Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)

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+1

i have a maintenance question.

how often and how do you clean the external pumps? i have thought of hooking them up to a tank that is recirculating with muriatic acid. i clean the power heads in a dilute solution.

how often do you turn all the ball valves to keep them turning freely? along the same line how are the pipes cleaned?

public aquariums periodically use a "pig" pushed through the pipe.

Carl
 
Peter,

With all you said a few posts back......do you take the time to stop, stand or sit in front of your tank and just watch? I really hope that you do. I spend a lot of my free time "puttering" around the tank.... I enjoy those quiet moments when I just sit and watch. I really like looking at night to see the things you don't see during the day. I even have a special "tank" flashlight.

Stop and watch the things that you have created. Enjoy the show because the rest of us are. I think of my tank as an extension of yours and I hope that everyone else does too. I feel that through this thread we are all connected to you, Mr. Wilson, Chingchai, andytrippa and all the rest. It would be interesting to know the collective gallons of this entire thread... We all share this tank and by in part you share all of our tanks as well and I want to make sure you are enjoying your part.

Scott
 
Peter,

With all you said a few posts back......do you take the time to stop, stand or sit in front of your tank and just watch? I really hope that you do. I spend a lot of my free time "puttering" around the tank.... I enjoy those quiet moments when I just sit and watch. I really like looking at night to see the things you don't see during the day. I even have a special "tank" flashlight.

Stop and watch the things that you have created. Enjoy the show because the rest of us are. I think of my tank as an extension of yours and I hope that everyone else does too. I feel that through this thread we are all connected to you, Mr. Wilson, Chingchai, andytrippa and all the rest. It would be interesting to know the collective gallons of this entire thread... We all share this tank and by in part you share all of our tanks as well and I want to make sure you are enjoying your part.

Scott

+1It is a great tank and is very inspertional. I got my 240 gal today and only hope it will be as great as yours when its at the same stage as yours.
 
Just my thoughts...

Just my thoughts...

I have just finished reading Peter's "stuff" post and his inspiring comments to a new and an old reader, and just thought I would convey to everyone how amazing this tank, Peter and his crew, the readers and Peter's wife Judy are.

I am one of the fortunate ones who gets to see the tank in real life, as I did today, helping install the new water line for his outdoor irrigation system. Peter was indeed typing right beside the two of us as we banged and sawed away to get this line across a finished ceiling. As a key person for the renovation/tank build, I have been lucky enough to see this tank from the day it was conceived until again this afternoon in all its magnificent glory.

Judy has patiently put up with more dust, banging, blocked driveways, late nights and probably a few choice words emanating from the lower level than most of us have ever had to, and to her we thank. Her choices of colour and styles have turned these rooms into wonderful living spaces.

Peter and his tank crew have worked tirelessly as this bio system has evolved over time with several layouts and new ideas that keep popping up. The acrylic tank has remained the same, but through the great wisdom of Mr. Wilson, virtually everything else feeding it has morphed several times"¦and continues to.

The readers of this thread are also so amazing. From the beginning with just Peter and Chingchai conversing to today with thousands of readers; the knowledge base available to Peter and everyone reading/contributing is unbelievable. It is a remarkable thread of people helping people with a common goal"¦helping people, and building great reefs.

But as Peter always comments so wonderfully to people's posts, I just wanted to convey to everyone how great it is work with him and how I feel, everyone on this thread is so lucky to have been part of his life and passion. Whether you have met him in person or not, just reading the posts allows you to met him. He truly does have great passion and endless enthusiasm towards this tank and all the readers. This living work of art that I have watched grow from simple ideas to complex, yet logical systems is nothing short of awe inspiring, and Peter drove it all, with everyone's help, making it not his tank, but as he has emphasized many times, our tank. If you have the chance to meet him at one of the shows, don't hesitate as he is always great to talk to and will love to talk to you.

Cheers"¦John
 
+1

i have a maintenance question.

how often and how do you clean the external pumps? i have thought of hooking them up to a tank that is recirculating with muriatic acid. i clean the power heads in a dilute solution.

how often do you turn all the ball valves to keep them turning freely? along the same line how are the pipes cleaned?

public aquariums periodically use a "pig" pushed through the pipe.

Carl

Normally I wouldn't clean out any magnet coupled external pump, but I was curious to see what the wear was like after 6 months. I took one of the close loop pumps apart completely and it was clean as a whistle so I put it back together and don't expect to do so again for a number of years.

I remember you had some problems with Sequence pumps so I won't rub it in too much, but direct drive pumps aren't really suitable for marine applications, even with silicon carbide seals.

We don't use calcium hydroxide or an excessive amount of other chemicals and more importantly the pumps are titanium and run cool so there is no precipitate of calcium in the pumps. Our calcium level crept up to 500 so it isn't from a lack of calcium, just cool running pumps.

