Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)

[bigrock]

The orphek looks really bright. Is this a different model than they currently offer?
What are the dimensions of that 450 gallon tank?
Thanks

 

[d3hree]

That is the first picture I have seen of a tank comparing LED to MH ( and not just any MH, a good unit) that makes it look like LEDs might have something to them.

It looks like the fall off with the 90 degree optics is pretty good.

 

[Spirofucci]

Mr. Wilson, thanks for the more detailed info on the subject of ATS. So basically the Cheeto does the same thing based on the same principles. I have done a lot of reasearch but could never find a decent explanation on the misgivings on Dr. Addey's theory from over 20 years ago.

I attended a conference in Arizona over 20 years ago and the speakers were Addey, Sprung, Blackburn, Thiel and others I can't remember. It was facinating. The cutting edge topics were the same as today, but we have come such a long way!

Anyway, thanks to you and Peter for this thread as it is not just about a beautiful tank build, but as Peter says best practice in the hobby which we are all learning from.

I love the debate/discussion/arguing on all these cutting edge topics.

thanks

mark

 

[Allmost]

We use two 10-15 minute bath buckets. Both use saltwater, one with Lugol's Iodine (Tropic Marin brand), and one with Two Little Fishies Revive (pine oil & lemon oil). Take out acro crabs first as they will die in 5-10 minutes.

Peter's tank is still getting the initial stock, but once any tank is properly established (6 months old) all corals should be held in a quarantine system for at least a week to allow the eggs of any parasites to hatch. Use a magnifying glass to get a good look at the coral before adding to the display and exposing your corals. You cannot assume that the LFS has done anything to isolate monti nudibranchs, red bugs, mantis shrimp (we just found one on an acro in the bath bucket this week), and flat worms.

thank you I will try your method now on

great comparison pic from LED to MH!!! if LEDs follow the same growth computers and other technology took, I cant imagine what will be available in a year or so.


thanks again

 

[bioload]

The new larger sumps are in for the two Mars systems, as well as the sump & wet/dry for the new hospital tank.

The new LED lighting from Orphek is on its way. Here is a preview/teaser picture of a 450 gallon reef tank with one 250 watt Giesemann metal halide and one Orphek 120 watt PR 156 LED light with 90 degree lenses.

Not familiar with this tank. Is there a writeup? It would appear that there is signicifcantly more growth with the MH?


Edit:

Here is the build thread for that tank with some very nice photos. The owner (Moshe) was skeptical about switching to LED, and you can't blame him with the success rate and select corals he has. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...1436135&page=4

sorry didn't see that one

 

[mr.wilson]

The orphek looks really bright. Is this a different model than they currently offer?
What are the dimensions of that 450 gallon tank?
Thanks

The dimensions are 84cm x 90cm at the surface, not sure about the depth. It's the same PR 156 we have over our little Mars tanks and the same as the 18 fixtures arriving any day now for the display.

Here is the build thread for that tank with some very nice photos. The owner (Moshe) was skeptical about switching to LED, and you can't blame him with the success rate and select corals he has. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1436135&page=4

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

This is a truly incredible build. I'm going to add this to my list of "threads with over 5000 posts" to read!!

Someone linked to this thread from an ATS thread, so I wanted to throw in my 2 cents, and ask a few questions...

Sorry for the late response. The ATS issue is a long discussion but I will keep it brief. ATS (algae turf scrubbers) have a bad reputation due to the wide definition and sometimes poor application of the method..

I will agree there are plenty of questionable builds out there. But those usually don't follow the guidelines. And I would have to say that the reputation of the ATS is building up a head of steam, and it will not be going away anytime soon.

What we now call a refugium, is an algae turf scrubber of sorts and they do work well. In my opinion the limiting factor is the great depth at which the algae is allowed to "ball up". The lower levels don't get light and subsequently die off leaving the nutrients they have trapped. A shallow trough (4-6" deep) minimizes shadowing and optimizes growing conditions..

