Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)

[Scej12]

I still think the idea of moving light to simulate natural photo-variations will be developed bigtime in the not so distant future with particular relevance to the LED paradigm shift trying to get off the ground, good work mr.wilson! The only thing I would check on is the natural photo-period in the tropics; I believe it is closer to 12 hrs, i.e. same amount of light as dark as a result of being so close to the equator... I entered this world thru Trinidad .. and I always made note of it being nighttime at 6pm, no matter what time of year.

The lighting theories you offer sound really solid and it would be nice to see how that train of thought translates into a new lighting system/product... and we all know it will in time..

Regards,
SJ

 

[mr.wilson]

The only thing I would check on is the natural photo-period in the tropics; I believe it is closer to 12 hrs, i.e. same amount of light as dark as a result of being so close to the equator...

I checked... day and night are equal at the equator, which is closer to the sun than the rest of the world, so the days are 28 hours long You are younger than you think Trini

 

[nineball]

Mr. Wilson

Mr. Wilson

Do you remember where you got the nori with garlic. My next door neighbor has asked me. As an aside he is just discovered a major ich outbreak and is (I think) about to lose most if not all his fish!!!

Peter

 

[mr.wilson]

Do you remember where you got the nori with garlic. My next door neighbor has asked me. As an aside he is just discovered a major ich outbreak and is (I think) about to lose most if not all his fish!!!

Peter

The Nori is from mops.ca. I was just there today.

Sorry to hear about Steve's fish. I'll go make a house call tomorrow. I have an Aqua-Medic fish trap in my car. We can try to treat the fish we can't catch in the tank with metronidazole. There aren't many other options with a reef tank.

We can move all of your QT fish into one system and use the other MARS as a hospital tank for Steve's fish. It's a hard lesson and it can take years to get through, but you must quarantine all of your fish and medicate most of them prophylactically (preventative medicine).

 

[swissgaurd]

The Nori is from mops.ca. I was just there today.

Sorry to hear about Steve's fish. I'll go make a house call tomorrow. I have an Aqua-Medic fish trap in my car. We can try to treat the fish we can't catch in the tank with metronidazole. There aren't many other options with a reef tank.

We can move all of your QT fish into one system and use the other MARS as a hospital tank for Steve's fish. It's a hard lesson and it can take years to get through, but you must quarantine all of your fish and medicate most of them prophylactically (preventative medicine).

mops sells nori with garlic.
never heard anyone selling that
i always soak mine with my garlic recipie,works great.
but then shawn will have greater success using his method

vic

 

[mr.wilson]

I guess it's been awhile since I gave an update...

Water testing is still showing good numbers. Phosphate and nitrate is consistently at zero, even with heavy feeding twice a day. I think we should change Peter's name to Mr. Kind

Magnesium has never dropped below 1600 since I raised it to fight the hair algae which is 100% gone. We have a little bit of bubble algae (valonia), some course green turf algae, and a fair bit of brown turf algae. No need for an algae turf scrubber here. Any ATS fans out there want a starter culture? I haven't added magnesium in the last 2 months.

Alkalinity has remained between 8-9 from the start. I manually dose SeaChem Reefbuilder every two or three days to feed the coraline algae which is growing well.

The calcium level drops from 400 to 380 (which could be a testing error/accuracy issue) over two weeks, but I have been bumping it up with calcium chloride and maintaining it with calcium hydroxide.

The sump for the display has been a complete fiasco. I waited two months from one supplier who strung me along, then finally gave up on them. I lost another two weeks with another company that dropped the ball, but we are back on track with Midwest Custom Aquarium in Minnesota. They are getting a rush order out to us before Christmas. I think it's coming via sleigh :bounce2:

I installed two of the three plasma lights over the refugium and one of the mangrove walls. The other light is tied up over the display (literally). Speaking of which, our other two 6' MHL fixtures ship out tomorrow and should be here early next week. The two plasma lights look much whiter/bluer than the one over the display tank. I don't know if this is a variation in the fixtures or just perception due to the location. I still haven't set up a dimmer for them, but I will update the results soon. I still don't like the heat, fixture aesthetics, and bulkiness of the units we have.

