, temperatures - shemptures. If you can grow corals and they are healthy good for you, I say! I know I've heard but not confirmed that around the high 70s is the best for concentration of dissolved oxygen and DO decreases somewhat significantly with increases in tempurature. Again though, I don't know if that's the reason for lower temps. I too have read that Rea Sea temps can get up to 84! and daily local temp fluctuations are shocking to those that have a 0.5 temp band swing.

I honestly, use my Aquacontroller to vary the tanks temperature not only daily but throughout the season by setting a monthly tempurater and the AC is supposed to interpolate between the months as the days progress. I only limit the high tempurature in the summer. Summer I take the glass lids off the tank and let the fans for the lights assist in evap. cooling. I've also the aforementioned fan that's on at 81.5 and off at 81. It usually comes on on really hot days or for a while after the lights (and their fans) shut off. I have the Chiller come on at 82 and off at 81. That's about the hottest I like to see my tank. At 82.2 the first set of lights go out and 82.3 the second set of lights (and fans) go out. They come back on once tank temps recover and its still within their scheduled time to be on.

In the winter it can get down to an average temp of 76 with a 75.5 low. In the summer I bump up the average temp to 80. So for the most part I let the tank drift daily between the controller's average temp with the heater for lows and simply limit the hottest it will get. Have I mentioned that I love my controller?

I've two ranco single stage controllers sitting in my garage. Another tank (no controller) I have had a cooling fan as well but thought I was smart when I put it on a timer. All this talk and yesterday I finally realized I could use a $100 controller to cycle on/off my $7 fan. At least I'm putting one of them to use.

Ok if you've got your tank at 80 then that makes sense.

So I think I misunderstand. In the photo above it showes a half door and to the right behind the dog and woman, a tank that goes to the ceiling. That isn't the 700g tank, right? What is it? And you said any 'other' tanks. Just curious, how many do you have in operation right now?

 

[Reefski's]

the tank you see in the doorway IS the 700 gallon. the other side is in the living room and only 18" off the floor. earlier in the thread you can see the other side.

The dog is Bryson and the woman is my wife Pam.

the other tanks are outside in the sun, (three) and in the casita, (three). you can see them here. not counting the empty ones, hmmm... about ten plus the four tomato bins that will be sumps.
http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic89011-9-1.aspx in this discussion or earlier in this thread as well.

i'm glad the discussion got you to use your controller.

my tank is 84 right now. i don't know the O2 saturation and how much less it is at 79 vs 84 but it is definitely less. i think it can be more problematic at night but how much greenery do we really have in our tanks producing O2 during the day.

i have wondered about O2 saturation and if running a skimmer helps much or the overflows could be supplemented with just running an air pump in the system especially at night. or is O2 at saturation most of the time?

Carl

 

[Reefski's]

ok, maybe this is not the best place to start this discussion and i should just start a new thread. it is about skimmer placement et al.

i have thought about this a lot and just don't know. Help!

sump tanks will have about two times the water volume of the display tank.

i plan to use the tomato bins, (four) and the two 18" deep 250 gallon tanks in the garage as the sump area. you can see them above. so total water in the sump will be up to twice that of the display tank. the 250 gallon tanks will eventually have corals in them and be lit but that is probably a ways off. for now only a dsb in the 250 gallon tanks.

i plan to section them off to create raceways for good water flow.

i also have up to four 75 gallon tanks i can plumb into the system as needed. one could just be for the skimmer. one or two in a closet above the tank to be an above tank refugium.

ok now my questions.

phytoplankton surge-one 75 gallon i want to drip display tank water into, feed daily with phyto food, bubble air, and have a surge type over flow that would only cycle once a day or so into the tank return. do you think that would work? others have told me it would not grow phyto, contamination, etc. it would be open to the tank for sure but isolated from critters. or maybe brine shrimp hatchery.

should the skimmer be first or last, just before return to the display or somewhere in the middle? i know usually with a small sump you want it first. however i am going to have sand and LR in almost all of these tanks. i also plan to have a turf tank and macroalgae tank. should they be first in the series? then the skimmer then through the rest of the sump?

all the tanks will have a DSB and LR too. the LR will be on a post system to make pillars for the water to flow by.

also where to put the other equipment? Kalk reactor, Calcium Reactor, probes, pH, temp, heater. first or last?

with so much potential nitrification and denitrification areas, and nutrient export areas i am tempted to just run skimmerless but i do have a spiffy new skimmer. a MR-C4848.

i could make an argument for either end of the system for the skimmer or no skimmer at all with the other export mechanisms. am i better served by putting that 300 watts that the skimmer would use into lights over a space for more macroalgae or use both?

what is the skimmer removing that none of the other mechanism isn't? how much life that would feed the tank will be removed?

i want to feed as much refugium life back to the tank as possible while keeping nutrients low, feeding the fish as much as they want including an eventual school of Anthias.

i hope this isn't too redundant. i am confused!!

 

[jnarowe]

I allow my tank to swing between 76.5F and 83F depending on the weather.

