Mhucasey's SPS obsession

[viktor72]

This is amazing system that you built and the corals are even more,thank you for sharing.
Once you said that you add iodine using Fauna Marin colors additives for Blue and Red,are you adding iodine inside the FM solutions,and what iodine solution do you use and how much?Do you test for iodine?
It would be also interesting to read about your feeding regime for corals and fish.
Keep up the good work,you are an inspiration.

 

[mhucasey]

This is amazing system that you built and the corals are even more,thank you for sharing.
Once you said that you add iodine using Fauna Marin colors additives for Blue and Red,are you adding iodine inside the FM solutions,and what iodine solution do you use and how much?Do you test for iodine?
It would be also interesting to read about your feeding regime for corals and fish.
Keep up the good work,you are an inspiration.

Thanks for the kind words!
I was dosing about 3 drops of lugols/day, but i don't dose it right now because of using the FM colors, which have iodine. I dose about 10-15ml per week of the Blue/purple and red/purple solutions. I have never tested for iodine, but I was able to see definite increases in polyp extension and skimmate production when dosing lugols after breaks in dosing. My research into this led me to conclude that the iodine is skimmed out especially in my heavily skimmed system, and that it is needed for both the corals and bacterial populations. Some people can meet this need with foods, especially if feeding nori.

I feed the fish at least twice a day, and pick two items from the following list, rotating them for variety:
Frozen mysis
Spectrum Thera-A pellets
Live California Blackworms(not bloodworms!)
Reef Caviar

I feed with all the flow on - the fish like to chase the food and it gets eaten very fast.

 

[mhucasey]

Well the new bulb layout is a hit, the only bulb I have been playing around with is the bulb in the 8th position. This Aquablue Azure bulb from Giesemann might be my new favorite white bulb, it is a beautiful whitish blue and the corals fluoresce a lot under it without blues.

I found an interesting effect with using the Actinic Bulbs - the bulbs punch up the fluorescent colors nicely without shifting the overall color to heavily toward blue. The balancing act I end up playing is wanting the tank bright, with all colors represented, no yellowish or pinkish overtone, and with flourescence maintained. Too many blue bulbs, the tank got dimmer and reds started looking brown, yellows looked green, etc.

A while back I found that the KZ New Gen could be swapped in for a blue bulb and the overall color balance didn't change, it was just like the brightness had been increased some. The problem was that once I hit a certain number of white bulbs, the flourecsence would drop off and the corals would look pretty dull. After adding Two Giesemann Super Actinics, I was able to keep the fluorescing no matter what. A large part of what we see as the corals color is due to fluorescent pigments, so I'm not just talking about the neon green here. If you take a brightly colored frag outside and look at in the sun, it looks nothing like it does under the lights from the tank.

I started with the fiji purple, two actinics, The Aquablue Azure, A new New Gen and the new actinic blue from Gman. I had blue bulbs in the remaining positions like so:
Blue-Aquablue Azure-Actinic-FP-Actinic-Actinic Blue-New Gen-Blue. Almost right away I felt that the tank looked dim in the front with the first bulb being a blue one. I switched that out for a New Gen and that was my initial lineup. I've played around with the final bulb a bit, starting out as a blue Plus, which looked good, nice and bright. I tried a Superblue in that position and because the superblue has a bit less green, it looked dimmer and the red from the fiji purple became a bit more pronounced, I didn't like it as much.

Last night I alternated a New Gen and a Aquablue Special there and while they were both very close, the Aquablue special won out as my favorite(for now). The tank is bright, the colors all are very vibrant in a way that I used to only get with a lot more blue bulbs, fluorescence is there nice and strong, and I know that with this combo the PAR is crazy high.

 

[mhucasey]

For something different...Our pair of stubby snowflake clowns in their gigantic Purple long tentacle anemone, buried deep in the back of the reef:

 

[biggles]

I love seeing clowns in anemones, never had that in any tank but i've always wanted to. Your clowns are little stunners

 

[mhucasey]

I love seeing clowns in anemones, never had that in any tank but i've always wanted to. Your clowns are little stunners

Thanks,
On day one of the tank we of course had to get a percula clown, though his name is "Carl" not Nemo:angry fire:
Then I came across these beauties, Ive never seen any like them since, "Stubby Snowflake" clowns. They are very cool and I'm glad we have them but getting clown was another part of the "its so exciting to have a tank and lets get everything stage. Luckily their anemone found a great spot in the back of the reef under a lot of other stuff, because it is about a foot across or more and if it wasn't there It would tank up a huge chunk of real estate. When I upgrade the tank the Nem might get its own island

 

[mhucasey]

So withe the change in seasons the challenge is once again keeping the temperature up, and when its cold I have close to 1000 watts of heaters working quite a bit. Considering that our local electric company(SDGE) is one of the most expensive in the country our electric bill has taken it in the shorts(They also significantly raised rates recently too). We have had our bills jump from 200-300 bucks to 300-450 bucks a month. We are going to install solar in the spring to get this down, but in the meantime I'm contemplating changes to keep the heat in the system.

There is a big open space on the other side of the room from where the tank is now, I was thinking that I may build or buy a cabinet large enough to house the equipment and re-route the plumbing to keep all the water inside the house. If I do it right this "Filtration Pod" can also be used for a larger tank when we upgrade. I will lose the settling tank and some of the sump volume but I need to do something about the electrical use!

