Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)
- Thread starter nineball
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golf nut
Premium Member
I am guessing that was slightly exaggerated, mind you it is Ottawa and there is a lot of hot air released from there.
Mike de Leon
New member
...
nineball
Active member
Thank you Chingchai, I'm very good and no matter what you may have been told I did not intentionally cause the earthquake. I just dropped one rock which is hardly enough to cause a 5.0 earthquake! The truth is that a majority of the population in this area can honestly say they haven't experienced an earthquake in their memory. They are extremely rare here above 3.0. I'm pretty sure you have felt more in one day than we have in an entire lifetime.
sorry to hear about the fish. You have accomplished so much with the coral reef that the expectation is that your fish introductions should be as easy. I have no advice for you my friend as you are the best of the best in my opinion. I do believe that your ecosystem deserves very careful selection of specimens that will be a compliment to the exceptional coral landscape. I am curious Ching, what are the most common fish living with SPS in the wild???
Peter
chingchai
Premium Member
Well, what a relief.
You have to be more careful, don't drop the rock on your toe. Okay?
The most common fish living with SPS in the wild is Chromis. (I guess I am correct):lolspin:
http://www.google.com/images?client...F-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
Aquarist007
New member
I had about a third of my reef fall down today. I am assuming it was because to the quake because it has not moved in 4 years.:blown:
swissgaurd
New member
agreed id like to see a picture of something to.
how about the rock you dropped,your wifes garden,the container your mixing the salt in.
peter youve talked about chillers,how about heaters
vic
how about the rock you dropped,your wifes garden,the container your mixing the salt in.
peter youve talked about chillers,how about heaters
vic
dainiusiva
New member
Peter, we really really need some pics 
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Call your insurance agent. You need a new 1350 gallon L shaped aquarium replacement.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Now that's an offer! I'll know my travel schedule better tomorrow.
Now you got me thinking, I've had kind offers of everything from loaves of bread to tanks of gas on this thread. I can see myself retiring early and travelling the world of open fishroom doors
Naturally my door is open if any of you make it to Toronto. I don't have a tank right now, but I could show you the LFSs and some local tanks.
The LFS in Toronto will take yo ua day to get to, look around and get stuff packaged for shipping!!! I know when I was still in Burlington we use to get about 6 of us to do a LFS run about every 2 months or so. Leave around 9:30 to hit the first one as soon as it opened then go all day. End up arriving back at the hosue at 6:30 or 7 to unpack our goodies and get them into our tanks. we would load the back of the van up with coolers and have them all packed with heating pads and packs to make sure they were nice and toasty for the new pieces. Going to miss those runs, not a lot of stores here in Nova Scotia unfortunately.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Sorry I have forgotten the French I learned when I was young. If you don't use it, you lose it.
The dose for potassium permanganate is 75 mg/gallon. It starts off purple and turns brown when it is exhausted.
The subject of dipping corals and QT (quarantine) came up the other day in another thread. Here's some recycled info I posted there...
First we will look briefly at what we are trying to kill, then focus on a prophylactic regimen of doing so without causing undue stress on a newly arrived acro. Since stress is the leading cause of RTN (vibrio bacterial infection), we need to make sure we don't kill the coral with kindness. There is no effective treatment for vibrio so prevention is the key.
The main things we are trying to target are flatworms and red bugs. That was brief, but the treatment isn't. You need to dip, bath, and QT as there is no all-in-one system. The whole process takes three weeks but you will have peace of mind that your livestock is safe.
Freshwater dips are somewhat effective at eradicating a variety of pests, but they can also cause the coral to slime up, thus inhibiting the effectiveness of medications in dips and baths. Medications should be added to saltwater to assure therapeutic levels and take osmotic pressure changes out of the equation. Certain medications are more toxic in freshwater and directions for marine use often recommend higher doses so they go into solution with all the competing ions of saltwater. In other words, don't use marine dosages in freshwater. In even simpler terms, don't use freshwater.