I don't use powerheads for this same reason, they get hot, calcium precipitates, the pump fails. I do however need to clean out the Poseidon Titanium pump on our reservoir every 3 months or so. We use it to mix salt and I occasionally close both valves while it's running for a few days, so it seizes up. Poseidon pumps run really hot in the first place so despite their quite nature, they aren't the best choice for systems with a dosing system.

The pipes themselves stay clean and I don't have any intension of cleaning them. As long as the water is moving fast and the line is free of burs it will stay clean.
 
I have just finished reading Peter's "stuff" post and his inspiring comments to a new and an old reader, and just thought I would convey to everyone how amazing this tank, Peter and his crew, the readers and Peter's wife Judy are.

I am one of the fortunate ones who gets to see the tank in real life, as I did today, helping install the new water line for his outdoor irrigation system. Peter was indeed typing right beside the two of us as we banged and sawed away to get this line across a finished ceiling. As a key person for the renovation/tank build, I have been lucky enough to see this tank from the day it was conceived until again this afternoon in all its magnificent glory.

Judy has patiently put up with more dust, banging, blocked driveways, late nights and probably a few choice words emanating from the lower level than most of us have ever had to, and to her we thank. Her choices of colour and styles have turned these rooms into wonderful living spaces.

Peter and his tank crew have worked tirelessly as this bio system has evolved over time with several layouts and new ideas that keep popping up. The acrylic tank has remained the same, but through the great wisdom of Mr. Wilson, virtually everything else feeding it has morphed several times"¦and continues to.

The readers of this thread are also so amazing. From the beginning with just Peter and Chingchai conversing to today with thousands of readers; the knowledge base available to Peter and everyone reading/contributing is unbelievable. It is a remarkable thread of people helping people with a common goal"¦helping people, and building great reefs.

But as Peter always comments so wonderfully to people's posts, I just wanted to convey to everyone how great it is work with him and how I feel, everyone on this thread is so lucky to have been part of his life and passion. Whether you have met him in person or not, just reading the posts allows you to met him. He truly does have great passion and endless enthusiasm towards this tank and all the readers. This living work of art that I have watched grow from simple ideas to complex, yet logical systems is nothing short of awe inspiring, and Peter drove it all, with everyone's help, making it not his tank, but as he has emphasized many times, our tank. If you have the chance to meet him at one of the shows, don't hesitate as he is always great to talk to and will love to talk to you.

Cheers"¦John

I just can't say anything to this except thanks......from the heart to the heart.....thank you.

Peter
 
Peter,
I have been following your thread from conception and with much inspiration decided to upgrade our 90 gallon of 15 years to a 265 gallon. The upgrade began about three months ago and has been an absolute joy. I was truly inspired by the big rock arch your team constructed, something I had never quite seen before. After tracking down some EPO putty of my own, I attempted a similar design for the center of our tank and love the way it turned out. Your control room is as magnificent as your display tank. This led me to push the envelope on our own design by building a separate mechanical room (on a much smaller scale) in the garage. Hats off to you and your team.
-Thank you.
 
Peter,
I have been following your thread from conception and with much inspiration decided to upgrade our 90 gallon of 15 years to a 265 gallon. The upgrade began about three months ago and has been an absolute joy. I was truly inspired by the big rock arch your team constructed, something I had never quite seen before. After tracking down some EPO putty of my own, I attempted a similar design for the center of our tank and love the way it turned out. Your control room is as magnificent as your display tank. This led me to push the envelope on our own design by building a separate mechanical room (on a much smaller scale) in the garage. Hats off to you and your team.
-Thank you.

Thank you very much. The arch is very much Chingchai's design. It's not that others haven't experimented with the concept but Chingchai's dominant positioning of the arch with the foresight to allow the coral to outgrow it to the point where the actual rock disappears makes it truly unique. The recognition of the importance and significance of the equipment room as part of the display experience also belongs to Chingchai. If you haven't taken the time yet to work through his build from the beginning .....I highly recommend it. It's a fascinating read and extremely inspirational. I would not have undertaken my build had I not read his thread.

Thanks for the support....you should post a pic or two for our enjoyment.

Peter
 
Hi Peter, not sure if you guys missed my post but perhaps you have an opinion on my post number 7548 , would also like Mr Wilson's opinion on the topic.

I personally have never come across an "Reef aquarium" setup for more than 10 years which has never gotten this disease in it at some stage even in spite of quarantine.
I am very interested in how people with very large reefs deal with the problem.

