Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)

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Hello Peter,

Peter, your tank is amazing, gorgeous, awesome, ... I can not believe that your tank is full of live so fast!!! It looks like a mature tank but you just started to put corals and fishes. I cannot imagine your tank in 3-5 years!!! And it's true, you have reproduced an underwater paradise for these animals.

And thank you so much to share your experience with the community. You and Mr. Wilson are very generous to spend so much time to document everything regarding your man-made Eco-System. (not just a tank anymore).

You website was a wonderful idea!!! Very nice, I already selected few pictures to use as background picture on my PC desktop at work!!! And your best practices FAQ, just wow!

Congratulation!
Christian from Quebec

Merci Beaucoup Christian!! You are right!! Even I want to see my tank in 3 to 5 years. I am very pleased with the progress and I plan to continue the build for the next two years with as much passion and search for best practices as the first two years. Thank you very much for your kind words.

Peter
 
Hello Peter / Mr. Wilson,

Dear gentleman, could you elaborate regarding the use of lanthanum chloride? It's the first time that I'm seeing this product, so I'm interested to learn about it. Is it expensive? Is it difficult to use? Good / Bads? etc...

I'm using GFO to export Phosphate from my system but I can not to lower than 0.1-0.2 ppm even if I have reduce the feeding dramatically. And the use of GFO is quite expensive on the long run!

Thank you for sharing!!!
Christian

Lanthanum chloride is a common phosphor remover used in the pool keeping industry. It was adopted by public aquariums in the last 6 years or so, and has slowly made into some large reef aquariums. The results and opinions are mixed. It is a cost effective method of lowering phosphates immediately, but the cost is going up as it is one of the resources China is hoarding/manipulating.

Many of the people who have used it have has second thoughts and some feel it binds with clam shells and other calcareous media. Other chemical experts feel it isn't a stable/safe practice and some believe it killed off some of their corals. Sometimes the "cure" is more potent than the "disease". A little bit of phosphate will slow coral growth and perhaps diminish coral pigmentation, and sure, you get more algae on the glass, but it won't wipe out your tank.

When you dose it, it creates sediment so you need to use filter socks, a protein skimmer or some sort of settling chamber to collect the milky sediment. Delicate reef tanks are not an easy place to achieve this, but large public aquaria with limited coral stocks are ideal as they cannot afford to use a ton of GFO.

One of my strongest skills in reef keeping is my ability to step back and realize I don't know enough about a particular process or methodology. The jury is still out on Lanthanum chloride and by not using it, it's one potential disaster I am averting :)
 
Hi Peter,

Did you have a good time with Andy?

Cheers,

Hi Chingchai,
Yes I really enjoyed my visit with Andy and Gabriela. You know Andy.....we left when Des Moines ran out of food!!!! I had a lot of quality time with him and we scoured the conference for worthwhile stuff. One thing he found was a 1.5 meter grabber for his tank. He bought two of them. He told me in private that your tank is spectacular in person.....better than the pictures. He told me that we will see it together next year. We agreed that I should join both of you in Germany for the InterZoo in May. I am going to look forward to sharing a glass of wine with the three of us in the same room.

Andy and Gabriela made the trip worth while........

Peter
 
Hey nineball, Bud Carlson from GIRS, I met you briefly on Sunday next to the MarineGeek booth, great meeting you. Mr. Wilson I wanted to talk to you a bit too but you were tied up and then couldn't find either of you 5 minutes later. Maybe next year!
 
Hey nineball, Bud Carlson from GIRS, I met you briefly on Sunday next to the MarineGeek booth, great meeting you. Mr. Wilson I wanted to talk to you a bit too but you were tied up and then couldn't find either of you 5 minutes later. Maybe next year!

Hey Bud, sorry you missed Mr. Wilson. He has a bad habit of disappearing like that. I'm sure we will cross paths again and next time bring a big heavy rope!!!! Great to finally meet you......

Peter
 
Hey Bud, sorry you missed Mr. Wilson. He has a bad habit of disappearing like that. I'm sure we will cross paths again and next time bring a big heavy rope!!!! Great to finally meet you......

Peter

Okay... there were a few women there :uhoh3:
 
Hi Chingchai,
Yes I really enjoyed my visit with Andy and Gabriela. You know Andy.....we left when Des Moines ran out of food!!!! I had a lot of quality time with him and we scoured the conference for worthwhile stuff. One thing he found was a 1.5 meter grabber for his tank. He bought two of them. He told me in private that your tank is spectacular in person.....better than the pictures. He told me that we will see it together next year. We agreed that I should join both of you in Germany for the InterZoo in May. I am going to look forward to sharing a glass of wine with the three of us in the same room.

Andy and Gabriela made the trip worth while........

Peter

Peter. That is great to hear.
Don't believe him too much. My tank is just so-so.
InterZoo. That is interesting.
Look forward to drinking wine with you and Andy.
 
Peter,
It was great meeting you at MACNA. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation about all of our crazy hobbies ;)

I PMd you my details.

Cheers,
AJ
 
Peter and Mr. Wilson, Did you see any new innovative and promising equipment at the show? (other then the grabber Andy got) Attend any good conferences with new information?
 