We have been holding off on serious coral purchases until the sump and lighting are in place. Our test corals are doing great and we are going through the usual issues. We had an acro with red bugs today! There was just one, so we had to do the unthinkable and take ole yeller behind the barn and put it out of its misery (anyone following from Europe or Scandinavia will have to Google my reference, but brace yourself) We seem to have dealt with the aiptasia issue with the Epo Putty. The next time, I'll try mixing some calcium hydroxide into the putty for added potency.

We are still doing 20% water changes every two weeks. We have it down to a 30 minute process with very little disturbance to the tank. We don't stir or siphon the substrate.

My most surprising observation is that none of the fish are hiding in the display tank. Fish that I am used to see, or should I say not see, in caves and rock crevices are out in the open all day. The fish are also displaying a preference to stay in certain areas and show little or no interest in roaming the 24' long aquarium. The two Helfrichs firefish swim right at the front viewing panel at one end of the tank, the ventralis anthias like the corner bend in the tank. The Bartletts anthias stray half way through the tank, the twinspot gobies are always busy at the tank bend, and most of the wrasse and the blue spot jawfish stay at the long end of the tank. Even with the large Blue Face angel the small fish aren't overly skittish. The Blue Face is already banging his jaw on the acrylic panel for Peter to feed him... yes, he (the fish) has him (the human) trained. The flasher wrasse are zipping around and flashing their colours, but there hasn't been any aggression among the 20 or so fish in the tank.

I have been cleaning the pleated cartridge filter daily to remove free floating detritus stirred up by our water flow and generated by our turf algae turf war. The SeaChem Matrix carbon has left our water crystal clear, but there is a significant amount of turbidity. At least we know detritus isn't getting trapped in the substrate or rock work.

The Profilux controller is waiting on the sump, as is the protein skimmer. I'm getting impatient and will likely set them up over the next two days.

Temperature has settled at 77-78˚F. The completed lighting will bring it up to 80˚F and we will start turning off the AC in the fishroom at night to help balance day/night temps and conserve energy.

The new source water system works great.

 

[mr.wilson]

mops sells nori with garlic.
never heard anyone selling that
i always soak mine with my garlic recipie,works great.
but then shawn will have greater success using his method

vic

Whole garlic contains beneficial phytochemicals that you won't get with prepared foods, so your home recipe is the way to go. What's your secret, piri piri?

 

[swissgaurd]

Whole garlic contains beneficial phytochemicals that you won't get with prepared foods, so your home recipe is the way to go. What's your secret, piri piri?

lol
kelp

 

[Scej12]

I checked... day and night are equal at the equator, which is closer to the sun than the rest of the world, so the days are 28 hours long You are younger than you think Trini

lol... good thing I wasn't born on a leap year!!

In terms of climate, we wind up getting so used to our own geography that we forget all about the earth's tilt in practical thinking. I remember my shock when a colleague of mine told me about her camping trip up north, when the sun was still shining brightly at 11pm... we all know that the poles experience 24hr periods of light/dark at summer/winter solstices but somehow that's always at the very back of my mind til someone reminds me... then I get surprised all over again.

BTW - I've been hanging out (reading through) the N/P reducing pellets thread lately, and just thought I'd ask: what strategy are you planning on for nitrate/phosphate control on this system? I don't recall any previous disclosures... but then again, I haven't read through every single post. Did you talk about this already?

Trini

 

[mr.wilson]

lol... good thing I wasn't born on a leap year!!

In terms of climate, we wind up getting so used to our own geography that we forget all about the earth's tilt in practical thinking. I remember my shock when a colleague of mine told me about her camping trip up north, when the sun was still shining brightly at 11pm... we all know that the poles experience 24hr periods of light/dark at summer/winter solstices but somehow that's always at the very back of my mind til someone reminds me... then I get surprised all over again.

