Karim's 1500gal dream reef

[karimwassef]

As in....? Mirrors?

Mirrors are basically the same as solar tubes. Maybe a little better ~ 60% instead of 40% throughput.

Not sure I see much benefit to the added complexity with mirrors that would either be fixed and miss a lot of sun or moving which would add a lot of complexity.

Is there another option for solar?

 

[alanbetiger]

Anyone know what glass ORA farms use? All their corals are grown out under greenhouse/natural light in Florida.

 

[Subsea]

I haven't broken ground yet so I have plenty of time to think things through and I appreciate all the help.

I originally thought of swamp coolers since they're so commonly used for greenhouse cooling. Unfortunately, that would have been perfect in a dry desert climate but not dallas. Humidity is 60% in the summer and we get lots of warm wet rain. It's actually really important to keep my air dry, especially in the sunroom side. I'm concerned about making it rain with high humidity hitting the glass. In the back room, high humidity will destroy most equipment, so I even considered adding a dehumidifier... even if that increases air temperature.

When I was thinking of the big fans blowing over the sump water, the intent was to cool the water only and expel the moist air out. I also have plans for a large DIY external evaporative cooler like they use for pools. The idea is to keep the water cool, but also keep the air dry.

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/Designs/0_zpsd0dword6.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/Designs/0_zpsd0dword6.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 0_zpsd0dword6.jpg"></a>

If you would, provide a link for this equipment. Depending on how my in ground Rubbermade tank system fairs this winter, I would like to get evaporative cooling in some modular component for this coming summer.

 

[Subsea]

I don’t know how much land you have, but in a post on cryptic zone filtration you indicated using half a tennis court for underground cooling and heating. In my location, that would be extremely expensive as I have limestone outcropping at the surface of my 1.5 acres. For my money, I would dig out that volume and line it to hold water. Research underground cistern water storage which uses eggcrate type baffles as structural support. Sounds like a perfect cryptic zone filtration zone.

I merely mention cryptic zone filter as a compliment. The real reason is to increase your system volume to dampen temperature swings. With a solar collector, during the peak heat input of the day it would be extremely expensive to design equal heat removal equipment for the water. Instead, slow down the response of the water temperature change by increasing system volume. The larger the system volume, the slower the temperature change. The idea being to design an exceptable temperature differential. For my uncured live rock in outside growout, I allow 12 degrees. I could narrow that differential but that cost money.

 

[karimwassef]

If you would, provide a link for this equipment. Depending on how my in ground Rubbermade tank system fairs this winter, I would like to get evaporative cooling in some modular component for this coming summer.

It's just a plastic trash can with a raised eggcrate box inside full of bioballs. There's a PVC pipe with a pump on the bottom that feeds the raised pvc "spokes" full of holes to drip on the balls.

There are openings (holes drilled or cut with a mesh over it) for intake holes in the sides of the can. The top of the can cover has a hole with a radiator fan.

Then just an inlet pipe and outlet pipe in the bottom sides...

You can scale it as you like but that's basically all it is. I wanted to do a YouTube but selling a house is a lot of work.

 

[karimwassef]

I don't know how much land you have, but in a post on cryptic zone filtration you indicated using half a tennis court for underground cooling and heating. In my location, that would be extremely expensive as I have limestone outcropping at the surface of my 1.5 acres. For my money, I would dig out that volume and line it to hold water. Research underground cistern water storage which uses eggcrate type baffles as structural support. Sounds like a perfect cryptic zone filtration zone.

I merely mention cryptic zone filter as a compliment. The real reason is to increase your system volume to dampen temperature swings. With a solar collector, during the peak heat input of the day it would be extremely expensive to design equal heat removal equipment for the water. Instead, slow down the response of the water temperature change by increasing system volume. The larger the system volume, the slower the temperature change. The idea being to design an exceptable temperature differential. For my uncured live rock in outside growout, I allow 12 degrees. I could narrow that differential but that cost money.

Yes. That's why the tank (1500 gals) has a 2000 gal sump in the backroom in the dark with massive fans blowing on it. I considered the cistern but I was worried about future maintenance issues.

The soil in north Dallas is soft.

Also, I was planning on a scrubber that's 1/4 the size of a volleyball court, not cryptic .

I'm doing cryptic inside my concrete rocks. I'm also keeping the lower half in high flow but no light.. really experimenting with NPS corals down there.

 

[Subsea]

The more I understand details, the better I see your vision. Sorry, I have not read the complete thread.

Your 2000G sump, in the dark, may we’ll be enough to dampen temperature swings on a 1500G sun lite tank. I had a 7000G tank at 4’ and eight 150G Rubbermade tanks at 2’ deep. Rubbermade tanks could be operated individually or combined with Big Tank. At 2’ deep, the temperature change was 20 degrees. When coupled with 7000G at 4’ deep, the temperature change 10 degrees. Adding spray bars with 1HP pump and using two 1HP fans, coupled with 1HP blower to move water, a 4 degree temperature difference was maintained.

It gets expensive to decrease temperature swings in a greenhouse.

 

[Subsea]

Also, why the scrubber? What do you do with the export fron ATS? Compost tomatoes?

Consider growing an editable seaweed like Red Ogo. You could supply all the trendy restaurants in Dallas with Red Ogo. I would even add pods for a sushi component to the marketing.. It would be easy to do in Austin town.

 

[karimwassef]

The scrubber has been my best friend. It's actually my food farm for the reef...

I actually have four scrubbers:

1. The pastures - the clear acrylic surge tanks on the back wall are also scrubbers. They face the sun and use a vacuum to fill. The primary purpose of this scrubber is to make food available to the tangs once it's matured enough to harvest. Basically, the area is inaccessible to fish while in surge scrubber mode. But once a week, it goes into full mode and the fish can swim up to graze the mature vertical pastures. This also mimicked their natural feeding habits in nature.