 

[Electrobes]

Maybe insulate piping?

 

[mhucasey]

Everything is insulated already, including the sump and skimmer, unfortunately

 

[reefmutt]

+1 add a ton of insulation on that pipe..
But instead of moving the system, might it be easier to build an enclosure around your system in the garage? Not sure if this is feasible..

 

[reefmutt]

Maybe line all of the sumps in some insulation?

 

[reefmutt]

Oops.. Missed that last post. Didn't refresh..
Enclosure?

 

[mhucasey]

The insulated pipes outside still lose a lot of heat, in the summer they hear up the water too. Plus, with the mega long run of piping the return pump has to work hard to get water back to the tank, I calculated a head of 12 feet. Locating the sump in the same room would allow me to use a smaller return pump with less wattage too.

One other option was building a diy natural gas powered heater...the folks who have done that are able to heat similar tanks for next to nothing.

 

[markalot]

I would box the pipes in rather than solely rely on insulation wrapping the pipes. Air is a great insulator. Easier said than done, of course.

 

[mhucasey]

I think its a lesson for anyone trying to route pipes through cold or hot spaces like outside the house, underground, or to the basement - you can't have too much insulation.

I think the idea of a "filter pod" has some merit though if done right. The idea would be that the cabinet contains the electrical, pumps, sump, reactor, and skimmer, and is built with sliders on it so it could be moved in the future. Out the side and back will be two pipe stubs with union, one for the return pump supply and the other one for the overflow from the tank. Maybe one more pipe outlet that would be a low point drain.

With that the whole pod could be drained once or twice a year, disconnected, and a jumper could be attached to link the two pipe stubs. The sump could be filled with water, add citric acid or vinegar, and turn on the return to flush the solution through the sump and clean it all out. Rinse the acid after recirculating, connect it back up to the tank, add some fresh salt water and start it back up. Ideally the pod would only have those pipes and one or two power cords. Any ideas on ways to improve it further?

 

[glaukos]

Can't help you much mhucasey,since my setup is different but i can feel you on the high cost of electricity
Even changed a lot of my equipment because of that!
What i did was cut back my sump's volume by almost 60%.It really helped regarding the time that my heaters needed to do their job!
I had a lot of space in there for "just in case" purposes which i never used,for any of them
Hope you'll find a good solution to this my friend!

p.s
Love that anemone pic too

 

[mhucasey]

Can't help you much mhucasey,since my setup is different but i can feel you on the high cost of electricity
Even changed a lot of my equipment because of that!
What i did was cut back my sump's volume by almost 60%.It really helped regarding the time that my heaters needed to do their job!
I had a lot of space in there for "just in case" purposes which i never used,for any of them
Hope you'll find a good solution to this my friend!

p.s
Love that anemone pic too

Thats one bummer about changing up the design, i added extra tanks to the system to increase the system volume, but now they are just big tanks of water for the most part, so I will be eliminating them to make the system more efficient.

I'm thinking of building the new enclosure out of extruded Aluminum t-slot, its strong, light, corrosion proof, and I can attach finished wood panels to the outside to make it look nice. Plus it gives me an excuse to work with a material I haven't used yet

 

[mhucasey]

Having the system in the garage gave me a chance to try out a bunch of different things, but in the end the Pellets and the skimmer are the only parts of the system I have to keep. In a couple of months I will have been using Pellets from Reef Interests for a year and the All in one pellets for 6 months of that. They have been a true "Set and forget" method for me now.

Things I've tried in the quest for happy coral water:
Vertex biopellets - corals showed stress after a couple of months
Vinegar dosing - Worked well but never could keep my PO4 down without a lot of nitrate dosing
GFO - killed two clams and stressed the corals
Pellets from Reef Dynamics - never seemed to do much of anything. PO4 stayed constant.
Zeovit system - I'm still a believer it works but it has a bioload limit that is lower than my system was throwing at it. It just couldn't keep my Phosphate low and the more I tried to push it the more corals died.
Lanthanum Chloride - this is pretty good stuff, I haven't had any issues with the fish when I've added it, but it only knocked down Phosphate temporarily, and I was a little concerned about long term effects.
NP biopellets with PO4X4phosphate remover - The NP pellets worked and brought everything down to the levels I wanted, I tried using the PO4X4 with it but it is a hassle and a half keeping it in a reactor. After the initial use and regeneration, it didn't seem to work anymore. I finally just pulled it and let the NP pellets work and they did well on their own, when phosphate would rise a little I'd add LaCl.

Finally, the All-in-one pellets. The tank looks better than ever, the skimmer responded with increased skimmate and my phosphate values stayed low to undetectable. Honestly I haven't tested phosphate in about 3 months. The only thing to know with these is that you will need to replenish them faster than regular biopellets as they get consumed more quickly.

 

[Indiana Reefin]

Your tank is a inspiration! Let me know if you ever make s frag pack and are willing to ship

 

[mhucasey]

Your tank is a inspiration! Let me know if you ever make s frag pack and are willing to ship

Thanks very much! I don't have any plans to ship anywhere but that could change, ill let you know.