You may be a bit over-confident regarding the tomato bins. I know they are stout, but that's a lot of weight bearing down on them.

The phyto tank will probably be a ticking time bomb. I can just se it going nuclear. There are devices made that you can get or build to create a fluid feeder of phyto, rotifers, etc. but personally I wouldn't do it. Wit hthe kind of reef you are building you will have plenty of edibles in teh water column anyway.

I would have my overflow going through floss and into the first bin. The skimmer can be gravity fed or fed from the first bin whether internal or external. I would have all probes mounted in this first bin too to avoid false readings.

I would make the next bin nothing but a remote DSB. If you are going to do a fuge, I would make that the third bin with rock pillars and NO sand. And this is where I would have reactor effluent entering the system. I would mount them above this bin so that if they fail, they won't drain the system.

Then I would have the last bin as the outbound sump with nothing in it but your float switches, return pump plumbing, and water change plumbing.

The life that grows in the fuge will have no problem geting into your system through a large return pump.

 

[JCTewks]

I was thinking of a nice long answer...but jonathan pretty much summed up what I was going to say

 

[JJ4417]

What is the argument against putting the fuge up top? I like the idea and was thinking the same. And the DSB by itself? Is that to change it out easier?

 

[JCTewks]

I think that putting one or tw0 of the 75's up top a good idea...IIWM, I would do one gravity fuge with crushed coral and LR, and one with sugar fine sand (2") and cheato....that way you get al of the small and large microfauna that will colonizwe different substrates!

 

[mhurley]

bump

 

[Reefski's]

i got some new toys. made by Marc Levenson, Melev. they are fantastic. i am using one or more every day to take pictures, (still need to improve a lot) and look in the tank from the top without turning off the pumps to position corals, inject Aiptasia with HCl or whatever i need to do.

here are a few tank shots taken yesterday about 2pm on a partly sunny/ hazy type day. Par levels were about 1100-1200 in the brightest spots and a foot away may have only been 4-500 hundred, and in the shadier areas only 100.

 

[Reefski's]

i can't wait to set up the sump area which will let me increase the flow by a few thousand gallons more and hour.

this is how the one coral looks near to the OM.

 

[Reefski's]

i got final sign off on the house and now i can start the next phase. the sumps.

these are going to hold the live rock in the sumps.

getting the sumps set up.

 

[Jojoyojimbi]

tagging along for this dream tank

 

[jgs107]

where did you get the sumps from.that looks like a lot of water volume.any reason for this.i know its easier to keep the levels more stable but talk about added maintenence money.

 

[Reefski's]

i got them from a lfs moving to smaller quarters. great deal. the more space for LR and sand the better for filtration and growing stuff to feed the tank, pods etc.

the more i can feed the fish in the main system. the more fish i can have in the main system.

why do you think more $$$?

 

[qwuintus]

Do you let locals visit... That house is awesome!

 

[Reefski's]

thank you, visits are welcome, esp MASLAC.org members

we had the club meeting here last weekend, BBQ, Adam Blundell was our wonderful speaker. there were about 50 like minded people here talking reefing.

 

[jgs107]

i only think more money due to the cost of calcium,salt,just additives.good idea for the filtration

 

[96p993]

No need to repeat what so many others have said about this thread but I will say well done on your patience! I have had several tanks in my time, though none this large, and I must say with experience comes patience, with patience comes a happy system and happy owner. You really have set the bar higher on doing it right and slow....getting it right by doing your homework will save you a ton of heartache in the long run......

Well Done!!!!

 

[Reefski's]

thank you.

i believe patience is rewarded, and very hard to maintain. i think i may have gone a bit too fast putting Acros in the tank.

i have lost a few Acros to RTN i put in the tank and yet others are doing great.

after all i have no sump, etc. true, there is a small tank in the closet next to the tank that feeds the skimmer and where i maintain the water level but there is no calcium reactor, Kalk reactor, macro algae, refugium, and more LR and LS for nutrient export.

as you saw above that is all changing now. today i completed the freshwater test of the sumps.

tomorrow or tuesday i will be filling with NSW and put dead sand in. i do have some LR in other tanks to use. not enough for all my sumps but enough to get started.

then wait a few more months for the sand to mature. i think another year and the system will really be mature.

i still have a bit more rock to put in the tank to hide the close loop returns too!

on another note- there were a few Aiptasia that made their way into the tank. about a week ago i injected them with Muriatic acid aka hydrochloric acid. they fizzed and disappeared and have not returned yet.

i just did the final Aiptasia today. it was just under the mantle of a clam so i was a bit nervous about injecting it. i am not sure i got it all yet but the clam seems fine so far. it did retract the mantle while i was working. the Aiptasia was right at the top of the shell and the clam was/is firmly attached to the rock it is on and i do not want to remove it for an out of tank treatment.

i am looking farward to increasing the circulation in the tank with the returns from the sumps. a Sequence Dart and Hammerhead.

Carl