Freshwater dips should be between 10-20 seconds with vigorous swishing around to dislodge the flatworms, essentially kicking them when they are down Some people use a small powerhead to do this, but I find this to be too hard on acros tissue, particularly when they are stressed and damaged from shipping. You can blow the paint right off of them if you aren't careful. If you are experienced, by all means hit them with some flow while you are holding them upside down. A second freshwater dip bucket is handy for a second rinse. Do not use RO/DI water as it is too stressful (osmotic shock). Dechlorinated tap water or remineralized RO/DI water is better. Match the PH, hardness and temperature as best you can.
A more effective dip is 5 mg/gal Lugols Iodine. I would go a little longer (30-60 seconds) and use saltwater rather than freshwater. This could be a second dip/bath after the freshwater dip. You could experiment with other oxidizers like hydrogen peroxide, potassium permanganate, potassium dichromate, and merbromin, but there is something to sticking with proven methods and dosages. Oxidizers seem to be pretty equal as disinfectants. You an use 75 mg/gal potassium permanganate as a spot cure with a cotton swab where eggs and or dead coral tissue is present. This mix should be used for nets and fraging equipment. It needs to be mixed daily as it loses strength as it oxidizes organics it is in contact with. It starts off a vibrant purple then turns brown as it is exhausted. Be careful it will stain and shorten the life of some materials like fish nets (not the stockings, the ones you catch fish with).
Peroxide (1-3% as a 5 minute bath) is a useful oxidant for killing parasites and algae. It temporarily raises redox potential and dissolved oxygen as well. At the right dose it's a miracle cure, but certain SPS are more sensitive than zoanthids and LPS Here's a good RC thread on peroxide.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1634588
Ed Noga recommends 28 mg/gal levamisole hydrochloride (available as a pig dewormer) for 1.5 hours as a flatworm treatment. Other dewormers like praziquantel (available as Hikari Prazipro) at 1 oz/120 gallons as a 5-7 day treatment, or 75 mg/gal piperazine for 5-7 days are effective. Dylox (Trichlorfon by Bayer), is effective against external worms like gill flukes in fish and flatworms in corals. It is an orthophosphate (insecticide) which can be very toxic so it should be used exclusively in short baths (15-60 mins.).
For the dreaded red bugs, the best treatment appears to be 25 mg/10 gal Interceptor (Milbemycin Oxime). A 25% water change should be done six hours after treatment and carbon, protein skimming, UV, ozone, and ion exchange resins can be resumed. You should repeat this treatment every 5-7 days for three treatments in total. Sterilizing the holding tanks is a good idea. 50 mg free chlorine (sodium hypochlorite) for 2 hrs minimum is sufficient Rinse well and dechlorinate.
Wrasse of the Halichoeres and Psuedocheilinus genera eat flatworms, so they can be added to an acclimation/quarantine system. Commensal (symbiotic) crabs should be reunited with their acro hosts if they are separated during the dips & poisons. There may be some benefit to cleaner shrimp as parasite pickers as well but I'm not sure how much. In some cases cleaner shrimp become overzealous when grooming dead coral tissue.
I don't know if a short exposure to higher levels of ozone would be a sound practice. I'll talk Peter into setting up a test tank. We can use one of his six controllers to bring the ORP up to 500 mv and beyond and see if we can find a dynamic equilibrium (magic number of mv ORP) that kills the "bad stuff" and leaves the coral.
There is a rule of thumb for establishing therapeutic levels of medications; use 50% of a lethal dose. In other words, half as much as it takes to kill the fish or coral. Most treatments have safe dosing instructions readily available. The ones that don't have guidelines will have them after Peter gets his fish room going
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Good point. There is a reefing myth that you don't need a heater. It's an often overlooked detail that is very important to have.
nineball
Active member
First, I thought you promised Oprah not to text and drive at the same time or are you going to Chicago by boat?
I have to admit that I am going to be very very surprised if I need a heater with all the lighting, pumps etc. If I or my current advisor is wrong...........what should I be looking at? Your answer better not affect the completion of the fish room Mr. Wilson or a number of folks hanging on to this thread for the next update will haver your hide.
