700 gallon tank, or how i spent my daughters inheritance
- Thread starter Reefski's
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GoBigOrGoHome
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Ski, I realize that you're an intelligent guy, and you may have heard of this already, but just thought i'd show everyone. Be very careful when applying heat to rocks if you are unsure what is inhabiting them. If nothing else, it's an interesting read: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1083843&highlight=boiled+zoos
salty joe
Active member
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13896410#post13896410
Wow!, that palytoxin is bad news. Just in case there's interest, it looks like a lot of pests can be electrocuted.
Wow!, that palytoxin is bad news. Just in case there's interest, it looks like a lot of pests can be electrocuted.
Reefski's
Active member
i appreciate the warning. i will be careful with the torch.
i had a wonderful trip to hawaii. didn't do much for a week. yeah!
got in some snorkeling. we couldn't snorkel the first few days as the surf was big and the visibility was only a foot or two.
i was once again struck by the huge variability of the light on the reef. cloudy days, big surf causing very little visibility and consequently low light lasting for days.
also, the amount of water movement can never be duplicated in our tanks. when we finally got in the water just the normal surge would move us several feet in a second or two.
we also visited the Waikiki Aquarium the last day and it is magnificent. if you get to Hawaii check it out.
we love Hawaii. i would consider living there but you can't have corals, only fish. my friends i was with said so what you can go diving or snorkeling. not the same, just not the same.
we saw lots of fish but the corals were only four species of stony corals.
Carl
i had a wonderful trip to hawaii. didn't do much for a week. yeah!
got in some snorkeling. we couldn't snorkel the first few days as the surf was big and the visibility was only a foot or two.
i was once again struck by the huge variability of the light on the reef. cloudy days, big surf causing very little visibility and consequently low light lasting for days.
also, the amount of water movement can never be duplicated in our tanks. when we finally got in the water just the normal surge would move us several feet in a second or two.
we also visited the Waikiki Aquarium the last day and it is magnificent. if you get to Hawaii check it out.
we love Hawaii. i would consider living there but you can't have corals, only fish. my friends i was with said so what you can go diving or snorkeling. not the same, just not the same.
we saw lots of fish but the corals were only four species of stony corals.
Carl
GoBigOrGoHome
New member
So, what about, like "hitchhikers" from live rock? Or can't you have that either?
Reefski's
Active member
i don't know what the LR situation is. if you can even have LR.
does anyone out there know?
the Waikiki Aquarium is still wonderful. i was told they just did a major pruning about a week before we got there, reducing the size of several corals by 75% or more.
this aquarium was part of the inspiration for my skylight over my tank.
it was a rainy day when we were there. the light from the halides is provided by 4 400 watt and 3 1000 watt lamps.
does anyone out there know?
the Waikiki Aquarium is still wonderful. i was told they just did a major pruning about a week before we got there, reducing the size of several corals by 75% or more.
this aquarium was part of the inspiration for my skylight over my tank.
it was a rainy day when we were there. the light from the halides is provided by 4 400 watt and 3 1000 watt lamps.
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Reefski's
Active member
there was a group of HumaHuma Triggers right outside the auquarium. there were some tourists there feeding them saltine crackers. i wanted to say something but my wife said don't start something. Happy wife, Happy life.
they looked like they ate a lot more junk food than the fish and i doubt they would have listened to my rant about only food of marine origin.
they have a nice blue Acro.
there are two surge tanks above the tank in front opposite corners that go off every few minutes releasing i think 300 gallons in a few seconds.
this shot below is when they both fired at the same time creating quite the surge.
another tank.
GoBigOrGoHome
New member
Hmm, I wonder what kind of loss they get from hose halides by having them angled at the water. I imagine they lose close to half of their light from reflection off the surface at the extreme angle. If not, though, its something I'd like to try on my new monster build. My previous post was the 666th in this thread..... I wonder if that has some kind of significance for me....
That blue acro is very cool. Did you ask them for a frag? :lol:
That blue acro is very cool. Did you ask them for a frag? :lol:
Reefski's
Active member
i don't believe in numerology. you will be fine. the lights are mostly cosmetic, most of the light is sunlight. the 1000 watt lights are at least three feet off the water and the tank is five or six feet deep.
no corals in or out of Hawaii for hobbyists. most of the frags were already sent to other public aquariums i was told.
Carl
no corals in or out of Hawaii for hobbyists. most of the frags were already sent to other public aquariums i was told.