The vertical ATS virtually eliminates the die off factor by lighting from both sides. Lower levels get all the light they need to hold on to the substrate. A shallow stationary trough with water 4-6" deep, even with fast moving water will encouter growth limitations due to the boundary effect, unless is it surged and emptied, as in the AI dump bucket scrubber. This boundary layer issue eliminated with vertical waterfall screen designs.

Turf, hair and cyanobacteria are pest algae and should not be used for an ATS. They can easily find there way into the display, they add yellow pigmented tannins to the water, and they "bleed" when you harvest (cut) them. Nutrients and algae tissue will leak out into your system and cause nuisance algae blooms.

I agree Cyano is not what you want to grow. However GHA and turf are only pest algae in the DT and are fine for use in nutrient export. Any of it that makes it's way to the DT will die off, as the ATS will out-compete it. One study that showed that turf was damaging to corals was based on placing the corals in direct contact or extremely close proximity with the turf. Without that proximity, there was not coral death. The study actually showed the opposite, corals thrived when turf was present nearby.

Cleaning the screen in the tank causes yellowing. This is not done (not recommended, I should say) in the modern ATS method. I have been running my ATS for 6 months and have zero yellowing, if anything, it's clearer. I scrape and rinse in the sink and very, very little finds it's way to the DT. Any nutrients that are exported back to the system due to this are very quickly re-absorbed by the continual growth of the ATS.

Another poor design is vertical panels as the cause the algae to tear and fall off. They also cause salt creep, noise, and odours. Often a light is placed close to the vertical panel with questionable wiring practices.

This all depends on the design. If you built one correctly, it would have none of the issues you list here. The DIYer typically does not care about that, they're willing to trade off.

Mine has almost zero salt creep, the lights are well protected, I have no microbubbles, my evap is about the same as before when I was running filter socks and a skimmer (plus I want more for cooling anyways), and the maintenance is 20 minutes a week.

Noise can be totally eliminated, but sometimes it's a design trade off. Designing a box to protect the lights means a drain which can be noisy, so you cover the box and deaden the noise but lose your evaporative cooling (if you wanted it)

I said a refugium is "an algae turf scrubber of sorts"; I should have said, an Algae Turf Scrubber is a form of refugium to be more concise. The refugiums I use are as shallow as an ATS, the water is just as rapid, and the lighting is more intense. The only difference is I use higher form of algae (Chaetomorpha & Gracileria), free-floating without a screen. Refugia are not a new idea, I have a Saltwater Aquarium magazine from 1967 showing a marine tank with a remote refugium full of algae in an adjacent sunroom.

I prefer to call an ATS a concentrated refugium. The lights are closer and there is no water to penetrate. Or at least, only a fraction of an inch, which maximizes light penetration.

Harvesting Chaetomorpha does not require the breaking of the thallus or release of its contents. Conversely, hair algae must be torn to harvest the trays. A better ATS system would be to keep the trimmed algae turf trays in a "hospital tank" for a day or two to repair itself. This will not only limit nutrient leak, but also avoid hair algae from spreading to the display tank.

Macro algae will grow equally as fast as hair algae providing the conditions are right. Chaetomorpha will adequately remove Po4 and No3, so there is no need for other forms of algae.

Walnut trees and many terrestrial plants produce these same competitive agents (secondary metabolites). The Walnut tree doesn't need to have neighbours to exude these chemicals and either does algae in any form. The stress of cutting/tearing hair algae will however cause it to react more competitively. Alternating trays with ones in a hospital tank will minimize this problem.

These are interesting points, I haven't come across any research indicating cutting/scraping of algae would cause it to react negatively. I haven't noticed any negative effects of repeated screen cleaning on my tank. My experience has been that the ATS screen out-competes any algae that makes it back into the DT, so it is never there.

