Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)
- Thread starter nineball
- Start date
- Status
THAT is a coral reef..
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Spectacular. Congratulations Peter, Shawn et al.
45,000 Lumens of Stray Light Plasma to grow Chaeto and Mangroves
The Straylight plasma fixtures don't look sexy even after a 12 pack, but the yellow light is a warm break from all the high Kelvin blue light. The mangroves and chaeto are growing rapidly which makes up for our space limitation (quality rather than quantity). One issue we are having with the refugium is a floating green Cyanobacteria. There is no surface skimmer or movement so we are manually skimming with cups and nets. Part of the problem is the stray bubbles from the RK2, the bigger part is the 510- nm Straylight. I will do some dimming tests and try a 100 watt high bay LED spotlight instead.
The good news is the quality and angle of our new LED lighting on the display has not caused any extra nuisance algae on the walls, rock or substrate. We havent experienced any additional bleaching of newly added corals and the older ones are noticeably coloring up. This is partly to the credit of the quality of light, but largely due to the quantity and new coverage of previously shadowed areas (namely near the glass).
We have added a bit of heat, but no more than we had expected from 1900 watts of LEDs. The Mhl photoperiod has been cut in half so it averages out over the day.
The other lighting issue we are really happy about is being able to angle the lights inward a few degrees to illuminate the sides of corals & rock as well as mounting them up and out of the way for easy access to the tank.
We
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
We are using Aqua-Medic magnetic ballasts with their small reflector. We don't have room for anything bigger. While large reflectors are great for tanks 3' or wider, I find they cause algae growth on glass, substrate and overflows. They also tend to project too much light into the room for a less dramatic display. Our compact reflectors were giving us 160PAR at the substrate near the glass and 200 at the substrate near the centre. This is pretty uniform coverage for a 30" tall tank with the fixture only 10" above the water. If there was no rock in the tank the coverage would be even more uniform.
We tried the old style Aqua-Medic electronic ballasts, but PAR and lumens were almost 50% lower!!! We havent been able to get our hands on their new improved electronic ballast.
I will do some more lux and PAR testing and post the numbers on a picture of the tank to map it out. I will also post the photoperiod ofeach light. The Mhl look more like natural light with a nice calm shimmer. The LED shimmer is a little faster due to the multiple points of light. When all of the lights are on, it blends nicely with a subtle mix. This was our goal since natural reefs never look homogenous. The 250 watt Mhl alternate between 13,000k Aqua-Medic and 14,000k Phoenix. Most of the usable and visible light from the Mhl is coming from the 13,000k bulbs. We ordered a more blue mix in our LEDs to cancel out some of the white look, but I still find white light to be more natural.
We had a 13,000k 250w mogul fixture on the tank during our testing; I think we could have used this fixture with a heavy blue mix of LED to drown it out, but overall the 250s were still the smart choice.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
We had a browned out acro in the display that took a bit of a beating from too much flow and a few subsequent falls. We moved it to the Mars system and were shocked to see it turn a beautiful white with bright purple tips. After a month I moved the coral back to the display and positioned it between the LED and the Mhl. After a week it still has the nice tips but the white is browning up with zooxanthellae now. It still looks good.
The overall appearance of the tank, rock, corals and fish is a night and day difference. Peter had no idea how corals fluoresce under blue light. You just don't get the same effect with T5, and it only takes 4 x 2 watt blue LEDs in each fixture to do it. Over a 6' span, that's 20 watts LED vs. 78 watts T5 and again, a world of difference.
D5HP
New member
I'm not sure if this was covered or if this is information you'd like to provide but is there a rough estimation of electrical power consumption for the reef or a related cost?
This is just such a remarkable system...the progress in just the past two months is astounding!
How many times a day are you feeding the DT tank fish?
Again, can't say enough about this tank and all your hard work. Also -> great photographs
This is just such a remarkable system...the progress in just the past two months is astounding!
How many times a day are you feeding the DT tank fish?
Again, can't say enough about this tank and all your hard work. Also -> great photographs
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
We haven't done any calculations. A lot of the power is accumulative with all the holding systems and climate control. I will do a breakdown of the display tank only.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
The rock was bone white when it went in 7 months ago. The corals have been steadily added over the past three months and have attached and grown well.
WOW. So I've been following along with this thread since I saw the picture of the tank hanging from the crane. I was stuck to this thread then. Haven't added much since I haven't had much luck with my own tank over the last 2 years, so don't have much expertise. However I have learned a great deal from this thread, and just wanted to say thanks for all the knowledge passed on to the rest of us. Shared amongst you guys, but those of us without success I say passed on to. The pictures look awesome, it's a beautiful tank. Think I will show my wife the pics of your tank room so I can get her to realize that my minimal tank space could be far greater! hehe. Keep up the amazing work guys. I really love this tank and thread.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Thanks for the feedback. This is why I asked the question and posted the drawing. I knew there would be scaling issues. but hoped the cross contamination would be manageable. I need to do some more engineering and experimenting before I build a prototype. What I don't like about dosing pumps is cost, control, and stagnant water in the lines. Perhaps I can build a flush-out line.
You could also use airlifts between the different food compartments. Cross contamination is mainly due to human error. With the right protocols and discipline that should not be a problem.
The largest issue would be rotifer contamination in the phyto. A real pain to filter out and still hard to not have the phyto crash afterwards. The rest is not a real big deal and easily filtered out due to size differences if checking these cultures for cross-contamination is a daily routine.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Thanks for all the kind remarks everyone. I'm glad we have been able to share our experience and knowledge. I have kept the thread positive, focusing on the equipment we have been happy with, rather than dwelling on the brands that have been disappointing. One thing I would not like to see come out of this thread is a positive endorsement for these products.
A few people have asked about the acrylic tank manufacturer (ATM). I would like to go on record that I am not satisfied with the build quality and materials of the tank, refugium and original sump/wet-dry. To be fair, this is the only ATM tank, sump and refugium I have seen in person, but I'm, not impressed with any of them. The sump design was very poor with no top frame. It broke before I started on the project. The refugium design is poor and there was no top frame so I had to add an expensive aluminum frame and redesign the drain. The overflow teeth are much too big on the tank, the seams have a lot of void spaces and bubbles, the top and bottom edges aren't polished, and the top frame was built out of a bad pour sheet (1/2" variance in thickness). These seconds are common and usually get melted down into a new sheet.
A few people have asked about the acrylic tank manufacturer (ATM). I would like to go on record that I am not satisfied with the build quality and materials of the tank, refugium and original sump/wet-dry. To be fair, this is the only ATM tank, sump and refugium I have seen in person, but I'm, not impressed with any of them. The sump design was very poor with no top frame. It broke before I started on the project. The refugium design is poor and there was no top frame so I had to add an expensive aluminum frame and redesign the drain. The overflow teeth are much too big on the tank, the seams have a lot of void spaces and bubbles, the top and bottom edges aren't polished, and the top frame was built out of a bad pour sheet (1/2" variance in thickness). These seconds are common and usually get melted down into a new sheet.
- Status
Similar threads
