Karim's 1500gal dream reef

but the sun is a powerful source of light energy...

https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What Is Solar Energy/Sun's Energy.aspx

http://www.egc.com/useful_info_lighting.php

So at about 1000W/m2 = 4600 PAR

I wanted to compare it to my current tank where I have peak light of 1600 PAR and I run peak power for 14 hours (8am - 10pm). I actually run it for 2 more hours but at reduced levels. So... we'll say that the photon "exposure" = 22,400 PAR-hrs.

This doesn't really change throughout the year.

At 4.2 hours in the winter, the sunlight would be ~ 19,320 PAR-hrs...

I realize that this is a gross oversimplification since corals can't necessarily store the excess energy so PAR-hrs is an artificial "measure", but until I have a better yardstick:

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/Designs/3_zpsad78nsp2.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/Designs/3_zpsad78nsp2.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 3_zpsad78nsp2.jpg"/></a>

So overall, there will be more energy going into the tank most months except for December and January where it would dip from -10% to -15%.
 
... will all the corals die in the winter?

... will an algae breakout kill all the coral in the summer as they bleach?

... will the wavelength shifts make them all turn a miserable brown?

... will the IR radiation bouncing around in the greenhouse cook the tank at 110F?

truth is I have no idea. The basic analysis says the site will work and that there will be light that should be sufficient.

The cooling will be critical clearly, but that's another topic.

:D
 
Ok... little more research on how to quantify sunlight:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2013/12/lighting

My instinct that a "PAR-hrs" using "effective hours" is useful turned out to have a real standard: DLI (daily light integral).

It's similar to my PAR-hrs but divided by 1000 and multiplied by 3.6 (they use seconds and divide by a million).

So my 22,400 PAR-hrs is ~ 80.6 DLI which is 2.5x what the paper cites.

However, they identify peak surface PAR at noon as 1900 in Hawaii vs. the 4600 I get from other sources which also happens to be ~ 2.5x their estimate.

So maybe it all evens out?

Also, I'm using a correction factor for angle of incidence based on month (low angles during winter, more vertical in summer). They're using a factor for incidence during the day also in their DLI calc.

I'll dig into it some more.
 
Dana Riddle has a few books and many articles written about the physics of light for reef tanks. He also has a reef collection company in Hawaii. Why not contact him directly if you want to hash out the gritty details?

Dave.M
 
karimwassef said:
Ok. Big news. We signed the docs on the new house. Location is Prosper, TX.
Click to expand...

Clearly you're beyond this already, but congrats. :celeb2: Big tank move ahead!

Looking forward to seeing how your beautifully designed CAD drawings change to show your new detached greenhouse.

Great commentary/discussion recently from dave.m's followups! Always learning in this thread.
 
like this?

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/Designs/0_zpswafmbapc.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/Designs/0_zpswafmbapc.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 0_zpswafmbapc.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/Designs/1_zpso4ususxd.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/Designs/1_zpso4ususxd.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 1_zpso4ususxd.jpg"/></a>
 
Wife needed to see if I had left any room for a pool. So I made a rectangle pool... that got criticized for being boring... so I found an amoeba shaped pool

:)
 
I've never seen so much engineering/planning in a build thread before. My expectations and ecitement are strong with this one.

Why did you separate the greenhouse from the house? Why not use the house as the fourth wall, or at least a portion?
 
vikinglord13 said:
I've never seen so much engineering/planning in a build thread before. My expectations and ecitement are strong with this one.

Why did you separate the greenhouse from the house? Why not use the house as the fourth wall, or at least a portion?
Click to expand...

That was the plan. I had intended to expand the garage and put all the plumbing back there with the outside wall as the divider.

Unfortunately, with a 20' sunroom that is facing south, the lot has to be large enough to accommodate the house and sunroom within easement, setback and build line... with a 25' easement from the back property line and 30' set back from the front, that lot was very very hard to find. (City regulation + HOA rules)

When we found a lot- the wife didn't like the house or plans.

We really wanted a southern facing backyard that was large enough to support the sunroom but it didn't exist (within our price range).

We did look for one acre lots and even some existing houses. That's why this has been delayed for a year.

To cap it all off- the last builder (closest to fit) said that their engineer would void the warranty on the house slab if we tied another slab to it... and they refused to extend the slab to the future sunroom area.

So... attaching it became too hard. That's a shame because I now need an oversized sunroom to accommodate tank and back room. I'm considering building a small garage instead as the back room to save cost.

The "walkway" is also a sunroom by the way. Its 8' x 20' which at 160sqft is just under the required area for an engineered attached structure.
 
This is the most designed structure I've seen too - with the exception of public aquariums. LOL

I've been in the hobby for a few decades now and I've always wanted this super tank. I couldn't afford it at first (still can't really). Then I didn't know what to do.. then couldn't do it.. so it's been a labor of love for a while.

I have very finite resources so I have to find every possible way to get it in the budget without compromising the core values. And that takes time.

So while I realize it's a pain for people to just watch pictures and formulas and discussion for a couple of years - I really value the contributions that everyone makes on here to make this a success.
 
Also, there are some bottlenecks that can quickly kill the project. The biggest one is heat and humidity. All the rest I think is manageable... humidity will fog up the glass killing light and heat will melt the coral above 84F.

And unlike with my metal halides, I can't turn off the sun when it gets too hot (I'm not putting $ into a canvas cover for the summer).

Here are some of the hurdles I can find solutions for:

1. Algae growth - under sunlight, this has killed several solar tanks. I'm actually looking at four zones for algae that combined would offer more area than the display tank (8' x 12') : A surge scrubber 8' x 3' + a raised refugium 8' x 2' + external waterfall garden 8' x 1' + external saltwater lake 8' x 6'. I'm looking at using the hydroponic growing trays for this.

2. Brown coral - I'm looking at installing UV LED directly into the framework of the sunroom steel supports to augment the natural sunlight. These would be liquid cooled with a circulating water line into the backroom. I had originally had them suspended, but now I'm looking at putting them into the sunroom walls.

3. Stagnant region cyano - I'm looking at pushing the return flow through the PVC structures that form the foundations of the concrete rockwork. The idea is that the rock should release the return water directly through small holes in the rockwork. The rockwork will also all be suspended.. no rocks on sand anywhere.

just more stuff that we haven't gotten to yet.
 
here's the back room as it stands today

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/Designs/2_zpsjcpwgwyh.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/Designs/2_zpsjcpwgwyh.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 2_zpsjcpwgwyh.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/Designs/0_zpsu4zd3sy1.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/Designs/0_zpsu4zd3sy1.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 0_zpsu4zd3sy1.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/Designs/1_zpsm69vllvq.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/Designs/1_zpsm69vllvq.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 1_zpsm69vllvq.jpg"/></a>
 
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