Peter
Woah, I finally caught up on reading this thread over the last two weeks (life is busy and reading time is limited). Greetings from the west coast Peter, this is an impressive and ambitious project and I wish you good luck with it. While I am hardly an expert; having been at this for only a few years; the best advice I can give is to take your time. Especially when stocking the tank as adding livestock and bioload requires time for the biological filtration to catch up. The saying that nothing good in saltwater happens quickly is very true. Although, with a tank your size you could probably add a dozen fish at a time and not notice much of an impact.
One area where I do feel somewhat qualified to comment is in your lighting. I'm not sure how far you may have gone to committing yourself to a system yet. LEDs is definitely a great way to go. I recently built an LED array for my little 75 gallon nano reef tank. It's been running for about 2 months now and so far the corals have all shown noticeable growth and great colouration. I think that LEDs is the up and coming technology and would be great direction to go with your system.
That being said, I would avoid the RGB type LEDs you are looking at. You are wasting energy and output into wavelengths you don't need and probably don't want. They throw lots of lumens but many of those lumens will be wasted in the wavelengths that are not ideal for photosynthesis. What has been shown to work well so far is a mix of cool white LEDs (generally around 6500K colour temperature) and royal blue LEDs. Cree is pretty much the leader in terms of output and efficiency right now. Philips is lagging behind a bit but if you are favouring Phillips emitters due to your relationship with the suppliers I would look at using the Lumiled Rebel LEDs in cool white and royal blue.
I do need to contradict one earlier statement that the blue LEDs are there to provide visual colour adjustment rather than PAR. Testing has shown that the royal blue LEDs actually put out nearly as much PAR as the white LEDs. you have to remember that the mix of chlorophyll respond to light in both the red end of the spectrum and the blue end of the spectrum. So, in theory you could sustain your corals under nothing but blue LEDs but that wouldn't look very good. The two are mixed, and preferably driven independently so the whites and blues can be dimmed independent of each other allowing nice sunrise and sunset effects as well as tuning of colour temperature at the peak of the lighting cycle.
With a tank of your size the up front costs of a suitable LED setup will be high (although it looks like you are fortunate enough not to have to worry about your system cost very much) but the long term benefits are great. You will use far less electricity which is better on your wallet and better for the environment and you will have to deal with less heat added to your system compared to MH or even T5 lighting. Also, you most likely won't need to change LEDs for 5 to 8 years depending on your lighting schedule and how well you manage the LED cooling. With MH or T5 for your sized system you will be changing alot of bulbs every year.
Before you can make some decision about how to setup an LED array you need to decide what your goals are. Do you want enough PAR at the bottom of the tank for high light corals or do you plan to keep them in the top half with lower light corals lower down? The eventual light intensity you want to achieve will dictate the number of LEDs, the type of optics and the spacing of the emitters. I would be happy to help try to figure that out for you when you are ready.
Mr. Wilson, if you are interested in some CAD software for the Mac take a look at TurboCAD. It may not be as powerful as some of the more mainstream commercial packages but it is pretty good and is Mac native.
Peter, nice cars in your neighborhood. I'm not a Bentley fan myself. They just don't move me. Very luxurious but a bit boxy and boring to me. However, that Maserati Gran Turismo is lovely. If I had to have a four door and money were no object my choice would be a Maserati Quatroporte or Aston Martin Rapide. The new Porsche Panamera is a bit funny looking but not so bad once you see it in the flesh and it is one sweet machine to drive. But now I digress so back to aquariums...