Oh and by the way this is a very insightful comment in reef keeping
My challenge in the next phase of this build is to take my senility and laziness out of the equation. This is not just going to be about automating stuff. This is about keeping a high level of motivation and in fact raising the bar on equipment and system performance in many key areas. The more redundant smart systems and practices maintaing them will guarantee that the quality of life for both the owner and the captive life forms is always paramount.
 
the slideshow looks great , Mr Wilson, i would like your opinion on whitespot(cryptocaryon irritans), i am of the opinion that it is often latent in the majority of large Reef aquariums ,waiting for a chance to strike even in spite of quarantine which is essential but not 100% sure proof way of preventing it being introduced given a complicated lifecycle with some stages being resistant to most treatments.

Do you agree or do you think that a reef with large quantities of fish and corals can indeed be totally free of whitespot for the life time of that Aquarium , given that new fish /coral/rock introduced in spite of quarantine may in fact still allow just one parasite to sneak in?And once in it becomes a question of managing water quality and keeping stress out to keep it from becoming a problem.

Of course Uv and ozone would also help keep parasite numbers low as would strong immune systems.

I agree, quarantine is not 100% effective at eradicating many varieties of pathogens, including Cryptocaryon. There are dormant cells that can reappear out of nowhere years later, and there are secondary invertebrate hosts that can also introduce the parasite to the display. Some LFSs keep fish in their coral systems, further increasing the likelihood of disease transmission. We dip our corals in iodine and pine & lemon oil (Revive), and isolate some corals for a few days for closer inspection, but there are always cracks in our system that parasites can slip through (literally).

Our Blue tank gets crypt on and off. Never more than 12 cysts at a time, and this is normal reef behavior. Parasites are part of the reef, and only deserve the name when their population goes unchecked.

It is paramount (IMHO) that you stock the display with a rich variety of parasite pickers. A natural or captive reef simply can't function without them. They will not work miracles, but they will avert many looming disasters. Parasites are not limited to fish hosts. We picked a lot of our wrasse based on their appetite for parasitic snails (pyramid snails that eat clams), and flatworms. We have the following parasite eaters...

200 peppermint shrimp
5 cleaner shrimp
3 fire shrimp
4 coral banded shrimp
2 mandarin goby
numerous wrasse

One problem with parasite eating fish is poor longevity in some species (Labroides sps. specifically). Many wrasse and angelfish are parasite pickers as juveniles, then shift their diet to invertebrates that might include some of your prize specimens.

Good diet is also very important, but I find that many people pat themselves on the back for shoveling in lots of food and ignore the other disciplines. A large tank certainly helps put some distance between parasite and host. Reinfection at the end of the parasites life cycle is less certain, but still an issue. Fish to fish transmission is a problem with overstocked tanks.

You really have to eliminate as many stress factors as possible to help the fish maintain a strong immune system. More important than quantity of food, is quality. Many omnivores don't get the algae they need, and some foods that are weak in nutritional value, such as adult brine shrimp, act more as filler than nutrition. The nutrition topic is too broad to fit into this post, so I will leave it at that.

Temperature swings are another major trigger. It isn't the extremes, but the swing that causes stress and cues reproduction. We are having some temperature stability issues. The ambient room temperature is unstable so the display tank reflects this. Large homes are a lot harder to maintain with multiple furnaces, air conditioning units, floor heaters and
their respective thermostats. Peter's wife Judy likes to open the windows at night so there is a whole other microclimate to work around. The idea is to find where the tank would naturally settle with ambient room temperature, then set up a cost effective system of stabilizing that temperature. It is easier to heat than to cool, but you also have to work at the centre of the safety range and predict the trends if something goes wrong. Will it tend to get too hot or too cold?

There are a few semi-reef-safe treatments such as quinoline and metronidazole, but I would advise against their use in a well stocked reef tank. In some cases it is easier to catch the fish out for treatment, and in others in makes more sense to move the corals out and treat the whole display. A good fish trap like the one from Aqua-medic can help you target certain fish for removal. We strategically added fish that were not prone to ich (wrasse, gobies, blennies, anthias) first, then added tangs and angels 6 months later. These are also aggressive fish that should be added last to give the little guys a chance to get settled in. If the QT is thorough and overall aquarium conditions are good, then crytocaryon will not cause fatalities.
 
very well said

Richard Terrell of the Pittsburg Zoo Aquarium successfully treated an outbreak of Cryptocaryon in a clam exhibit without effecting the invertebrates using a gel food impregnated with Chloroquine phosphate. Does anyone have the details of exactly how this was done?
 
very well said

Richard Terrell of the Pittsburg Zoo Aquarium successfully treated an outbreak of Cryptocaryon in a clam exhibit without effecting the invertebrates using a gel food impregnated with Chloroquine phosphate. Does anyone have the details of exactly how this was done?

