Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)

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SaraB said:
Pretty much a good summary other than I've never been to Midwest Coral Farm. I did see Old Orchard had a 24hr power outage from the storms over the weekend and lost the majority of their livestock ... why a store would not have back-up power is beyone me. My favorite on the list to visit is Old Towne in the city, but that may be too far out of your way. It can be pricey, but it's a great looking shop with a matching selection!

I think a better suggestion is that I pay for your gas to drive to my house in the western suburbs so that you can tell me how to fix everything that has gone wrong with my system recently. I'm always learning from your posts here even though I can't seem to catch up to the quick movement in the page count of this thread! Right now I'm removing the CA reactor media from my frag tank since it's most likely a phosphate sink and also the 9" DSB from my refugium. Thanks for all the information you share here, I'm finding it valuable to my system as well!
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If you buy me enough gas to get to Wisconsin Dells, you gotta deal. I'll bring you back some cheese :)
 
Rizup said:
I prefer ShoTank over the rest for various reasons. Midwest Coral Farm is the newest store in the area and is ok. I haven't been as impressed the last few times I went in there and it has been a while but they were still under construction last I knew. SeaSchor is alright, but I have never found anything I really liked there. They have been remodeling though, so maybe things have changed recently. LivingSea has a good selection of fish and the coral selection has been better recently it seemed, but I haven't bought anything here either. The two times I have been to Old Orchard aquarium have been plenty. No need to go there again. There are a few other places that I frequent, but they are most likely farther of a drive for you. I have only been to Old Towne in the city the one time, but it seemed like a nice (and pricey) shop.

Hope this helps a little bit.
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Thanks for the honest report. Shotank is on the top of my list already.
 
From what I hear Midwest Coral Farms would be worth it as well. I haven't been there myself, but have met the manager and her husbanda few times. They run another reef forum, and are very respected in the local reefing community. And if the store is anything like their basement set up (which could rival some LFS's) then I don't think you could go wrong.
 
I have been really impressed with Midwest Coral in Osceola Indiana. I have not been to their facility but have dealt with them at two fragswaps in the past few months and been more than impressed.

I am pretty sure they are directly on your route from Toronto to Chicago.

Their website indicates that they don't have a retail storefront but says to call if you'd like to come by.

While you're in this neck of the woods, swing down to Indianapolis and I'll bake you a fresh loaf of bread and take you to Premium Aquatics. Next time I'm visiting my sister down by lakeshore in Toronto, you can show me around the reef shops :).
 
Brief Update

Brief Update

First up, for those who are checking in for progress pics, I promise we will deliver as soon as we can. I have been waiting for the second CL system and I have been told it is in transit.....apparently it's in Chicago and will take until the end of the week to get here. Frankly I can't believe this stuff takes so long to get. I'm glad I'm getting the second chiller because I would be at serious risk if there was a component failure in the system with that kind of lead time requirement.

Meanwhile final painting is being done in the storage areas. This allows me to move the ro/di units into place with the two 220 gal water storage units on Thursday. Next, I have to get 30 buckets of Reef Crystal salt and begin preparing the salt water for the mars bars and main display tank. I'm also going to review Mr. Wilsons lengthy list and develop a strategy to get the stuff.
I also need to know what the shelf life is of the perishable items and the availability. I need to develop some sort of criteria to use to choose the controller or I will never make a decision.

Peter
 
nineball said:
First up, for those who are checking in for progress pics, I promise we will deliver as soon as we can. I have been waiting for the second CL system and I have been told it is in transit.....apparently it's in Chicago and will take until the end of the week to get here. Frankly I can't believe this stuff takes so long to get. I'm glad I'm getting the second chiller because I would be at serious risk if there was a component failure in the system with that kind of lead time requirement.

Meanwhile final painting is being done in the storage areas. This allows me to move the ro/di units into place with the two 220 gal water storage units on Thursday. Next, I have to get 30 buckets of Reef Crystal salt and begin preparing the salt water for the mars bars and main display tank. I'm also going to review Mr. Wilsons lengthy list and develop a strategy to get the stuff.
I also need to know what the shelf life is of the perishable items and the availability. I need to develop some sort of criteria to use to choose the controller or I will never make a decision.

Peter
Click to expand...

Do you want me to bring the chiller back from Chicago with me?