I was not blown away by anything special, lots of tweaked items such as LEDs and a few more control-able AC powered pumps than I have noticed in the past. I was going to ask Shawn that same question of what grabbed his attention
 
I was not blown away by anything special, lots of tweaked items such as LEDs and a few more control-able AC powered pumps than I have noticed in the past. I was going to ask Shawn that same question of what grabbed his attention

The bloggers do a pretty good job of summing up the new products featured at the show. Even if you go to MACNA, you should follow the blogs to see what to look for or what you have missed. RC blocks most of the blog names so you will have to do some Google searches.

The Ecotech booth was one of the busiest. The Vortech-driven wave tank, RGB light show, and sparkles in the water is fun to watch. Some of the other shiny things were the Vertex controller and dosing pump, the new AI Phoenix LED, Portal magnet/magnifying glassand the ORA booths zero edge tanks filled with aquacultured fish.

Some of the equally interesting, yet less shiny products were the Blue Life filter media, and faux reef rock from Fish Heads.
 
Peter

I finally did it! I can't believe I read the whole thing!:bounce3:

I'm not sure if I should curse you or thank you.:uhoh3:

I have a 180 reef for 4 years now & have been able to avoid the inevitable urge to upgrade by realizing the fact that I did not have a source for many of the upgrades I wanted or the knowledge. Unfortunately your forum has taken the crutch away! I have now started ordering equipment for the new 500 gallon!:headwalls:

Let me see if I got this right

(List everything you want in your new build minus you limitations such as it space, location, availability & or budget.) multiply (by best practice) divide by ( the time you can devote to the project) and factor in as much knowledge and support you can muster and you should be half way there.

Thanks, my wallet is a lot lighter and I no longer have to worry about what I will do with my spare time. :lolspin:


Mr. Wilson

You posted "œI use white teflon tape on threads, but I prefer glued socket fittings (less chance of failure and shifting)"

Like Peter I'm always trying new things. I use threaded connections everywhere, much easier to modify. Try using Teflon ® Thread Sealants it can be purchased at aquaticEco. It seals threads much better than the tape, and you can unscrew the pipe at a later date.


PS; Where do you keep 50 some Orphek power supplies they are huge! Pic? I just ordered one to take a first hand look, will need at least 6 possibly 8, for my build.

Thanks to the whole nineball team, I Think :wavehand:
 
Hi Peter, gang
Any updates as far as the tank goes? I feel like I am going through withdrawal!

We let it get quiet just to flush out the lurkers :)

A month ago the calcium level in the display tank started to climb and the alkalinity started to drop. Magnesium stayed at 1300 where I was keeping it, but I no longer needed to add it weekly as I was doing over the first 10 months. I was doing major water changes (10%+ per week) but the calcium would not fall.

As usual, I assumed it must have been something I did... that's where my wife usually starts as well :) After a month, the salt mix started to look suspicious, darting its eyes back and forth every time I looked at the stack of boxes :) We tested the salt in the 200 gallon mixing container (1.026 sg @ 80˚F). We got the following readings...

Calcium = 500
Magnesium = 1500
Alkalinity = 11 DKH

On the box, it advertised...

Calcium = 455
Magnesium = 1350

These numbers are not guaranteed and are expected to fluctuate, but I don't understand why we were consistently getting 380-400 ppm calcium in the display and I was dosing calcium chloride weekly. If anything, our calcium should have a tendency to drop now that the corals and coraline algae are growing significantly.

Our solution is to switch to (regular) Instant Ocean salt as it is closer to that of NSW, without the added Ca, Mg & Alk. I would rather add these under controlled circumstances, rather than relying on the acceptable swings of the salt manufacturer. This way we can gear the salt to our needs rather than perceived needs.
 
Peter

I finally did it! I can't believe I read the whole thing!:bounce3:

I'm not sure if I should curse you or thank you.:uhoh3:

I have a 180 reef for 4 years now & have been able to avoid the inevitable urge to upgrade by realizing the fact that I did not have a source for many of the upgrades I wanted or the knowledge. Unfortunately your forum has taken the crutch away! I have now started ordering equipment for the new 500 gallon!:headwalls:

Let me see if I got this right

(List everything you want in your new build minus you limitations such as it space, location, availability & or budget.) multiply (by best practice) divide by ( the time you can devote to the project) and factor in as much knowledge and support you can muster and you should be half way there.

Thanks, my wallet is a lot lighter and I no longer have to worry about what I will do with my spare time. :lolspin:


Mr. Wilson

You posted "œI use white teflon tape on threads, but I prefer glued socket fittings (less chance of failure and shifting)"

Like Peter I'm always trying new things. I use threaded connections everywhere, much easier to modify. Try using Teflon ® Thread Sealants it can be purchased at aquaticEco. It seals threads much better than the tape, and you can unscrew the pipe at a later date.


PS; Where do you keep 50 some Orphek power supplies they are huge! Pic? I just ordered one to take a first hand look, will need at least 6 possibly 8, for my build.

Thanks to the whole nineball team, I Think :wavehand:

Don't worry threaded parts are my second favourite :)

1c2aece4.jpg
 
mr.wilson said:
The bloggers do a pretty good job of summing up the new products featured at the show. Even if you go to MACNA, you should follow the blogs to see what to look for or what you have missed. RC blocks most of the blog names so you will have to do some Google searches.
Mr.Wilson's favourite blog sites have been added to a Links page on Peter's web site.

Dave.M
 
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