Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)

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Motaz said:
The team of such a great build,

I have been following from the start and I am so proud to say that I don't stop learning fro
Reading your posts, I don't think I can thank you or Mr. Wilson and every person in your team for documenting and spending their valueble time in passing their experience to the community and giving us such great opportunity to be educated with best practice.

Incredible is an understatement by all means.

Furthemore going through posts back and forth is a nightmare to look for information if need be to re imphesise any points needed to be so... Therefore I kindly ask you at a later stage when your full system is up and running to your perfection to creat a somehow list of procedure and equipment, sorry for my humble opinion.

Again speechless on your great team, update and efforts towards the community.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your kind words. The whole team appreciates your support. I understand your comment about how difficult it is to find something when you want to. This is a very long thread. We have had a number of conversations about how to make this information easier to find and use. My hope is that Mr. Wilson wil in fact write a book and use this build. Also this thread is very very long because I decided to share my learning curve with others who might want to start a build but were not sure they could do it. This meant that all the mistakes and silly questions would be as significant to the end product as were the good words of wisdom from Mr. Wilson. In the end I believe we will create a super summary of this experience without including all the things I did wrong along the way. Thank you again for your support, please feel free to comment freely on this tHread......you will always be welcome.

Peter
 
Last edited:
Today's update is all three mars bars are running. I'll let Peter update you on what we added today :)

I think I forgot to mention why the PVC plumbing in the tank has such eccentric curves. We wanted to keep the plumbing symmetrical to even out flow while maintaining a natural flow to the landscape. Some sections, like the corner 4-way, I call the anchor, were brought down to be almost flush with the sand substrate. This helped with blending it into the reef while bringing flow right down to the bottom. A few exit ports were extended out where we knew rock was going to be, but that's another story.

IMG_4738.jpg
 
We tested the PH today and it was 8.1. This confirms that the cement has not buffered the PH. I used about 40 KGS of cement so it's good to see the PH is still stable.
 
Great reference.....

Great reference.....

Last night I stumbled on a site that had just released a podcast that mentioned our thread as worth visiting because of the quality and amount of information being exchanged. Much to my surprise SaraB was a cohost of the program with Gary Parr and it was very well done. Apart from Sara's endorsement of our efforts to seek best practices, there were a number of excellent references of threads worth exploring. It's nice when someone from this community produces something this helpful to our hobby. Well done Gary and Sara..........

The site is called reefthreads dot com and I suggest listening to the podcast where we are mentioned because it is noteworthy due to the participation and contributions of everyone in our group. You might even send a note to Sara and or Gary to encourage them to keep up the great work.

Thanks,
Peter
 
Peter, earlier you had talked a bit about eventually setting up net cams. Since access to the net cams will require you to have a web site, I would like to suggest that the same web site would be a perfect place for you to put up plans, photos and synopsis of the running system.

I would love to see a book from Mr. Wilson. I have already pestered him quite a bit for explanations, but have refrained from asking all the things I would like to understand so that he can have a bit of time to work on your system. I think I would prove a very good editorial sounding board for such a book due to the depth of my ignorance and my limited capacity for comprehension. (hint, hint) :wink:

Dave.M
 
dave.m said:
Peter, earlier you had talked a bit about eventually setting up net cams. Since access to the net cams will require you to have a web site, I would like to suggest that the same web site would be a perfect place for you to put up plans, photos and synopsis of the running system.

I would love to see a book from Mr. Wilson. I have already pestered him quite a bit for explanations, but have refrained from asking all the things I would like to understand so that he can have a bit of time to work on your system. I think I would prove a very good editorial sounding board for such a book due to the depth of my ignorance and my limited capacity for comprehension. (hint, hint) :wink:

Dave.M
Click to expand...

Limited insight???Shallow depth perception??? Those would definitely be the qualities we would be looking for in an editorial review board Dave. Looks to me like you would definitely be a front runner for the job.

On another note you are right, I am looking into a web site for the web cam and content archive for the build. I would also emphasize that reef central will continue to be my main contact with the outside world as it is this community that makes all this stuff possible. I would never have undertaken this project without the support from this environment. This build is not and never has been about me. I would be embarrassed to admit how little I knew about simple content to this audience. But I do know what breeds success in these kinds of endevours and it is in building a community of expertise which I believe has been very successful in this thread. The best part however is that it is only the beginning and the next part of this journey will capture the prize for WOW.......assuming that is why we are all still here, for the WOW, right? Somewhere along the way we might even see a best practice or two.