One area where I do feel somewhat qualified to comment is in your lighting. I'm not sure how far you may have gone to committing yourself to a system yet. LEDs is definitely a great way to go. I recently built an LED array for my little 75 gallon nano reef tank
. It's been running for about 2 months now and so far the corals have all shown noticeable growth and great colouration. I think that LEDs is the up and coming technology and would be great direction to go with your system.That being said, I would avoid the RGB type LEDs you are looking at. You are wasting energy and output into wavelengths you don't need and probably don't want. They throw lots of lumens but many of those lumens will be wasted in the wavelengths that are not ideal for photosynthesis. What has been shown to work well so far is a mix of cool white LEDs (generally around 6500K colour temperature) and royal blue LEDs. Cree is pretty much the leader in terms of output and efficiency right now. Philips is lagging behind a bit but if you are favouring Phillips emitters due to your relationship with the suppliers I would look at using the Lumiled Rebel LEDs in cool white and royal blue.
I do need to contradict one earlier statement that the blue LEDs are there to provide visual colour adjustment rather than PAR. Testing has shown that the royal blue LEDs actually put out nearly as much PAR as the white LEDs. you have to remember that the mix of chlorophyll respond to light in both the red end of the spectrum and the blue end of the spectrum. So, in theory you could sustain your corals under nothing but blue LEDs but that wouldn't look very good. The two are mixed, and preferably driven independently so the whites and blues can be dimmed independent of each other allowing nice sunrise and sunset effects as well as tuning of colour temperature at the peak of the lighting cycle.
With a tank of your size the up front costs of a suitable LED setup will be high (although it looks like you are fortunate enough not to have to worry about your system cost very much) but the long term benefits are great. You will use far less electricity which is better on your wallet and better for the environment and you will have to deal with less heat added to your system compared to MH or even T5 lighting. Also, you most likely won't need to change LEDs for 5 to 8 years depending on your lighting schedule and how well you manage the LED cooling. With MH or T5 for your sized system you will be changing alot of bulbs every year.
Before you can make some decision about how to setup an LED array you need to decide what your goals are. Do you want enough PAR at the bottom of the tank for high light corals or do you plan to keep them in the top half with lower light corals lower down? The eventual light intensity you want to achieve will dictate the number of LEDs, the type of optics and the spacing of the emitters. I would be happy to help try to figure that out for you when you are ready.
Mr. Wilson, if you are interested in some CAD software for the Mac take a look at TurboCAD. It may not be as powerful as some of the more mainstream commercial packages but it is pretty good and is Mac native.
Peter, nice cars in your neighborhood. I'm not a Bentley fan myself. They just don't move me. Very luxurious but a bit boxy and boring to me. However, that Maserati Gran Turismo is lovely. If I had to have a four door and money were no object my choice would be a Maserati Quatroporte or Aston Martin Rapide. The new Porsche Panamera is a bit funny looking but not so bad once you see it in the flesh and it is one sweet machine to drive. But now I digress so back to aquariums...
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
I think they got me here for a surprise intervention on Springer for my aquarium forum addiction.
You can pick up two 1000 watt titanium probe heaters and plug them into a controller. Make sure the module/power bar can handle the 20 amps that it will draw. Having each heater run on a separate controller will resolve this issue and act as a failsafe. If the controller jams in the on position the tank will only go up 5 degrees F instead of 10. If the controller jams in the off position, the other heater is still on the job.
We discussed heaters earlier in the thread. The experts agree that the ideal temperature is 86F. The room temp may drop at night even with your climate control system. The most important issue is stability. In my experience the tank will run about 5F warmer than the room. Evaporative cooling will drive the temp below room temp and LED or well vented MHL lighting has little affect on water temp. Your pumps are all external so they won't transfer as much heat as submersibles. Your UV unit will add a bit. The trickle/wet dry filter will cool the water through evaporation and contact with air.
Where you see a lot of overheating issues is with a tank under 200 gallons with MHL lighting crammed into a tight canopy, poor cabinet venting, inefficient pumps, Powerheads, and high ambient room temp.
Cold air drops so your basement will have a cool ambient room temp year round. Your remote sump and equipment will keep the tank cool. I think you said your live rock vats were about 78F.
The part that will have you tearing your hair out is the aquarium controller(s) have dedicated outlets for each device. That means your fancy illuminated outlets will only be used to power the controller itself.
Have you had any chance to read up?
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