As for the nutrient exporting capability, some experiments would have to be done to prove the capabilites of the ATS vs Refugium, for right now they're just based on real-world knowledge. The system that filters a 100 gallon tank can handle a massive bio-load, and several have reported no detrimental effect when feeding 7 or 8 cubes of food per day. Until I started reading about people running ATSs, I never heard of anyone feeding that much without having multiple pieces of equipment to export the excess, and still needing to do large PWCs.

Importing damaged hair or turf (nuisance) algae into the display tank is never a good idea. Neither of these forms of algae grow above the water level so they have not adapted well to do so in aquaria.

About the algae having not adapted, I'm not sure what you mean, can you clarify this?

There is a promotion company trying to revive the ATS idea to sell plastic screens, but they are banned from more aquarium forums than I can keep track of. The misinformation and junk science offered by these companies give a viable idea like ARS a bad reputation. Yes ATS can work, but they don't offer anything you can't get with a simple refugium.

If you're talking about Santa Monica, yeah he's banned from many sites. But that doesn't mean the information he finds and posts is not credible. If you really take the time to read everything that he references, you'll find that it is not junk science at all. In fact, most of the information he references is from credible sources, and actually disproves most of what is accepted in the aquarium industry today as fact. And that is a very hard pill for many to swallow. He isn't afraid to confront issues that are wholly accepted as fact and disprove them, and people get all riled up and then the attitudes start flying around. So he gets banned. I still have yet to see someone truly prove any of his points to be blatantly wrong.

 

[mr.wilson]

This is a truly incredible build. I'm going to add this to my list of "threads with over 5000 posts" to read!!

Someone linked to this thread from an ATS thread, so I wanted to throw in my 2 cents, and ask a few questions...



I will agree there are plenty of questionable builds out there. But those usually don't follow the guidelines. And I would have to say that the reputation of the ATS is building up a head of steam, and it will not be going away anytime soon.




The vertical ATS virtually eliminates the die off factor by lighting from both sides. Lower levels get all the light they need to hold on to the substrate. A shallow stationary trough with water 4-6" deep, even with fast moving water will encouter growth limitations due to the boundary effect, unless is it surged and emptied, as in the AI dump bucket scrubber. This boundary layer issue eliminated with vertical waterfall screen designs.




I agree Cyano is not what you want to grow. However GHA and turf are only pest algae in the DT and are fine for use in nutrient export. Any of it that makes it's way to the DT will die off, as the ATS will out-compete it. One study that showed that turf was damaging to corals was based on placing the corals in direct contact or extremely close proximity with the turf. Without that proximity, there was not coral death. The study actually showed the opposite, corals thrived when turf was present nearby.

Cleaning the screen in the tank causes yellowing. This is not done (not recommended, I should say) in the modern ATS method. I have been running my ATS for 6 months and have zero yellowing, if anything, it's clearer. I scrape and rinse in the sink and very, very little finds it's way to the DT. Any nutrients that are exported back to the system due to this are very quickly re-absorbed by the continual growth of the ATS.




This all depends on the design. If you built one correctly, it would have none of the issues you list here. The DIYer typically does not care about that, they're willing to trade off.

Mine has almost zero salt creep, the lights are well protected, I have no microbubbles, my evap is about the same as before when I was running filter socks and a skimmer (plus I want more for cooling anyways), and the maintenance is 20 minutes a week.

Noise can be totally eliminated, but sometimes it's a design trade off. Designing a box to protect the lights means a drain which can be noisy, so you cover the box and deaden the noise but lose your evaporative cooling (if you wanted it)




I prefer to call an ATS a concentrated refugium. The lights are closer and there is no water to penetrate. Or at least, only a fraction of an inch, which maximizes light penetration.





These are interesting points, I haven't come across any research indicating cutting/scraping of algae would cause it to react negatively. I haven't noticed any negative effects of repeated screen cleaning on my tank. My experience has been that the ATS screen out-competes any algae that makes it back into the DT, so it is never there.