Carl
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eeorrandy
New member
Hey Carl,
I had a long, really well written and eloquent post to you the other day and as I submitted it... it disappeared
so I guess I'll have to settle for this shortened version.Have you ever measured the PAR around these anemones? I have had trouble maintaining the beautiful, bright color that they showed in your tanks. I have an apogee PAR meter on order to help in making some lighting adjustments.. but would like to get an idea of a target value if possible.
Your system is incredible Carl, keep up the good work.
Gary says Hi to your lovely wife and the "kids"
Reefski's
Active member
Randy-
weird, i got an email that you had posted but it wasn't there. anyway, nice to hear from you.
i measured the PAR in the tank that the anemones were in but not sure the values but i i think they were in the 300 PAR range but don't remember for sure.
i can tell you that the lighting was two 250 watt 10K bulbs and one 150 watt 14k bulb about 4-5 " off the water.
now they are in the garage sump area in only 10" of water and they are not on the bottom. they are under a 250 watt 14k on a light rail. i have tried to put them in the middle of the path. the PAR values go from 100-600 over a couple of minutes as the light moves on the rail. they still have the same color.
what kind of filtration do you have? feeding regime?
what color is yours now? have you split it? i have not been feeding mine much directly for a while now.
i have to move some of my stuff around later this week so i can break down the aiptasia tank on the patio and bring that live rock, etc into the garage. the 1000 watt heater i have out there is not keeping the temp at 80. i am afraid to measure it now, esp today with the rain and cold nights.
say hi to the family for us. tell Gary Bryson misses him. he is lying on the floor right next to me as i type this.
Carl
weird, i got an email that you had posted but it wasn't there. anyway, nice to hear from you.
i measured the PAR in the tank that the anemones were in but not sure the values but i i think they were in the 300 PAR range but don't remember for sure.
i can tell you that the lighting was two 250 watt 10K bulbs and one 150 watt 14k bulb about 4-5 " off the water.
now they are in the garage sump area in only 10" of water and they are not on the bottom. they are under a 250 watt 14k on a light rail. i have tried to put them in the middle of the path. the PAR values go from 100-600 over a couple of minutes as the light moves on the rail. they still have the same color.
what kind of filtration do you have? feeding regime?
what color is yours now? have you split it? i have not been feeding mine much directly for a while now.
i have to move some of my stuff around later this week so i can break down the aiptasia tank on the patio and bring that live rock, etc into the garage. the 1000 watt heater i have out there is not keeping the temp at 80. i am afraid to measure it now, esp today with the rain and cold nights.
say hi to the family for us. tell Gary Bryson misses him. he is lying on the floor right next to me as i type this.
Carl
yukonblizzard
New member
Amazing build:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
I got a question for you Reefski, in the second picture down from your trip to the Wikiki Aquarium do you know if those metal halides are the same they use in warehouses? Kinda of a dumb question, but I was thinking of building a reef with these.
I got a question for you Reefski, in the second picture down from your trip to the Wikiki Aquarium do you know if those metal halides are the same they use in warehouses? Kinda of a dumb question, but I was thinking of building a reef with these.
stunreefer
Reef Hugger
I'm in the same boat... A home without a reef is just a house. I visited a few friends down there and they have some awesome fish, but the rest of the tank looks sooo bare.
You can have LR, I'm not sure how they regulate hitchikers. I presume they try to remove any coral structure though... with that said I did see some coral in (hobbyist) tanks down there, however as mentioned it IS illegal. The couple people I saw who had them were pretty non-chalant about the whole thing and just said, "Well I intend to not have any cops in my house!" I wouldn't care to live stressed all the time because of my coral though... its supposed to help alleviate stress! Plus its illegal for ceratin reasons; With most of us it would be OK to have corals down there, but you'd still get the occasional newbie managing to introduce some foreign coral or pest into nature which could devastate the reefs.
eeorrandy
New member
Carl,
Thanks for the numbers... it helps a lot to get a target.
I don't want to get too far off-topic on your thread, but I have seven clones of that one and about seven or eight others in the system right now.
I've cut most of them although I did get a natural split from one. The color varies a bit between the seven based on where they hang out around the tank. I've had a couple of setbacks over the last year that slowed the whole process down. Last spring I had a pretty good temp spike when we had a sudden temp change and I wasn't ready with a portable A/C unit. That happened at the same time I was experimenting with some different calcium and mag supplements. (bulk stuff I was able to get locally) The corals (I have a few temporarily in the tank.. Monti's, zenia, nepthia, favites and an acro) were fine and weren't fazed by the spike or the supplements, but anemones all bleached very rapidly. I wasn't sure whether it was the temp spike or the supplements that caused the problem so I stopped the supplements did large water changes and stabilized the temps. It took several months, but the nems were coloring back up when I decided to try the supplements again... thinking it was probably the temps that caused the problem the first time.... wrong.
