Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)

[mr.wilson]

I just happened to pick up a good quality mercury thermometer at the Scientific supply shop today. The $200 certified quality ones are special order and take two weeks, so I held off for now. This one is Celsius only. The guy laughed when I mentioned fahrenheit. I think the scientific community changed to celsius years ago because of the difficulty in spelling fahrenheit.

 

[mr.wilson]

Mr. Wilson,
what is your definition of Fluidized reactor? (just trying to get on the same page)
is it the ability to tumble media? a recirculation object but with enough flow through it to tumble or move media?



and Dave, it this is the fact, i have heard that if carbon media tumbles, it creates carbon fines (small particles) and this has been said to be harmful to fish. (this is only hear say) it is said to be a cause of lateral line and others..

Yes, there is a theory that the presence of activated carbon causes lateral line erosion, but it still just a theory. If it is confirmed, the next step is to prove how it becomes a causative factor. It is possible that it creates organic carbon-poor water that does not allow beneficial bacteria to thrive.

Rowaphos reactors, and fluidized bed biological filters are two examples of fluidized bed filtration. Apparently it is gentle enough not to dislodge trapped organics in carbon or wear it down, creating dust.

If you believe that fluidized bed biological filters work, then fluidized media reactors will become biological filters. If you believe that fluidized bed biological filters slough/wear off biofilms/bacterial slime, then they discourage bacterial growth. I lean toward the latter, and never put stock in fluidized bed bio-filters. I never understood why they became so popular in the height of bio-ball removal???

 

[Rybren]

Cliff and I went to The Wall concert, met with Roger on the opening night and the three of us ended up playing a round of golf on Friday at the Abbey.

Excuses, excuses. Where are your priorities? Your public awaits you.

 

[golf nut]

Cliff and I went to The Wall concert, met with Roger on the opening night and the three of us ended up playing a round of golf on Friday at the Abbey.

I am guessing my PM box is full, the mail isn't working and the phone must be off the hook?

 

[crazzy]

Any chance of a detail plumbing/flow drawing of the Coral Mars Bar setup?

 

[jbotha]

Love this build

 

[mr.wilson]

Love this build

That's what I thought you meant

 

[nineball]

Any chance of a detail plumbing/flow drawing of the Coral Mars Bar setup?

We are still in the process of modifying the Mars Bars. The coral Bar is probably the most heavily modified so far, in fact, it has been so heavily modified I think we are going to rename the final result from Mars Bar to Wilson's Bar. Apart from the frame and the glass tanks nearly everything has been or will be swapped out for better quality devices. The plumbing has been rearranged and heavily modified for optimum flow and pendutors have been fitted to each tank with great results. The unit now represents the best possible staging area for the Display Tank that we could conceive.

After the mods have been completed we will take detailed pics and list the revised equipment.

Peter

 

[nineball]

I am guessing my PM box is full, the mail isn't working and the phone must be off the hook?

Cliff and Roger send their apologies....and blame me for the faux pas.

Peter

 

[nineball]

Excuses, excuses. Where are your priorities? Your public awaits you.

Excuses? Priorities?

27 individual tanks in the fish room sort of dictates my priorities for the time being. Feeding the inhabitants frames both ends of my day very nicely thank you very much.

Peter

 

[RyanTurner]

I don't participate on Reef Central that much, but I do log on everyday just to check the update on your thread. I'm a car guy myself, (my dad used to race Porsches), so those cars earlier where a good mix to the reefing madness. Just thought I'd tell you how excited I am to see this system stocked and growing. Cheers!

 

[nineball]

I don't participate on Reef Central that much, but I do log on everyday just to check the update on your thread. I'm a car guy myself, (my dad used to race Porsches), so those cars earlier where a good mix to the reefing madness. Just thought I'd tell you how excited I am to see this system stocked and growing. Cheers!

Thanks very much RyanTurner, for your loyalty to this thread I promise some neat car stuff in the near future to go with a fish room that will define best practices for our hobby..........

Peter

 

[aquainas]

Come on Peter, our thread can't be anywhere but page one!
Definitely not a best practice...just to taunt you. Let's see some fish room pics at least so those of us following from the beginning, myself included, can get our "fix".
Excellent work so far! Mr Wilson is indisputably a master of this craft, and I admire your courage and dedication to this community project.
Shane.

 

[mr.wilson]

Come on Peter, our thread can't be anywhere but page one!
Definitely not a best practice...just to taunt you. Let's see some fish room pics at least so those of us following from the beginning, myself included, can get our "fix".
Excellent work so far! Mr Wilson is indisputably a master of this craft, and I admire your courage and dedication to this community project.
Shane.