As for the nutrient exporting capability, some experiments would have to be done to prove the capabilites of the ATS vs Refugium, for right now they're just based on real-world knowledge. The system that filters a 100 gallon tank can handle a massive bio-load, and several have reported no detrimental effect when feeding 7 or 8 cubes of food per day. Until I started reading about people running ATSs, I never heard of anyone feeding that much without having multiple pieces of equipment to export the excess, and still needing to do large PWCs.




About the algae having not adapted, I'm not sure what you mean, can you clarify this?




If you're talking about Santa Monica, yeah he's banned from many sites. But that doesn't mean the information he finds and posts is not credible. If you really take the time to read everything that he references, you'll find that it is not junk science at all. In fact, most of the information he references is from credible sources, and actually disproves most of what is accepted in the aquarium industry today as fact. And that is a very hard pill for many to swallow. He isn't afraid to confront issues that are wholly accepted as fact and disprove them, and people get all riled up and then the attitudes start flying around. So he gets banned. I still have yet to see someone truly prove any of his points to be blatantly wrong.

I agree with pretty much everything you have said, with exception to Santa Monica:hammer: I'm not adamantly against ATS, I just don't see what it offers that a refugium doesn't.

I would like to read more on the subject if you have a credible source. Unfortunately, 99% of the success stories are from inexperienced aquarists based on short term trials, and in some cases the reports are entirely fabricated marketing. I don't think we are going off topic if you post a summary of the ideal ATS system and I would be happy to discuss it without overtly picking it apart. You never know, I may try one. In all fairness, I haven't tried the method in over 15 years, and I agree a lot has changed.

There are all kinds of ways to successfully run a reef tank. There are people who swear by just water changes, live rock and good flow, and others who love their under gravel filter. I certainly can't discount their success or happiness with their methods.

 

[mr.wilson]

Not familiar with this tank. Is there a writeup? It would appear that there is signicifcantly more growth with the MH?

The LED was put over the tank for comparison purposes only. The manufacturer recommended 5 fixtures, but Moshe was thinking 6 to get full coverage. He wanted the fixtures 12" above the tank for aesthetics, but LED needs some height to get coverage. That is one of our problems, we only have about 18" max height above the tank due to a low ceiling and ventilation duct.

 

[mr.wilson]

That is the first picture I have seen of a tank comparing LED to MH ( and not just any MH, a good unit) that makes it look like LEDs might have something to them.

It looks like the fall off with the 90 degree optics is pretty good.

Yes, I really like the Giesemann bulbs and fixtures, but you get a lot more bang for the buck with Aqua-Medic MHL.

One of the obvious limiting factors with LED is coverage/spread. Most fixtures use Cree emitters which need a concentrated lens (40-70˚) to get the PAR numbers we need.

I don't want to sound like a commercial, but the Orphek light is the only LED that has its own proprietary emitter designed for reef aquariums rather than task lighting. At just 2 watts it runs a little cooler than traditional 3 watt chips. The colour temperature is 16,000K for the white LED so it isn't a yellowish 6,000K white, drowned out with blue. They use 60% white and 40% blue (450-460nm) LEDs, rather than a one white, one blue, one royal blue mix which gives you the dim look we are used to seeing with LED.

I tried some 120˚ optics but they seemed to lose too much intensity for the coverage gained. It might be worth mixing some 120˚ optics in, perhaps around the edges?

The best evaluation of reef lighting is the PUR value as this represents the full spectrum available. The Orphek cuts back on the (520-630?) green light that the human eye recognizes as "bright" and nuisance algae recognizes as "home". LED lights engineered for task lighting (human use) have a lot of green light. Drowning the green/yellow out with blue is an inefficient way to go about lighting a reef tank. Plasma lighting is a prime example of this.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I agree with pretty much everything you have said, with exception to Santa Monica:hammer: I'm not adamantly against ATS, I just don't see what it offers that a refugium doesn't.

