nineball
Active member
Good point Russter, to be honest I don`t know and I don`t think I will be able to comment untill everything is powered up, so to speak.
Peter
Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)
- Thread starter nineball
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Good point Russter, to be honest I don`t know and I don`t think I will be able to comment untill everything is powered up, so to speak.
Peter
nineball
Active member
That is one amazing fish. I appreciate the opportunity and I thank you for thinking of me. It is probably premature however as I am determined to continue to follow the discipline through each stage. The next stage is to test the complete system in its entirety before we begin aqua sculpting with the live rock. I am truthfully not sure just how much time will be taken cycling the rock as it has been in the vats for almost 10 weeks. It may be ready sooner than I think but I am going to be watching and testing very closely before the coral enters the tank. The next phase will be acquiring to coral and introducing it to the tank in stages with the final phase being selecting and introducing the fish slowly and with as much planning as all the previous stages. So as you can see I`m not ready yet to consider livestock but when I am I`m going to be looking for a lot of advice and assistance. Hang in and we can revisit you offer when the time is right. Thanks very much for your support and encouragement.
Peter
Peter
nineball
Active member
Thanks very much Rizup. You are right. This experience has been enhanced and enriched a thousand fold because of this strong and supportive community. This really is our tank in every sense. There have been a number of occasions when this build has felt onerous but again this groups support has helped me to cope. Hopefully we will look back and find some value for others following in our footsteps.
Thanks again for your kind words of encouragement.
Peter
nineball
Active member
Great updated pics! Everything looks ship shape.
I don't want to drag the temperature debate out any longer that it already has been. As Peter mentioned, you would think we would have at least that one subject covered in the hobby by now.
The problem with magic numbers is they aren't magic for everyone. Peter has a high tech climate control system and a budget to keep it where he wants it. There are numerous fail safes and the high water volume and acrylic tank tank construction offers yet more stability. Fear of a temperature drop during a power outage or a high temp spike during a heat wave are not factored in when establishing target temp. If you have all of your ducks in a row, then a magic number of 82-84F fits the bill (no pun intended).
If you feel you are at risk of power outage, extreme weather (hot or cold), or equipment malfunction, then you should aim lower, closer to the middle of the temperature range (79-80F).
In most homes, it gets cooler at night. This can drop the system water a few degrees, especially since lighting and in some cases pumps are off at night and cooling fans are often left on. Most fish and corals are from areas with stable temperatures. The temp swing is more injurious than the temp value itself. For this reason, it makes more sense to keep the heater at 80F rather than 79 or lower so nightly drops are compensated for.
You can use a chiller to keep the temp from rising over 80F, but that represents a $1000 - $1500 equipment cost and elevated operational costs. It also increase the possibility of leaks and equipment failure.
I don't know the actual numbers, but the amount of dissolved oxygen in 79F water vs. 82F water isn't a huge difference. Keeping the resting temp lower will add extra minutes of air, rather than hours.
I posted an article by Dana Riddle earlier where he compares water temps to actual coral temps in aquaria. He uses a directional infrared thermometer to test the temp of the coral. Some lighting systems emit radiant heat that reaches the corals, making them warmer than the surrounding water. The sun also generates radiant heat obviously, so this heat transfer is not unique to our aquariums. Hopefully Peter can give us some documented water temps and coral surface temps. We have to keep him busy in the aquarium hobby or we will lose him in the wine closet
Thanks Mr. Wilson and welcome back. Hopefully everything wedding related went well......and you haven't returned with fewer body parts than what you left with. :celeb3:
Are you around tomorrow??
Peter
Peter,
It has been a little over 3 month since you started this build thread and I must say, considering the size of the project, that the progress you have acomplished is outstanding. I like that you have gone first class and spared no expense on every aspect of the system, you will appreciate the benefits of this in the future. Along with Mr. Wilson and this community, I have made small changes in my own system that have had positive impacts on the inhabitants. For this I must thank you for starting, and especially sharing with us all, this thread. Keep up the good work, the tank will get there in its own time.
Mike
It has been a little over 3 month since you started this build thread and I must say, considering the size of the project, that the progress you have acomplished is outstanding. I like that you have gone first class and spared no expense on every aspect of the system, you will appreciate the benefits of this in the future. Along with Mr. Wilson and this community, I have made small changes in my own system that have had positive impacts on the inhabitants. For this I must thank you for starting, and especially sharing with us all, this thread. Keep up the good work, the tank will get there in its own time.
Mike
Great updated pics! Everything looks ship shape.
I don't want to drag the temperature debate out any longer that it already has been. As Peter mentioned, you would think we would have at least that one subject covered in the hobby by now.
The problem with magic numbers is they aren't magic for everyone. Peter has a high tech climate control system and a budget to keep it where he wants it. There are numerous fail safes and the high water volume and acrylic tank tank construction offers yet more stability. Fear of a temperature drop during a power outage or a high temp spike during a heat wave are not factored in when establishing target temp. If you have all of your ducks in a row, then a magic number of 82-84F fits the bill (no pun intended).
