It is now well over a month since MACNA and no word of any changes or upgrades. Can you give us an update on what has been happening with the system?
Thx,
Dave.M
Actually Dave I have been afraid to start to do an update because it would be very very lengthy and at the speed that I type we could be here for weeks. Then I will get inundated with requests for pictures which I need to take yet and then there will be a zillion requests for technical questions that only Mr. Wilson and Steve (The Coral Farmer,as he describes himself) can answer properly.
I have been extremely fortunate, because of the community on this thread to meet some phenomenal talent that have and are continuing to contribute to this build. Mr. Wilson as you all know is probably the dominant positive architect of this entire ecosystem. Steve Noakes who has recently joined the team has brought 18 years of coral farming experience to the project. If there is a second major milestone on this project it would be the day he started. Focusing on overall water quality standards he has brought all the parameters in line and wow has it ever made a difference. I can't believe the growth rate and colour improvements over past experience.
I suspect that the tank itself is just turning a corner with about a year since we first put in water with the live rock. However with all the systems and adjustments we have not focused on the health and welfare of the corals the way we have since I returned from MACNA. I cannot express in words just how phenomenal the impacts of Steve's presence has been. With Mr. Wilson continuing to make improvements to the physical infrastructure, this build is finally starting to hit its stride with respect to a healthy evolution. I know most of the members of this thread are way ahead of me in experience but I was blown over with just how complete a transition a coral can make in a short period of time. For a while I started to believe that all coral was brown with an occasional discoloured aberration but apparently not so folks......far from it in fact. Frags that I had purchased presenting a particular colour have completely changed and the range of colours within the same colony can be very dramatic.
All of this is new to me and I have to admit with almost 50 feet of reefscape(not to mention about 20 feet of interior rockscape in the canyon interior) I am very excited about how incredible this tapestry is going to look in time.
Mr. Wilson has informed me that our new Orphek lights to completely replace the Metal Halides should be here by months end. These lights are special but I will let Mr. Wilson break the news on our new configuration. Steve has noted that his experience working on this tank has convinced him that he can switch over to LED's in his own coral farm without having any compromise. In fact he believes that he can improve on the results considerably.
We have also brought in a small order of fish that I am very excited about. The fish arrived from overseas very healthy and packed well. I got another ten shrimp fish because they do so well in my tank environment and they are consistently the "OH WoW, What are those fish?" observation from just about every person who tours the tank. I got three Moorish idols that are fat plump and eating well as they wait in the hospital tank for four weeks before transitioning to the display tank.
There is also three butterfly fish (Here I need Mr. Wilson's help on the genus). They are neat! We also got a few fish that will remain in the mars bars for fish room tours like another box fish, a grouper, and some very neat pipe fish which may or may not make it to the display due to their size(they are very small). We go a dozen Garden eels and I hope we can move them into the display but I think we need an area of deeper substrate to work well and I'm pretty sure that wherever we put this mound will be where the eels won't go. We will see in time if its possible because they are really neat.
The mangrove trees are really taking off. They do loved the plasma lights and unfortunately so too does all the annoying macro algae as well not withstanding cyno bacteria. The environment for growing the Mangrove trees in the hydroponic raceways(Mr. Wilson's proprietary design) is working wonders for the health and growth. Since the Cardinals are still producing fry in the display tank we think we will start to put them in the Mangrove raceways and let them breed in a great environment. Healthy results all around I think.
We have made some changes in the salt after the discussions here and the feedback that many of you provided. I will let Mr. Wilson discuss where we are on that issue. Mr. Wilson has brought the Shuran Calc reactor on line and we are testing its effectiveness on the 1500 gal display tank system. We are not sure it will be of sufficient size so Mr. Wilson has ordered a new bigger model from a different manufacturer. Again Mr. Wilson can probably answer questions on where and why he sourced the new one.
We have been working with some temperature challenges in the fish room. I have had an HVAC expert in to make some improvements but we are working diligently to stabilize temps in the fish room while we wait for the new system changes to be made. Our target is a stable and steady 27 Celsius with no special heating or cooling measures necessary in both winter and summer.
Mr. Wilson also got in the new Abyzz pump that will be feeding the RK2 Skimmer with the modified impeller. Hopefully this works as I have huge praise for this pump and would like to be totally reliant on Abyzz pumps for ALL the systems supporting this build.
There's more but I am running out of steam and I want to have enough energy left to offer written excuses for no pictures when you all start asking for them.
How's that dave?
Peter