You bring up a good point; Certain vital pieces of equipment like chillers and pumps may take days if not weeks to get to you so you should keep some spares on hand. You can track down a comparable pump but there's nothing like a perfect match in the plumbing department.

You bring up another good point; antibiotics can have a short shelf life, especially if you buy them from a source that doesn't sell a lot of them. You can get by with just neomycin and save the rest for emergency. Mardel makes Neomycin. Seachem also sells it as Neoplex. It should be good for a few years.

The non-antibiotic meds likely have a longer shelf life. Formalin is an exception to this rule.

If you buy antibiotic in small packs of 8 caps from an LFS or online retailer, they will cost $1.00 per capsule. If you buy them through a larger distributor or vet they will be $0.10 each. That adds up when you are treating large volumes one capsule per 10 gallons of water three times.

Most of the chemicals and oxidizers/disinfectants last virtually forever.

Keep a running list of what you need on your Ipad. A spare (full) Co2 tank and things like that will come to you as you get set-up.
 
Banff said:
I have been really impressed with Midwest Coral in Osceola Indiana. I have not been to their facility but have dealt with them at two fragswaps in the past few months and been more than impressed.

I am pretty sure they are directly on your route from Toronto to Chicago.

Their website indicates that they don't have a retail storefront but says to call if you'd like to come by.

While you're in this neck of the woods, swing down to Indianapolis and I'll bake you a fresh loaf of bread and take you to Premium Aquatics. Next time I'm visiting my sister down by lakeshore in Toronto, you can show me around the reef shops :).
Click to expand...

Hey, as long as he's doing that, let's swing down to Inland Aquatics in Terre Haute. I've been wanting to go see their setup. Premium Aquatics is pretty good for the middle of Indiana but I here Inland is really good. A different operation though so that is to be expected. I got a bunch of my stuff from Premium the other day. I never heard of the place in Osceola but since I'm headed to Michigan in a few weeks........

Let's do the tour, Premium Aquatics, Inland Aquatics and dinner downtown....

-Scott
 
Peter,
Please for all of us, go right now and take a picture of any random piece of equipment and post it here. Try and do this once per day (or per page), and everyone will be very happy. We are visual creatures. We don't care what, just POST MORE PICTURES!

Thanks!
 
Thank's for your project thread Peter !
I read all the pages and i'm confused with a lot of Mr.Wilson reply (i'm french canadian and english reading is not easy) but i understand much more informations for helping my reef experience.

* Question for Mr.Wilson : You talk in another thread for disinfecting corals with potassium permanganate. Do you have the dillution ratio for that ?

Sebastien
 
Peter, I just started reading this thread and it amazing how many people are following this. I am now hooked on waiting to see how this project turns out.

I have been an active hobbyist with salt for over 25 years and one thing I learned is everyone needs help with something. I had a slightly cloudy tank for almost a year before I figured out the problem. In most cases, someone doing anything for 25 years would know almost everything. With salt water, I found I know enough to keep things alive long enough to enjoy them.

That being said have you decided on the light system that you are getting? I didn't see much in the thread on what you had chosen. I have a 150 gallon tank with (3) halogen lights on it and I need to upgrade. It is old and I told myself when the next bulb died I would replace it. My 1st bulb just blew last night. Any assistance from the group would be appreciated.

As a side note for you, when do decide to get fish, especially with the size tank you have, you will find that certain fish will be stars in your tank. By that I mean, you will only see them once in a while and when you do, it is like a celebrity sighting. I once had a Christmas goby that came out every Thursday when I fed. His name was Bob and he did this for almost two years.

Thanks


Chris
 
Wow just got through this thread after a couple days of reading. Incredible build! Great to see the community share so much knowledge and help out. Can't wait for more.
 
Russter said:
Peter. hope you didn't get too shook up by the earthquake today.
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I'll tell ya, the houses and buildings really shook here in Ottawa. It was only a 5.5 and the epicentre was about 60km away. For us northerners, it was a significant event. For the guys living in Cali, you probably wouldn't have even noticed it.

First thing I did was phone home to get my wife to check on the tank (all was well)
 
Didn't feel a thing down here in SWO. Must have only affected people up in Shield country. Windows broken in Ottawa. All rail traffic suspended between TO and Montreal until they can assess any effect the shaking might have had on the roadbeds. That'll screw up a few people's evening! :eek2:

Dave.M
 
A few of the local reefers reported pretty heavy wave action in their tanks and one guy said that he lost about 5G of water over the top.
 
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