Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)
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SaraB
Coral Killer
This one sums up Nevada; a burnt out car, a grave in the dessert, and an abandoned casino. That's my hotel room in the background with a bathroom window that doesn't lock and a stack of tires outside.
Love the grave head-stone ... a twin bed head-board!!! Very creative :fun2:
Welcome back from vacation and glad you made the night at that hotel in the picture!
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Acrylic tanks with large frames at the top have minimal fish jumping incidents. Fish typically jump around the outer edges and corners which are well covered. The other issues is that large tanks don't have as much jumping because fish have more escape routes and sanctuary. We are trying to maintain easy access and maximum light penetration so a screen will come only if a problem arrises.
Water changes are down to a science now. We can complete a 200 gallon water change in about 45 minutes.
I did some water quality tests ad we are still good, with some work to be done raising calcium and alkalinity. I have been manually adding calcium chloride and SeaChem alkalinity buffer.
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - 0
Calcium - 380
DKH - 8.3
PH - 8.4
Salinity - 1.026
Magnesium - 1600
Temp - 78˚F
We tried out the Aquatic Illumination Sol white LED light fixture and made the following observations...
- good colour mix (two white & one blue LED per array).
- dead silent fan.
- nice fixture aesthetics.
- light looks dim, but nice.
- limited coverage, but that is the nature of LED and a small, low wattage (8 watt) fixture (aprox. 12" x 6").
- nice small power supply.
- full dimming capacity for dawn and dusk effect.
- adequate PAR at the substrate (190-210)
My only concern with the Aquatic Illumination fixture or any Cree LED light, is tat there are reports that it is hard to get blue or red colours in corals with them. The white LED is 10,000K and the version we have has 1/3 of the LEDs Cree blue, so we are missing the royal blue that you get with the Sol Blue model. The trade off is you lose some PAR with the Sol Blue and some of the visible intensity. On the plus side you get a wider spectrum at the low nanometer end and more of an eerie glow as coral fluoresce. I prefer the white look, so I think the Sol White is the better choice for a display tank. The Sol Blue is better suited for coral display tanks for a retail store.
Water changes are down to a science now. We can complete a 200 gallon water change in about 45 minutes.
I did some water quality tests ad we are still good, with some work to be done raising calcium and alkalinity. I have been manually adding calcium chloride and SeaChem alkalinity buffer.
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - 0
Calcium - 380
DKH - 8.3
PH - 8.4
Salinity - 1.026
Magnesium - 1600
Temp - 78˚F
We tried out the Aquatic Illumination Sol white LED light fixture and made the following observations...
- good colour mix (two white & one blue LED per array).
- dead silent fan.
- nice fixture aesthetics.
- light looks dim, but nice.
- limited coverage, but that is the nature of LED and a small, low wattage (8 watt) fixture (aprox. 12" x 6").
- nice small power supply.
- full dimming capacity for dawn and dusk effect.
- adequate PAR at the substrate (190-210)
My only concern with the Aquatic Illumination fixture or any Cree LED light, is tat there are reports that it is hard to get blue or red colours in corals with them. The white LED is 10,000K and the version we have has 1/3 of the LEDs Cree blue, so we are missing the royal blue that you get with the Sol Blue model. The trade off is you lose some PAR with the Sol Blue and some of the visible intensity. On the plus side you get a wider spectrum at the low nanometer end and more of an eerie glow as coral fluoresce. I prefer the white look, so I think the Sol White is the better choice for a display tank. The Sol Blue is better suited for coral display tanks for a retail store.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
My favourite part is the crappy plastic chair that the loan shark sat on while the poor guy dug the grave with his burning car in the background. He did a pretty good job on the hole too! Terrible gambler, but if he just applied himself at landscaping...
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Thanks, good to be back. Retail stores want to show off coral pigmentation, not improve coral pigmentation, so super blue actinics and royal blue LEDs are a good choice. It comes down to personal preference, but the Sol White can be dimmed down to a true blue colour at night anyway, so why not enjoy greater intensity during the day.
Here are the Cree XR-E specs...
http://www.ledsupply.com/docs/cree-xre.pdf
Hey Peter great build - I actually just got hold of this thread now - but have already subscribed to it. I'm just skimming through at the moment looking for photos but happened to catch this post of yours. Not sure where you are at this point, but I do have a very good friend who manages the the Hemodailysis/nephrology program at a lot of the hospitals in the Toronto area. He once showed me an RO system that produces some ridiculous amount of gallons per minute. Dialysis of course involves super clean water since it's running through your body and cleaning your blood. So needless to say the engineering for these machines and water systems are as good as it gets. This might be an area to check into as well... that is: find out what kind of equipment they use. I do believe it is quite portable too since there is a home dialysis program through which patients administer their own treatments in the comfort of their homes... just a thought to consider.