BTW - I've been hanging out (reading through) the N/P reducing pellets thread lately, and just thought I'd ask: what strategy are you planning on for nitrate/phosphate control on this system? I don't recall any previous disclosures... but then again, I haven't read through every single post. Did you talk about this already?

Trini

I hear they are working on using rockets to correct the tilt in the earths axis, and should have a solution by 2022 I did in fact forget about the seasonal shift. I don't however think it is worth the resources to orient your lighting north & south over the seasonal change. On the other hand, man has never profited from underestimating mother natures design and hundreds of millions of years of evolution. This brings us back to my earlier comment, that the UV light on natural reefs must play a major role in some manor. We can't simply discount it's significance because our knowledge of coral physiology is limited at this point in time. Almost everything happens for a reason, and LED lighting is an area where UV is difficult to achieve. There are some "UV" LEDs on the market but they are basic low nanometer (blue) lights.

As far as nutrient control goes, we have a full line of attack...
- mangrove trees with plasma lights
- chaetomorpha refugium with plasma light
- NP Biopellets (5 ltrs) in fluidized media reactor
- Phosban in fluidized media reactors
- Magic mud as mangrove media
- DSB in overflow boxes, mangrove planters and refugium
- benthic zone filtration in sump
- 20% water change every to weeks

 

[dantimdad]

Wow! With all that export going on, is a skimmer even necessary? I know general opinion is one is always needed, but, I don't think I have seen that many methods spread out over a system before.

BTW, I can't find what you are doing for carbon filtration. How many liters of carbon are you using?

 

[dantimdad]

Oh, BTW Mr. Wilson, I saw a 52 Studebaker pickup that is being restored down the street from my house. Nudge, nudge.

 

[Hookup]

Garlic Fact or Myth
There were a series of studies done in pubic aquariums with respect to the use of garlic in foods. There were two groups of fish in this study one was fed using garlic and one was not. The entire collection of a fish was from one "session" collecting the same species on the reef, with the obvious goal to collect a set of the same fish. The fish were randomly divided into two groups, a control and a the target group.

One group was fed food which was "blender-mash" that included garlic and the other was fed the same food just without garlic.

Mortality rates were observed and were lower in the garlic fed group.

However, in a second study large fish (sharks i believe) which were known to be difficult to get to eat in captivity the effects of garlic were noted, not studied. Of the three or four large fish that were being acclimated to captivity, one fish readily consumed "regular food" and lived on... the other refused to eat. This initial observation was with foods that did not have any garlic.

With the introduction of garlic some of the non-eaters showed a food-response and started to eat, however one of the fish never ate and died.


In both articles the authors note that there were no known or observed immune system benefits from the introduction of garlic, but that there were feeding responses observed with the addition of garlic. They both hypothesized that garlic was not a direct benefit to the fish, however as a significant indirect benefit the fish began to eat more readily and in better quantities and diversities which, as a general health rule says that the fish were healthier.

 

[mr.wilson]

Garlic Fact or Myth
There were a series of studies done in pubic aquariums with respect to the use of garlic in foods. There were two groups of fish in this study one was fed using garlic and one was not. The entire collection of a fish was from one "session" collecting the same species on the reef, with the obvious goal to collect a set of the same fish. The fish were randomly divided into two groups, a control and a the target group.

One group was fed food which was "blender-mash" that included garlic and the other was fed the same food just without garlic.

Mortality rates were observed and were lower in the garlic fed group.

However, in a second study large fish (sharks i believe) which were known to be difficult to get to eat in captivity the effects of garlic were noted, not studied. Of the three or four large fish that were being acclimated to captivity, one fish readily consumed "regular food" and lived on... the other refused to eat. This initial observation was with foods that did not have any garlic.