If you feel you are at risk of power outage, extreme weather (hot or cold), or equipment malfunction, then you should aim lower, closer to the middle of the temperature range (79-80F).
In most homes, it gets cooler at night. This can drop the system water a few degrees, especially since lighting and in some cases pumps are off at night and cooling fans are often left on. Most fish and corals are from areas with stable temperatures. The temp swing is more injurious than the temp value itself. For this reason, it makes more sense to keep the heater at 80F rather than 79 or lower so nightly drops are compensated for.
You can use a chiller to keep the temp from rising over 80F, but that represents a $1000 - $1500 equipment cost and elevated operational costs. It also increase the possibility of leaks and equipment failure.
I don't know the actual numbers, but the amount of dissolved oxygen in 79F water vs. 82F water isn't a huge difference. Keeping the resting temp lower will add extra minutes of air, rather than hours.
I posted an article by Dana Riddle earlier where he compares water temps to actual coral temps in aquaria. He uses a directional infrared thermometer to test the temp of the coral. Some lighting systems emit radiant heat that reaches the corals, making them warmer than the surrounding water. The sun also generates radiant heat obviously, so this heat transfer is not unique to our aquariums. Hopefully Peter can give us some documented water temps and coral surface temps. We have to keep him busy in the aquarium hobby or we will lose him in the wine closet
Thanks for your input. I feel the true value of this forum comes from debates such as this, so to me it is a welcome exchange and far more rewarding than most other discussions.
Here is another very pertinent article, entitled "The Great Temperature Debate" for your review:
http://www.reefsmagazine.com/showthread.php?t=78026
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
I think I still have more than the 1 liter (cross border) allowable amount of vodka in my system from the Polish wedding, so I'm staying an extra day
Off to the Shedd Aquarium today, and hopefully Premium Aquatics and Inland Aquatics tomorrow if I can swing it at the last minute.
Rizup
New member
I think I still have more than the 1 liter (cross border) allowable amount of vodka in my system from the Polish wedding, so I'm staying an extra day
Off to the Shedd Aquarium today, and hopefully Premium Aquatics and Inland Aquatics tomorrow if I can swing it at the last minute.
I buy a lot of stuff from Premium Aquatics and have been there twice. I went a few months back and was not impressed with things at all. It was a bummer. Not nearly as impressed as I was the first time. Hopefully things are better if you are able to make it. I would love to go to Inland one of these days.
I really wish the Shedd would put some more focus on Aquaculturing. Their coral displays leave a lot to be desired in my opinion, but the shark tank is awesome
Either way I am sure you'll have a good time.
nineball
Active member
Elliott, you certainly have been a busy beaver..........:reading::reading::reading:
That is an excellent article....clear, cogent and enormously accessible. It also states the obvious from the outset........we should know more than we do.....
I like the approach and I think it will be very useful.
Here's my two cents on the subject and the author hints at it sort of. First there is a difference between finding what margins coral will tolerate for survival versus what is ideal. And ideal means what? Close to nature? As the article points out nature doesn't always know better.
I am beginning to think we need to think long and hard about the real purpose and intent of what we are trying to accomplish with this hobby and then the challenge of what temperatures best support our objective. I know I want an attractive landscape that probably can't be found as such in the natural world. All the coral species can be found individually but not orchestrated in the same 25 feet.
It is highly likely that I will have sufficient varieties that the demands for temp bandwidth will go up. I believe that temperature stability is clearly and universally accepted as preference regardless of where the temperature sits. I also believe that the comments about stress being more acute at the extremes is also worthy of consideration.
So wisdom would suggest that somewhere between 74 and 86 is the target and 80 degrees is a safe number that will NOT get anyone into trouble. Having said that I can see there are at least two schools of thought that drift slightly cooler or slightly warmer depending on the complexity and context of the reef. I think that if you have a backstop against extreme temperatures that likely occur with a power-fail with say a generator or two then the range of targets might increase to 78 to 82. Other considerations might come into play that affect temp stability such as geographical seasonal variances which would make it less likely that someone would be advised to go higher or lower without considerable aquatic experience under their belt.
Clearly fish will raise the bar for the issues we face with choosing an ideal temperature band but thats another discussion which I promise we will engage again. Until then I'm still learning and I know I'm going to end up somewhere between 78 and 82.
One last observation. I note that those with larger tanks of at least 1000 gal tend to run cooler.........not sure why........but they seem to.
Peter
nineball
Active member
Mike, thanks and I looking forward to sharing the best part of this journey in the near future. Ironically, the fish guys are here doing the final cuts and gluing so all the equipment is spread all over the place again. The whole environment looks like and smells like a boat repair shop in the florida keys.