Speaking of which.....earlier today I bought some fish from a local retailer (no names) to test out the mars bars for water quality etc. When I left the store I asked the clerk who looked after the fish what temperature and salt content had the fish been living in. He said, confidently, 78 F and 1.021. When I got back to the mars bars I decided to open my brand new water quality testing kit and verify the target water quality in the Mars bars. At the same time I decided to test the fish store water with some of the tests and........temp was 78.....(I live very close by the LFS). The other parameters were 1.003 salinity and 7.7PH and the salinity isn't a misprint of 1.030. I couldn't believe what I saw so I used two different measuring devices to verify what I was seeing. 1.003. These were clown fish so there's no possibility that there was any confusion with the fresh water fish in the store. I can't believe a mistake of that order of magnitude. You may recall I made a big deal earlier in the thread about getting no strong consensus about ideal salt content or even temperature ranges. I'm beginning to think that one of the few good things that I may be able to achieve with this large audience is a general agreement on a few basic principles that most of us in this hobby can rely on. 1.003 is just plain wrong.

I think the consumer should be entitled to see a daily update on the water parameters used in the care of fish and corals. This should be a minimum standard in this industry. No wonder I keep reading about disasters happening in tanks on this forum when even the basics are no better than a crap shoot.

Then I had to figure out how much of a shock the poor fish were going to take when I introduced them to the target environment. I took a couple of hours to 'introduce' the fish to their new environment and I hope they can adapt but I'm pretty sure where I am NOT going to buy any more fish in the future.

Pics to follow.......

Peter
 
Some people use hyposalinity as a prophylactic. The fish can be introduced to it slowly and kept there for a while, but many parasites can't tolerate it and die. I don't think it's right to sell fish in the middle of treatment, though. I would agree that this store would be setting many people up to fail if they weren't as careful as you are about testing.

Dave.M
 
Yup, I sent Peter out for a few test fish and he came back with freshwater fish :)

Hyposalinity treatments can be as low as 1.013 for a maximum duration of 10 days. Such treatments are to be reserved for cases of amlyoodinium only. Prophylactic treatments are in the 1.019 to 1.021 range way over what these fish were living in. I tested all 6 bags and it was basically freshwater; I could have drank it.

At a salinity (1.003) and PH of 7.7, copper is dramatically more toxic. PH shock is as much a problem as salinity changes. Coupled together it's a recipe for dissaster.
 
I've read before, I think from Mr. Wilson, that thorite cement was the choice for aquascaping...

comments on this vs the prior mentioned Emaco s88 ci marine cement?

I found a data sheet on the Emaco s88 ci marine cement, but it did not list cure time... Any help, thoughts or ideas?

I'm about to embark on the same task, and this last stage of this tank couldn't be more timely.

Tim
 
nineball said:
Speaking of which.....earlier today I bought some fish from a local retailer (no names) to test out the mars bars for water quality etc. When I left the store I asked the clerk who looked after the fish what temperature and salt content had the fish been living in. He said, confidently, 78 F and 1.021. When I got back to the mars bars I decided to open my brand new water quality testing kit and verify the target water quality in the Mars bars. At the same time I decided to test the fish store water with some of the tests and........temp was 78.....(I live very close by the LFS). The other parameters were 1.003 salinity and 7.7PH and the salinity isn't a misprint of 1.030. I couldn't believe what I saw so I used two different measuring devices to verify what I was seeing. 1.003. These were clown fish so there's no possibility that there was any confusion with the fresh water fish in the store. I can't believe a mistake of that order of magnitude. You may recall I made a big deal earlier in the thread about getting no strong consensus about ideal salt content or even temperature ranges. I'm beginning to think that one of the few good things that I may be able to achieve with this large audience is a general agreement on a few basic principles that most of us in this hobby can rely on. 1.003 is just plain wrong.

I think the consumer should be entitled to see a daily update on the water parameters used in the care of fish and corals. This should be a minimum standard in this industry. No wonder I keep reading about disasters happening in tanks on this forum when even the basics are no better than a crap shoot.

Then I had to figure out how much of a shock the poor fish were going to take when I introduced them to the target environment. I took a couple of hours to 'introduce' the fish to their new environment and I hope they can adapt but I'm pretty sure where I am NOT going to buy any more fish in the future.

Pics to follow.......

Peter
Click to expand...

If it's the LFS I think it is. It has always bothered my why there was no algae on the glass in their fish system. I just assumed the water was treated with copper and I would discard it after releasing the fish. I'll have to test the salinity next time and take the appropriate measures to acclimate the fish into quarantine. Or like you said just find another place to purchase them.
 
One more thing about the Mars Bars. I did not know at the time I acquired them but the mars systems were not really suitable for coral as they were configured at delivery. Since then mr. Wilson has worked with me to refit the equipment to a purpose built environment for coral. I have been extremely impressed with the current configuration and would like to publicly recognize and thank Mr. Wilson for going to the trouble and effort to get it right. In my opinion, the mars bars will become an intrinsic part of this successful build and will make it a unique achievement for the benefit of the hobby.

Peter
 
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