2. The highlands - a raised overflow tank return: basically all the return into the display from the sump goes up into a raised tank that is sunlit. This section is for turf, pods, worms and shrimp. The idea is that this allows the food created in that tank to gravity flow into the tank vs pumped with impellers shredding the more delicate organisms. The raised tank has 6 gravity returns - 4 are valved to control flow and two are actuated surge events that naturally adjust for imbalance between in and outflow.

3. The farm - this is the really big solar tank on the outside. It's shallow and very turbulent/aerated. I expect to feed a lot so this is intended to catch any inorganics before they get spikey. It's a big safety net that also breeds pods and worms and shrimp... and I can certainly adapt it to macro if profitable. I usually feed my harvest back to the DT, but I've considered growing edible salt tolerant food too. Then again, I do have a dedicated tank for that.

4. The garden - this is a side solar tank with mostly macro and terrestrial plants. It's small but focused on mangroves and glasswort.

Why four different zones? They do different things and are designed to be hospitable to different organisms. The back surge is to allow fish access. The raised return is to gravity feed. The outside farm is to maximize air churn for turf. The side garden is to maximize benefits to plants, not algae.

Each has its niche in the ecology and food chain so it becomes cooperative vs competitive.

I also want to explore the potential to have in-tank breeding without manual effort. The reason we need to remove baby fish and shrimp is that the reef is actually a terrible place for them to survive. By creating a more diverse landscape (not focused on physical beauty), I can recreate the nurseries that naturally help these babies to thrive. For example, I can dose my phyto very heavily into my gargen sump and turn that water green without killing my mangroves - "estuary-like"... I can have water slowly flow in and out allowing a baby refuge from the chaos on the reef... then once a month, it flushes in and out...

I have the same ideas for sponges... different biomes for different spongefolks.

 

[karimwassef]

I guess my basic takeaway is that a coral reef is kind of like a "head" on an organism. We basically want pretty heads in a jar... but it doesn't work like that in nature.

I'm trying to recreate the whole body and then have the head sticking up from under the table cover... creating the illusion of a head in a jar... but in fact the true organism is much bigger and not always as pretty!

I wish I could duplicate estuaries, macro gardens, sponge grottos, open ocean, deep dark troughs with pressurized Calcium dissolving, and maybe even a sand beach... I'll start with a few easier zones

See? Just in time for Halloween.

 

[Subsea]

I would like to comment about pods being profitable. Most reefers want live pods, but they don’t provide optimum conditions for pods. Hence a huge market.

“The farm - this is the really big solar tank on the outside. It's shallow and very turbulent/aerated. I expect to feed a lot so this is intended to catch any inorganics before they get spikey. It's a big safety net that also breeds pods and worms and shrimp... and I can certainly adapt it to macro if profitable. I usually feed my harvest back to the DT, but I've considered growing edible salt tolerant food too. Then again, I do have a dedicated tank for that.”

 

[Subsea]

PaulB told me a good pod story. He lives on Long Island half way to Montogue Point. Located at Montogue Point is a Striped Bass farm with tanks 30’ across. While visiting the farm, after seeing the abundant pods, Paul told the owner that he had much more money in pods then striped bass.

After I graduated from Texas A&M in 74, I went to work at Dow Chemical in Freeport, Tx. A commercial photographer friend did a photo shoot at an Occidental Plant near by that discharged chromate into marsh estuary. Initially, their environmental impact plan consisted of three terraced ponds, but no action plan. So, these terraced ponds looked like “the dark side of the moon”, Then as an environmental solution, Blue/green cynobacteria was introduced to absorb chromate. Adult brine shrimp would eat blue/green cynobacteria. Occidental was happy with this environmental solution. Then a hobbiest in Dow’s environmental department connected adult brine shrimp as a market to sell to. Instead of incurring an expense to be environmentally sound, sales of eggs and adult brine shrimp went to hobby retail market.

 

[karimwassef]

Good point. How would I harvest them though?

 

[alanbetiger]

Kind of like a beehive making honey. Put a bunch of slots of filter pads you can pull out individually. That’s how they come from some online vendors

 

[karimwassef]

how do you attract them into the pads? I'll give it a try

 

[alanbetiger]

With the amount of different zones you’re planning on doing you probably wouldn’t need to attract them specifically. But if you did just some macro algae in between should do it. Alternatively you could just do handfuls of cheato for a price that should have tons of pods.
Online though I get two 3x4” pads which is supposedly 1000 pods for $30 shipped for free so I doubt it’d be a decent cash flow for you.

 

[karimwassef]

Well.. given the scale of the outside farm, it would support at least 1000 pads like that. I would need a strong attractant to compete with the field of plentiful algae.

 

[Subsea]

Pod hotels

Pod hotels

The matrix is the attractant. Biological film grows on surface of matrix fibers, this is food for the pods and shelter from predators. It could be marketed as “pod hotels”.

Hobbiest could hide them in display with gradual reduction in population density. Then bring them back to the Farm to exchange for thriving pad. Depleted pad is inserted back into system. You could do the same thing with rubble in a media bag. Call it “pigs in a poke”. You never know what works in today’s marketing with social media.

 

[karimwassef]

Excellent. Can the film form in the dark or do they need light?

 

[Subsea]

Light is not required. Different components in dark biological films then in lighted refugium. Pods eat both. They will also eat fish flake food.

I have a 25 year old mud macro refugium. Two months ago, I turned out the lights to make it a cryptic zone refugium. I think pods prefer porous rock over macro. The filter pads are a good in between.