Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)
- Thread starter nineball
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mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Not yet. Post a link if you come across anything. If it's a technology that doesn't require replacing plates or using an air drier it sounds good. Energy efficiency and purchase cost is pretty low as it is, so there isn't much room for improvement.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
swissgaurd
New member
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...
peter there is a local guy in burlington that has been putting led systems togethor and has had great success,all his components are imported from australia,i can put you in contact with him if you wish
vic
swissgaurd
New member
how about a photo of the pine tree
vic
vic
swissgaurd
New member
ive kept my reef at 86, did not do the sps great,also more algae
ive kept at 81 little better
trying 77 sps better than ever, theres a but though,having issues with ph
vic
swissgaurd
New member
picture of your lawn
am I missing something? taken from the referenced article...
The average temperature calculated for all 1000 + coral reefs was 81.7°F. Over all reefs, the average lowest temperature observed was 76.4°F, and the average highest temperature was 86.4°F. One way that these data could be interpreted would be to say that for most corals and coral reef animals, the best conditions would be between 76°F and 86°F, with the average being about 82°F.
jackiechandc
Canadian Reefer
I agree that 86F is waaay too high for a reef aquarium. With Delbeek's book "Reef Aquarium Volume 3", he actually recommends lower temps in the 77-78F degree range to prevent excessive coral spawning which pollutes the tank. I use to keep my SPS dominant tank at about 82F but since I lowered it to 77F or so, my corals have never looked better. At the higher temps, I've also experienced more algae growth and bleaching of corals.
I personally don't know any SPS keepers that keep their tank temps at 86F or so.
Wei
nineball
Active member
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
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...
Ron,
1. thank you for taking the time to jump in.
2. thank you for taking the time to read the whole thread.
3. thanks for the LED perspective.
4. Thanks for the car conversation. I'm not sure how folks in the fifth millennium will feel about the historical perspective about our obsession with metal and speed. For me I must admit I have always and will continue to savour every minute of the love affair with the car regardless of the make.
I agree with most of your conclusions about the value and utility of LED technology for aquaria. I would add however that if the final solution includes not only white and blue but a modest array of RGB as a compliment to the lighting foundation then I believe you have a complete and robust answer. The RGB array is about colour, tone and general ambiance.
I have to reiterate that the RGB LED lighting that I have been working with is extremely rare. I am not a Philip's fan boy. I couldn't care which brand carried this level of functionality. This is a remarkable platform. I do not believe that it (RGB)delivers either the par or the concentration of healthy wave length that our coral needs without the pure white. I'm pretty sure that the maturing LED industry will include the full colour spectrum with all the qualities and diversity that the real world produces in nature.
The technology that I have been working with is far more advanced than anything in the DIY realm and is far stronger than the Cree. Each 12'" segment is individually addressable over Ethernet. So the colour, frequency and intensity are all infinitely programmable. The problem for us is that Philip's is extremely stingy about technical detail and my hope is that with Mr. Wilson's help and assistance we can test and generate enough measurable output data to justify further serious research of benefit to our reefing community.
In the interim ( next 3 months) I will be using standard lighting technology with MH HID, T5 and blue LEDs. Mr. Wilson and I will be looking for additional willing members to assist with the various lighting alternatives and would welcome your participation along the way if you are interested.
Welcome to the community Ron,
Peter
Yes, I had more RTN's above an 82 average and more success keeping SPS in the 76-78 range, 86 seems high to me, don't know of anyone doing this
nineball
Active member
Mr Wilson, I can see where we can have a debate on different srategies for lighting, or skimming or even organic vs mechanical filtration but I can't believe that there is or should be a debate or disagreement on what temps are best for the health and welfare of sps coral. Certainly not a 10 degree span. Surely there must be a recommended target. I can't believe there is a ten degree swing of opinion on something this basic. What am I missing?
Peter
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
A friend of mine was in Indonesia recently and he reports that the maricultured (ocean farmed) sps are in 90F water. Coral growth ceases at 76F, so 77F is at the margin of their range. 93F is the top of their range, so 84-86 (low/high) is somewhere in the middle. 84F is also the reported level for best growth/health.
I haven't found "excessive coral spawning" to be a problem. If it was, it's the kind of "problem" I want
I believe the data Shimek uses in the article is from 1995. The seas have warmed in the past 15 years.
You need to establish where your temp will tend to drift. Most people have a temp that drifts up during the day while the lights are on. For this reason, it is safer to keep the temp below the optimum 84 and keep it at 82. It's easy to fix a temp that tends to drift down with a heater, so it's not necessary to keep it higher than the optimal 84F.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
We aren't keeping corals from the Atlaltic ocean or Caribbean Sea so the average temp isn't accurate for our South Pacific, Australian and Indo Pacific corals. I'll look it up when I get the chance, but I doubt the temps where our corals come from go below 80F.
Maybe some of our Australian friends here can inform us. One of them is in the coral collecting business. I'm sure he can stick anaquarium thermometer on his wetsuit
jackiechandc
Canadian Reefer
I haven't found "excessive coral spawning" to be a problem. If it was, it's the kind of "problem" I want
Actually coral spawning is a bad thing in a closed environment like a reef aquarium. Too much spawning will pollute the tank, increase nitrates and make the skimmer go crazy. In the open ocean, coral spawing is not a problem, but in a closed environment it can be a major issue. Anyone who has a large clam spawn in the tank will tell you it pollutes the water column to the detriment of the tank.
Wei
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Did you ever buy that infrared thermometer I recommended? This article explains the difference between water and coral temp. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/2/aafeature2
noobtothereef
New member
We aren't keeping corals from the Atlaltic ocean or Caribbean Sea so the average temp isn't accurate for our South Pacific, Australian and Indo Pacific corals. I'll look it up when I get the chance, but I doubt the temps where our corals come from go below 80F.
Maybe some of our Australian friends here can inform us. One of them is in the coral collecting business. I'm sure he can stick anaquarium thermometer on his wetsuit
most of the water temps in reefs are on average 88 degrees+, ive read this numerous times...... but that doesnt mean the best growth, heres a where a study was done where they grew a staghorn acro at different temps and figured the best growth was 27 degrees c(80.6 degrees f.)
http://www.seaworld.org/just-for-te...ow Water Temperature Affects Coral Growth.pdf
nineball
Active member
When I was snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef the air temp was 30 degrees Celsius. I remember it very clearly as the water temperature was also 30 degrees. The coral was unbelievable but healthy.
The best sps coral tank I have seen is Changsha's tank. I believe he keeps his water at 76 F. Looking at his results makes me a believer in his practice but there must be scientific answer for something this basic.
Peter
The best sps coral tank I have seen is Changsha's tank. I believe he keeps his water at 76 F. Looking at his results makes me a believer in his practice but there must be scientific answer for something this basic.
Peter
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