Peter
I think it comes down to: does experience trump opinion? For me, the answer is yes. Now you can make the argument that temperatures found on the ocean's reefs are not opinions, rather facts. However whether to apply these temperatures to our closed systems I believe is more opinion, since there are many variables at play that are unique to closed systems, which we really should be focusing on, such as dissolved oxygen levels at higher temperatures, rapidity of spread of disease, stress associated with higher temperatures, effects on filtration, effects on Mg, Alk, Ca, DSB's, and many elements we don't know about or measure, etc., etc.
We really do not understand most of what is occurring in our tanks. This industry has grown from a culture of hobbyists that are not scientists, do not do well designed studies, do not publish and their data is largely not scrutinized the way it is normally done in the scientific world. I am a university trained physician and biomedical engineer, so I'm familiar with how ideas are brought to fruition in life sciences.
From what I have seen over the past 14 years being submerged in reef keeping technology in one form or another, most successful tanks or for that matter most tanks overall are kept at or below 80 deg F average. So, for me anyway, that is a very significant fact.
Salt_in_MyBlood
New member
Looks like things are going great Peter. Very nice equipment room, you may not have caused the earthquake but may be responsible for another four day black out in the GTA when you fire everything up. Lets us know before you do, so we can put our emergency plans into affect.
I noticed your air meter on Robbie, am i correct in it being 50 schf max. Not sure if that is for just one pump or mutiple pumps, but I am not sure if that will suffice. I put one on the first skimmer i made and it only has a 220 gph pump without a needle wheel, just a homemade venturi and it draws 30-35. Your meter may not be much good if the ball is stuck to the top of the guage. If it does become a concern, i can help you out. I purchased 4 air flow meters in a surplus buy through a company in the states that have a range of 0-200 schf. I still have two of them left that I could drop off or send you, your cost for them... a tank tour once it is done. or even just after you have things running with rock, as much as i love fish and corals, I do love equipment and how things work.
Keep up the great work Peter
Rene.
I noticed your air meter on Robbie, am i correct in it being 50 schf max. Not sure if that is for just one pump or mutiple pumps, but I am not sure if that will suffice. I put one on the first skimmer i made and it only has a 220 gph pump without a needle wheel, just a homemade venturi and it draws 30-35. Your meter may not be much good if the ball is stuck to the top of the guage. If it does become a concern, i can help you out. I purchased 4 air flow meters in a surplus buy through a company in the states that have a range of 0-200 schf. I still have two of them left that I could drop off or send you, your cost for them... a tank tour once it is done. or even just after you have things running with rock, as much as i love fish and corals, I do love equipment and how things work.
Keep up the great work Peter
Rene.
nineball
Active member
Thanks Rene, I appreciate the sentiments and your sharp eye for detail. I am supposed to get the PDF of the RK2 manual tonight so i will finally get to know just how much I do not know! ! ! Your offer of help is appreciated and I may well take you up on it. Mr. Wilson is desperate to do an upgrade which he feels will gain a tremendous boost in performance. I probably will knowing me but I think we agreed initially to find out what the baseline is right out of the box first.
You should know that members of this thread who have marched through the whole evolution of this project get a free pass for a personal tour regardless. I will not be opening the doors however until there are fish in the tank, so I wouldn't pack my bags yet. After Mr. Wilson and I get a chance to examine Robbie first hand I may pm you for a followup discussion.
Thanks hugely for your support.
Peter
You should know that members of this thread who have marched through the whole evolution of this project get a free pass for a personal tour regardless. I will not be opening the doors however until there are fish in the tank, so I wouldn't pack my bags yet. After Mr. Wilson and I get a chance to examine Robbie first hand I may pm you for a followup discussion.
Thanks hugely for your support.
Peter
Salt_in_MyBlood
New member
No worries Peter, I know it is a long process and think it is great you are not trying to rush things. Just to let you know, the flow meters i have are dwyer, same as the one you have. They do not have the flow adjustment knob like your's, but for our purpose you do not need it. You want as much air as possible going into the skimmer. Some skimmers use air flow to regulate the water level and type of skimmate they produce but it is better to regulate the water level by how much water exits the skimmer.
We get the house tuesday, so it will be reno time and then setting up the 135 but i will check and watch for any messages. I will also try to keep up with this thread, this will be my night time break from everything else. Also, always looking for new ideas and things to implement in my set up. Keep up the great work.
Rene
We get the house tuesday, so it will be reno time and then setting up the 135 but i will check and watch for any messages. I will also try to keep up with this thread, this will be my night time break from everything else. Also, always looking for new ideas and things to implement in my set up. Keep up the great work.
Rene
nineball
Active member
I'm hoping to get them into the tank soon but I might try a few pics on we'd if I get time. We are working on the mars tanks tomorrow and a general cleanup in the fish room.
Peter
endlessblue
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dca22anderson
New member
Nicely done!
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