My 500 gallon propagation build

[alexgv14]

I wish I had a drain. I am just going to have a pipe that will spit the water outside. The process was quicker than usually because I was very detailed in what I wanted with them and had a lot of the materials ready for them to work with. I purchased all the glass windows and glass wilding doors on craigslist for 150 bucks which saved me a ton of money on that. Took me a while to find all that stuff.

 

[alexgv14]

Day 11 progress. So, the sunroom is done. I have started configuring up my light stands and a few other things.



I have 10 of these guys

Got a humidity sensor to make sure it doesn't get too humid in that room.

I wanted to make sure I had enough outlets so I had the electrician install quite a few outlets and new circuit breakers. I circled all the outlets in red.

 

[alexgv14]

Day 14 progress: I installed some of the lights on the roof and placed all the tanks where they should be going.

 

[Aqua Chemist]

Isn't that light too high?

 

[alexgv14]

Its about 5 feet from the surface of the water. Somebody else correct me if I am wrong but I am pretty sure the Photon 32 even at that height should be able to penetrate a few inches of water and supply the amount of light an sps frag needs. As a matter of fact was planning to run them at about 30% intensity.

 

[dave.m]

Get a PAR meter. Your eyes are not able to judge the necessary frequencies.

Dave.M

 

[SPotter]

Get a PAR meter. Your eyes are not able to judge the necessary frequencies.

Dave.M

+1 you will be amazed at how much the intensity drops as you move away from the light. I think you'll need to lower it.

 

[alexgv14]

Anybody have a par meter I could borrow. Or where I can get one for cheap. I know they are expensive and dont want to pay full price just to use it once and thats it.

 

[worm5406]

Try your local Fish Club. Most have one to lend out or a person in the club that will bring it over and do the testing for you. Sometimes all you have to do is buy dinner...

Our club you have to set up a room for the PAR meters owner's son. So he can live at your place for a month. Not a bad trade off.

Just kidding.

 

[alexgv14]

Haha. They should have a rental program on these things Im sure a lot of people have been in the same situation I have been in.

 

[tidus10]

..Is that a ghost overflow on your current tank?!

....who do you know..

Man i wish i could build a building just for my tank thats awesome, love the build!

 

[alexgv14]

Yes, it is a ghost overflow. I didn't really build a whole building just made another room lol. But it has been a fun undertaking thus far.

 

[woodnaquanut]

Its about 5 feet from the surface of the water. Somebody else correct me if I am wrong but I am pretty sure the Photon 32 even at that height should be able to penetrate a few inches of water and supply the amount of light an sps frag needs. As a matter of fact was planning to run them at about 30% intensity.

Sorry, I don't know that light and the website wasn't great about specs.

Light follows the inverse square law. Double the distance and get 1/4 the light. Considering how much light is on the wall to the left and well, the entire room, I'd say that light is way to high.

If you lowered it to just cover the tray, you'd get the max light to all parts of the tray.

Do you have or can you borrow a PAR meter? (edit: sorry, didn't see other posts! )

You might want to pose your model better before taking the pic. It's not an especially flattering pic of the woman (your wife?). :facepalm:

 

[alexgv14]

The picture is actually of my mother lol. I call her the project manager of the construction build because she is usually there when the workers are there. Since my wife and I work most of the day.

Does anyone know where I can find one of those longer metal strings used to hang the lights?

I got some 2' by 4' eggcrate and siliconed it on the growtray with pvc pipes.

 

[dave.m]

Just a word of warning on the white egg crate: coraline algae goes nuts for the stuff and grows all over it, which is okay except that your plugs then want to grow all over the coraline algae and can be difficult to remove. Black egg crate doesn't seem to have as many issues.

Dave.M

 

[worm5406]

Go into any home store. Go to where the ceiling grid / tile is. They are there. They are used to hang gridwork up.

 

[o2manyfish]

I would not glue the egg crate to the bottom of the tanks. You will get algae growth on the egg crate and pulling them out to either bake in the sun, or clean off with a power washer will be a necessity.

Dave B

 

[alexgv14]

Thanks worm5406 I'll check that out this weekend to see if I can find the length I need. o2manyfish I actually didn't glue it to the bottom of the grow tray I glued it to the pvc pipe which the whole thing can easily be removed.

 

[o2manyfish]

Alex --- Just making sure -- If you are going to have lots of egg crate in each of the tanks - I would recommend investing in a couple of extra pieces of egg crate so you can switch them out as needed. And an inexpensive pressure washer is a great tool for cleaning the racks.

Dave B

 

[alexgv14]

Made some pretty good progress. I took out my mated pair of phantom clownfish from my main display, and set them up in a ten gallon tank to see if I can attempt to collect and raise their children. All the water in the 10 gallon tank was from my main display tank. Also, bought a pair of lighting maroone clownfish from sea and reef aquaculture and set them up in another 10 gallon tank.

Put up a cabinet on the wall to house all my fish stuff, leveled all my tanks, and lowered the lights so that they are only 3 feet from the surface of the water. To level the tanks I used plastic shims across the bottom since the floor was slightly uneven. i put the shims about 3 inches apart.

Also, bulkreefsupply sent my the incorrect shipment of ATI T5 bulbs which I did not order. They are brand new and selling them for $15.00 dollars per bulb if anyone wants them feel free to send me a personal message.

2 actinic 80 watt
2 aqua blue special 80 watt
2 blue plus 80 watt
2 coral plus 80 watt