So now they have been coming back again, (supplements now come from BRS) but the color is more orange than that nice hot pink color.. and much duller.
I'm using 400 watt xm's in lumenarc III reflectors as before. but I switched over to 20k bulbs and lowered as much as possible while still getting coverage... They are still a good 12 inches off the water though and I think the PAR must have been pretty low, so I am changing to the 10K bulbs.. and after slowly acclimating the tank to them I hope to increase the PAR substantially. I am using magnetic ballasts or I might have been tempted to try radiums.
Filtration is done by 2 - 100 gallon sumps with about two hundred pounds of LR and a RDSB ala Calfo with two hundred pounds of aragonite sand. I also have a 20 gallon cheato refugium on reverse light cycle and a large dual recirc octopus skimmer. I run carbon and GFO 24/7. Phos. is undetectable with an elos kit and nitrates stay at 5 ppm. Calcium at 420ppm and Alk at 9.6 dKH. Mag at 1300 ppm. I run the lights about 10 hours normally. Lots of flow with a hammerhead return through about 10 outlets on a header.
I don't know... I have fish in the tank as well but do you think the nutrients are too low for anemones.. I wouldn't think so but maybe. The corals, sps, lps and soft all seem to do well in there and the cheato grows well. I scrape the sides of the tank about every two weeks and I get turf growing on the drain screens so I don't think it's too sterile.
If anything sounds out of whack let me know.. By the way I would love to see an overall diagram of your system.. It's getting pretty sophisticated. I love the algea scrubber... I'd like to see if I can incorporate something like that into my tanks as well.
Randy
Thanks for the numbers... it helps a lot to get a target.
I don't want to get too far off-topic on your thread, but I have seven clones of that one and about seven or eight others in the system right now.
I've cut most of them although I did get a natural split from one. The color varies a bit between the seven based on where they hang out around the tank. I've had a couple of setbacks over the last year that slowed the whole process down. Last spring I had a pretty good temp spike when we had a sudden temp change and I wasn't ready with a portable A/C unit. That happened at the same time I was experimenting with some different calcium and mag supplements. (bulk stuff I was able to get locally) The corals (I have a few temporarily in the tank.. Monti's, zenia, nepthia, favites and an acro) were fine and weren't fazed by the spike or the supplements, but anemones all bleached very rapidly. I wasn't sure whether it was the temp spike or the supplements that caused the problem so I stopped the supplements did large water changes and stabilized the temps. It took several months, but the nems were coloring back up when I decided to try the supplements again... thinking it was probably the temps that caused the problem the first time.... wrong.
So now they have been coming back again, (supplements now come from BRS) but the color is more orange than that nice hot pink color.. and much duller.
I'm using 400 watt xm's in lumenarc III reflectors as before. but I switched over to 20k bulbs and lowered as much as possible while still getting coverage... They are still a good 12 inches off the water though and I think the PAR must have been pretty low, so I am changing to the 10K bulbs.. and after slowly acclimating the tank to them I hope to increase the PAR substantially. I am using magnetic ballasts or I might have been tempted to try radiums.
Filtration is done by 2 - 100 gallon sumps with about two hundred pounds of LR and a RDSB ala Calfo with two hundred pounds of aragonite sand. I also have a 20 gallon cheato refugium on reverse light cycle and a large dual recirc octopus skimmer. I run carbon and GFO 24/7. Phos. is undetectable with an elos kit and nitrates stay at 5 ppm. Calcium at 420ppm and Alk at 9.6 dKH. Mag at 1300 ppm. I run the lights about 10 hours normally. Lots of flow with a hammerhead return through about 10 outlets on a header.
I don't know... I have fish in the tank as well but do you think the nutrients are too low for anemones.. I wouldn't think so but maybe. The corals, sps, lps and soft all seem to do well in there and the cheato grows well. I scrape the sides of the tank about every two weeks and I get turf growing on the drain screens so I don't think it's too sterile.
If anything sounds out of whack let me know.. By the way I would love to see an overall diagram of your system.. It's getting pretty sophisticated. I love the algea scrubber... I'd like to see if I can incorporate something like that into my tanks as well.
Randy
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