I would like to read more on the subject if you have a credible source. Unfortunately, 99% of the success stories are from inexperienced aquarists based on short term trials, and in some cases the reports are entirely fabricated marketing. I don't think we are going off topic if you post a summary of the ideal ATS system and I would be happy to discuss it without overtly picking it apart. You never know, I may try one. In all fairness, I haven't tried the method in over 15 years, and I agree a lot has changed.

There are all kinds of ways to successfully run a reef tank. There are people who swear by just water changes, live rock and good flow, and others who love their under gravel filter. I certainly can't discount their success or happiness with their methods.

I would be happy to do that. I was a little worried about being viewed as a threadjacker when posting, especially since I am only to about page 10/post 500 in this thread, mainly just skimming for the pics that make your jaw drop!!

It might be a while, I have a busy weekend and the next few weeks are rough, but I would certainly like to hear your opinions and views.

I look forward to reading through the rest of this thread also.

 

[bmco]

The new larger sumps are in for the two Mars systems, as well as the sump & wet/dry for the new hospital tank.

The new LED lighting from Orphek is on its way. Here is a preview/teaser picture of a 450 gallon reef tank with one 250 watt Giesemann metal halide and one Orphek 120 watt PR 156 LED light with 90 degree lenses.

I have to correct you Mr Wilson. This is just a test I made to compare with a 400 Watts metal halide(Giessman), not 250 watts !!

I must say I was very surprised and impressed!

I can show you 3 Orphek fixtures on the left side (370 watts) compared to 6X54W t5 + 400w metal halide (Total of 770 Watts) on the right side.
Sorry for the bad picture but the light intensity is very high and I couldn't balance good enough the exposure to it.

 

[biecacka]

those led lights look amazing! did you end up going w 3 fixtures over each 1/2 of the tank for a total of 6 fixtures?
corey

 

[menta]

I really wonder how these LEDs are going to be look like after ~3 years.

 

[firechild]

Originally posted by mr.wilson
The best evaluation of reef lighting is the PUR value as this represents the full spectrum available. The Orphek cuts back on the (520-630?) green light that the human eye recognizes as "bright" and nuisance algae recognizes as "home".

Basic science would very much disagree with you. Green algae (which includes most nuisance algae) reflects green light and is therefore green light is the LEAST likely to promote growth of green algae.

 

[chingchai]

Peter. Where are you?
How is your baby Cardinals?

 

[mr.wilson]

I would be happy to do that. I was a little worried about being viewed as a threadjacker when posting, especially since I am only to about page 10/post 500 in this thread, mainly just skimming for the pics that make your jaw drop!!

It might be a while, I have a busy weekend and the next few weeks are rough, but I would certainly like to hear your opinions and views.

I look forward to reading through the rest of this thread also.

Information is always welcome and seldom off-topic in this thread. As long as it isn't a Santa Monica copy & paste it will be more than welcome.

 

[mr.wilson]

Peter. Where are you?
How is your baby Cardinals?

He's probably in his vault counting gold bars again.

The two cardinals are growing nicely. They have been swimming in live baby brine shrimp and are now eating frozen cyclops. We will post some updated teenage pics. We need to keep breeding fish to justify the ones we lost to our giant crab we found in the display. Jamie set up a glass to trap him. Stay tuned for pics.

 

[mr.wilson]

Basic science would very much disagree with you. Green algae (which includes most nuisance algae) reflects green light and is therefore green light is the LEAST likely to promote growth of green algae.

We are only concerned about blue-green algae on the glass, now known as cyanobacteria. I'll look up some references for it growing faster in higher nanometer (520-630nm) light.

 

[mr.wilson]

I really wonder how these LEDs are going to be look like after ~3 years.

With the rate at which technology is advancing, Peter's new LED lights will be sitting on a shelf in the garage in three years:lol2: The new generation will run on wind power and follow the path of the sun.