With the introduction of garlic some of the non-eaters showed a food-response and started to eat, however one of the fish never ate and died.


In both articles the authors note that there were no known or observed immune system benefits from the introduction of garlic, but that there were feeding responses observed with the addition of garlic. They both hypothesized that garlic was not a direct benefit to the fish, however as a significant indirect benefit the fish began to eat more readily and in better quantities and diversities which, as a general health rule says that the fish were healthier.

Thanks for posting that information, but it doesn't sound like a scientic study with adequate control. Two groups of fish isn't enough to get an accurate account but maybe you oversimplified the description.

 

[Hookup]

Thanks for posting that information, but it doesn't sound like a scientic study with adequate control. Two groups of fish isn't enough to get an accurate account but maybe you oversimplified the description.

100% agreed and certainly I did paraphrase and simplify intentionally and im sure accidentally as well.... but it goes a lot further than hobbyist observation, for me anyhow... (not trying to sound confrontational btw)


If i've got 100 hobbyist telling me that garlic is a magic healing food because they had a fish come back from the edge i'm asking them how many other fish died in their system, how did they acclimate their fish, etc, etc...

to many undocumented variables that have little to no applied consistency other than "garlic has a positive affect on sick fish".

For example, I have a reef-er buddy, I'm sure we all do , who's acclimation technique is to dump the fish into the tank really fast... "works for me" he says, so he's going to post, oh no, my fish died <insert any other reason that acclimation>[/] because no other fish ever died that way before so he eliminates that possibility...


All i'm saying is that of the "pseudo-science" that is out there, saying that garlic is a benefit is pretty close to fact.

But as for going further as to "what is the benefit" and the common belief that garlic = a medicine of some sort is too far for me. Sounds like snake oil, which from the generation of instant gratification (which I am leading that charge myself haha) would fit nicely into the stereotype.

 

[nineball]

Question.....

Question.....

I have a file fish which I have been told loves to eat aptasia. I have not put him into the main display tank as I seem to remember some controversy as to just how reef safe he is. Does anyone have direct experience with this fish that should prevent me from putting him in the main display tank?

Peter

 

[Scej12]

I hear they are working on using rockets to correct the tilt in the earths axis, and should have a solution by 2022 I did in fact forget about the seasonal shift. I don't however think it is worth the resources to orient your lighting north & south over the seasonal change. On the other hand, man has never profited from underestimating mother natures design and hundreds of millions of years of evolution. This brings us back to my earlier comment, that the UV light on natural reefs must play a major role in some manor. We can't simply discount it's significance because our knowledge of coral physiology is limited at this point in time. Almost everything happens for a reason, and LED lighting is an area where UV is difficult to achieve. There are some "UV" LEDs on the market but they are basic low nanometer (blue) lights.

As far as nutrient control goes, we have a full line of attack...
- mangrove trees with plasma lights
- chaetomorpha refugium with plasma light
- NP Biopellets (5 ltrs) in fluidized media reactor
- Phosban in fluidized media reactors
- Magic mud as mangrove media
- DSB in overflow boxes, mangrove planters and refugium
- benthic zone filtration in sump
- 20% water change every to weeks

you forgot the kitchen sink in your strategy.... I'll be renovating soon - so might have a spare...:lolspin:

 

[gig]

Mr Wilson, I missed it but what was the method of raising your mg to 1600? how long did it take to get it that high?

 

[kinlayan]

Hi Mr Wilson

NP Biopellets (5 ltrs) in fluidized media reactor - what is your flow rate in this?

Nineball- "I have a file fish which I have been told loves to eat aptasia". IMO peppermint shrimps(in a group) and even a copperband are better choices than a filefish in a reef aquarium when he has decimated the aiptasia he may go for other desirable corals but certain fish have individual preferences

 

[dmb1977]

Peter and Mr Wilson- an amazing tank but i got to say a distinct lack of :



PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the last few weeks .