Sorry, I wrote "quinoline", and I meant "chloroquine". You can make a gel food with agar agar which is available in most grocery stores, however buried. Simply soaking food in Chloroquine will suffice. You can also soak food in metronidazole as an ich/protozoan treatment and finish off with neomycin for secondary bacterial infections onset from cyst attachment. I would dose the former two drugs for a month and the later for one week.

Just make sure you aren't training your fish not to eat, as it's like the old cod liver oil in the jam trick. No that there are no cod left in the ocean, kids no longer need to worry.

AP makes a line of medicated gel foods called Gel Tek. We have some neomycin gel on hand at Peter's. You can also add powdered medications to off the shelf gel food. I would start at 250mg/feeding.
 
How are people getting hold of metronidazole and chloroquine and what preparation?.

Chloroquine was used for treating Rheumatoid Arthritis and Hydroxychloroquine still is. It is also an anti-malarial.

Apparently, Metronidazole is good against cyano too?....

Mo
 
the slideshow looks great , Mr Wilson, i would like your opinion on whitespot(cryptocaryon irritans), i am of the opinion that it is often latent in the majority of large Reef aquariums ,waiting for a chance to strike even in spite of quarantine which is essential but not 100% sure proof way of preventing it being introduced given a complicated lifecycle with some stages being resistant to most treatments.

Do you agree or do you think that a reef with large quantities of fish and corals can indeed be totally free of whitespot for the life time of that Aquarium , given that new fish /coral/rock introduced in spite of quarantine may in fact still allow just one parasite to sneak in?And once in it becomes a question of managing water quality and keeping stress out to keep it from becoming a problem.

Of course Uv and ozone would also help keep parasite numbers low as would strong immune systems.

I agree to an extent. It is in the water at all times. Otherwise a healthy aquarium with no new additions would not have to worry. Stress the fish and ich will show up.

I believe it is brought on by immune system weakness and/or stress. If this is the case quarantining could make it worse. I believe in treating in a separate tank and waiting long enough to verify the animal is not carring a load of them, I'm talking days not weeks here. After that a quarantine tank can provide more stress then simply getting them into the display. It overtakes the tank when a fish that has the parisites starts dropping them and they hatch by the thousands. Then the fish become stressed because they are under attack and then the downward spiral begins infesting the whole tank.
 
Sorry, I wrote "quinoline", and I meant "chloroquine". You can make a gel food with agar agar which is available in most grocery stores, however buried. Simply soaking food in Chloroquine will suffice. You can also soak food in metronidazole as an ich/protozoan treatment and finish off with neomycin for secondary bacterial infections onset from cyst attachment. I would dose the former two drugs for a month and the later for one week.

Just make sure you aren't training your fish not to eat, as it's like the old cod liver oil in the jam trick. No that there are no cod left in the ocean, kids no longer need to worry.

AP makes a line of medicated gel foods called Gel Tek. We have some neomycin gel on hand at Peter's. You can also add powdered medications to off the shelf gel food. I would start at 250mg/feeding.

have you fed medicated food in a reef tank?

one can buy these drugs at fishchemicaldotcom
 
How are people getting hold of metronidazole and chloroquine and what preparation?.

Chloroquine was used for treating Rheumatoid Arthritis and Hydroxychloroquine still is. It is also an anti-malarial.

Apparently, Metronidazole is good against cyano too?....

Mo

Try a veterinarian or online supplier. I use 10 mg/l for three treatments, every second day. I've never heard of metronidazole (flagyl) used for cyanobacteria, but I'll try it today:)
 
Many thanks Mr Wilson for that informative info , I must say i agree with all that you have said with the parasite issue!
 
Newb Lurker

Newb Lurker

Hiya Peter et al.

I'm new to RC and researching a potential first tank. (Selling current home, planning to build next one, yada yada).

I wasn't going to post till I finished the thread, but it has been the better part of two weeks and I'm still not even half way through!

Thank you for sharing this great build - the wealth of knowledge of those contributing is astounding and your tank (so far in my reading your tank just now has water in it) is absolutely amazing. Much of the technical info is over my head at this point, but I will be certainly referring back to it as a tool when I am ready to build my 125 gallon (or 150, 180..do I hear 210!!!!).

ANYWHO, I am at the point in the thread where many of you were considering attending the 2010 MACNA in Orlando. My question is whether you considered the conference valuable and whether it would be to someone just (dreaming of) getting into the hobby. I have family in Des Moines and would consider rearranging my schedule to attend.

Looking forward to the rest of your tank build (from July 2010 on). This reads like a great novel - and I am trying very hard not to peek at the ending. :reading:

Lia
 
Try a veterinarian or online supplier. I use 10 mg/l for three treatments, every second day. I've never heard of metronidazole (flagyl) used for cyanobacteria, but I'll try it today:)

Did someone say Cyano?

Now you've got my attention.......

I mean....I have this friend.......:worried:
 
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