Regards,
Sheldon
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Chris from AI sent me an email to correct some of the points I had made earlier.
First of all AI uses Cree XP-G Cool White LEDs not the series I had quoted, and the "blue" in the Sol White is actually an XP-E Royal Blue. I should have picked up on that as the "blue" light looks violet when the white is dimmed down.
The colour temperature of the White LED is actually 6,000K, not 10,000K as I had erroneously reported. The PAR of the Sol White and Blue modes is apparently within 5% of each other, so there isn't as drastic a difference as I had suspected. In our PAR tests, there was a 25% drop in PAR when we dimmed the Royal Blue light down to zero.
As far as selection goes, it looks like PAR is not a concern between the two models. The Sol white has a wider spectrum and subsequent higher PUR value than the Sol Blue (Let's see if Chris corrects me again
). I would pick the light you like the look of at full power, rather than dimming it to match your taste as this changes the spectrum in addition to the intensity. A comparatively narrow spectrum is the short coming of LED light technology.
dave.m
Active member
I think I would be right in saying that very few of us have an opportunity to see all these different lights or play with their levels or measure their PAR in order to make an informed decision. Digital photography from tank to tank and camera to camera is turning out to be far too dodgy to form any reliable basis for comparison. That's what makes these reviews by knowledgeable reefers so important.mr.wilson said:
No pressure.
Dave.M
Soundtrigger
New member
Cool
Cool
This is a great project these take awhile my friend has a 1500 gal it took forever to set up but it's well worth it great tank man
Cool
This is a great project these take awhile my friend has a 1500 gal it took forever to set up but it's well worth it great tank man
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
That's what I have been telling Peter, savour the moment, it's all about the journey, and if it's done too quickly you will move onto another project that will cost more money
BPro32
New member
That's what I have been telling Peter, savour the moment, it's all about the journey, and if it's done too quickly you will move onto another project that will cost more money
I do this far too often. I think I need to re-read this thread and take notes this time so I can set up my next tank the right way.
othercents
New member
Yes, but the road to enlightenment is different for each individual.
FYI: update on my RK2 25PE skimmer, which is performing great:
1. The Venturi must be cleaned every few days to a week due to salt creep to maintain optimal performance, to do this simply warm up a cup of RO water and allow it to suck it through the air port while running, this is very important. I will be automating this with a timer/solenoid valve and RO reservoir.
2. I'm running a Pan World 70 pressure pump on the Venturi which produces suction of well over 50 SCFH (my gauge only goes to 50)
3. I installed a ball valve on the outflow of the Venturi, so there are valves on both the inflow and Outflows, for servicing. Without it you have to drain half the skimmer volume, a real BITA!
4. I installed a normally open solenoid valve on the Venturi air intake, wired to an ATO in my seawater reservoir, so if the skimmer goes nuts and the reservoir gets low it shuts off the Venturi air intake and skimmer.
5. I installed a timer/solenoid valve on the inside skimmer cup auto wash down (seawater) so this is now automated instead of manually done out of the box.
1. The Venturi must be cleaned every few days to a week due to salt creep to maintain optimal performance, to do this simply warm up a cup of RO water and allow it to suck it through the air port while running, this is very important. I will be automating this with a timer/solenoid valve and RO reservoir.
2. I'm running a Pan World 70 pressure pump on the Venturi which produces suction of well over 50 SCFH (my gauge only goes to 50)
3. I installed a ball valve on the outflow of the Venturi, so there are valves on both the inflow and Outflows, for servicing. Without it you have to drain half the skimmer volume, a real BITA!
4. I installed a normally open solenoid valve on the Venturi air intake, wired to an ATO in my seawater reservoir, so if the skimmer goes nuts and the reservoir gets low it shuts off the Venturi air intake and skimmer.
5. I installed a timer/solenoid valve on the inside skimmer cup auto wash down (seawater) so this is now automated instead of manually done out of the box.
nuccadoc
Member
Peter, haven't commented in quite a while. Mr Wilson welcome back! Chago09, really nice to have some expertise in what is arguably the most important aspect of keeping a reef tank....the water.
Peter, thank you so much for sharing this wonderful journey you are taking. I can imagine I am not alone in the vast amount of information this amazing thread has contributed to our hobby. Thank you!
Scott
Peter, thank you so much for sharing this wonderful journey you are taking. I can imagine I am not alone in the vast amount of information this amazing thread has contributed to our hobby. Thank you!
Scott
nuccadoc
Member
Elliot, do you have a link to your build?
I see you like Panworld pumps, I just got one for my MR skimmer, hope I like it.
Scott
Elliot, do you have a link to your build?
I see you like Panworld pumps, I just got one for my MR skimmer, hope I like it.
Scott
Hi Scott, I never started a thread on my build since it's really a precursor (test) to a much larger tank, I really like Pan World pumps, quiet and very reliable, you will be very happy with it
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