Thanks for the kind word, dedication, and patience. I will take some fish room shots soon. Our skimmer, media reactors and calcium reactor will be in very soon. There are some updates we haven't posted yet.

Today was heating & cooling expert day. He had a few good tips for keeping the fishroom cool, including the novel idea of opening the exhaust vent for the HFV (air exchanger)

We tried firing up the 1 HP chiller last week, but it raised the fishroom 13˚F while raising the display tank only 1˚F. The problem is exhausting the hot air from the chiller. The HRV gets rid of humidity and stale air but it doesn't remove heat unless it's really cold outside. We have a 12,000 BTU air conditioner but there is no in using it to cool the chiller

As it turned out, the Poseidon P3 pump was heating up the Mars system it was running and falling a little short on flow. I switched it out for an Iwaki 55 RLT this week. We also added locline ball valves to every tank for better control. The Mars invert system has a 1/2" Eductor on each tank as well as a valve. The eductors make a nice swirl flow pattern. The invert system will be lit with LEDs. More details with pics coming soon.

 

[pendraig]

We tried firing up the 1 HP chiller last week, but it raised the fishroom 13˚F while raising the display tank only 1˚F.

Did you mean lower the DT 1 degree?

First time I read this, I was thinking to myself: "maybe it's on reverse since it's acting like a heater" :lol2:

 

[killerbee181]

Theres no way to put the chillers outside? Wasting alot of electric by having to vent the heat or cool the whole space from the heat of the chillers. I think even if you had to have a dedicated pump to pump outside just for the chillers would be better then having them inside.
Terry

 

[dahenley]

Mr. Wilson!!

is you chiller a drop in style, this can be a problem.....
if you chiller has the heat exchanger inside and you run hoses to it, then you can relocate it outside and just run 2 lines through the wall outside to it. (just use black vynal so you dont get algae in it from the sun outside)
last, if its a AC powered one, then it will usually have a heat exchanger anyway, so you can keep the exchanger outside and do as mentioned above, or you can put the heatexchanger inside and just run your copper refrigerant lines outside.

just some opinions from a outsider thats loving this build!!!

 

[Poeticlydead]

HRV - Heat Recovery Ventilator - they are specifically designed to keep the heat in the space to put it simply (they exchange the temp of the exhausted air with that of the incoming air), so that it doesn't contribute to the heat load of the house and there for the stress placed on the hvac system.

While I'm not a chiller guy (read that as have never had nor needed one on my systems) it does seem to me that a 1hp chiller is a little undersized for the main system unless this is running the mars system (I forget). Either way if the chiller is going to run year round you will need to look at the fish room as a critical room cooling set up (like what is done for server rooms) where in the system has to be sized to the heating load (corrected for your target temperature) and provide for zero degree low ambient operations (cooling in the winter-here are add on low ambient kits for some mini split systems and many that come with the feature built in). Seeing as how most 1HP chillers are rated at 12,000btu your mini split is undersized since it does not allow for pump/equipment heat or occupant load, it literally is maxed out by the heat output of the chiller.
You are fighting a fundamental flaw with integrated chillers where the heat they pull from the water is passed into the same room I often wonder why they don't make more split system chillers where the system operates more like a traditional air conditioner and exhaust the heat outside.

Man I need to learn to type faster.

As to setting your integrated unit outside and pipeing to it I wouldn't recommend it especially for the winter. You could run into three big problems:
1 - unit doesn't run for an extended period of time water in outdoor unit freezes and unit fails
2 - when the unit isn't running the inevitable water left setting in the unit will gain/loose temp with the outdoors causing temp swings in the DT when the unit comes on after an extened off period
3 - hose failure can we say tank upgrade to full size basement system

It would better serve you to find a ready made split system chiller or DIY yours to suit the purpose.

 

[mr.wilson]

Did you mean lower the DT 1 degree?

First time I read this, I was thinking to myself: "maybe it's on reverse since it's acting like a heater" :lol2:

Good catch! You're hired onto the book editing team

Yes, the temp in the display went up one degree, while the neighbouring (don't even try it, that's the Canadian spelling ) fish room was increased a whopping 13 degrees.

Eventually the display tank would have probably gone up with exposure to the hot fishroom where the sump is open to the air.

 

[dahenley]

i dont think a chiller needs to be tooo big for them because of their location. if this tank was here in Texas or in FL where the heat is horrible, then they would need 2-3times that. but because of their climate, it wont take as much effort to lower the temp. (