My Ultimate Multi Mantis System(s)

[Kharn]

STAND B

MINNIE - G.GRAPHURUS - She was antsy tonight and at first I thought she was 'horny' and wanted some of Maximus, however after she realized there was food to be had, she went quiet and just munched away on the piece of prawn meat I gave her.



MAXIMUS - G.GRAPHURUS - He's an old timer, and even though he might be old he still shows signs of youth still capable of packing serious punches and still sporting a very clean exterior.


THE KRAKEN - O.SCYLLARUS - Young & Dumb is this ones new motto...he picked up 2 random pieces of coral rubble and swam off with them dropping them half way upon realizing they were not the intended target, however once he did latch onto the prawn flesh he went crazy freeing it off the skewer.



THE JUGGERNAUT - O.SCYLLARUS - Another old timer, I've really catered for this large smasher, not only is his tank very dark on a permanent basis but he reaps the benefits of residing in a very large system over 300L which means stability coupled with the fact that half of 1 of the tanks is effectively a refugium filled with Macro Algae, he taps the glass every then again still to say hello at random =).




More to come! :spin3:

 

[Kharn]

Just a quick FYI... I did feed both Morgoth & The Leviathan this evening a live fish each however I once again failed to capture them on High Speed, it's such a difficult task to premeditate and time so luck really plays a big part...

 

[Kharn]

Small Update + New Member to the Crew :rollface:

Firstly the newest member to the crew which I am taking a quick stab at Identifying as...Haptosquilla glyptocercus.


Next a bit of an overall addition to the systems permitting me to hopefully, safely keep the smaller nano species like Haptosquilla. It's a HOB tank with substrate, base rock & PVC to accommodate, rite now Shockwave (G.falcatus) resides in the top large HOB tank whilst Starscream (G.falcatus) resides in the smaller left HOB tank and finally the latest crew member resides in the bottom right large HOB Tank.


It's a little risky but I believe everything should be fine and by risky I mean stomatopod smashing the HOB plastic as it is thin, but I think for the smaller nano species they serve at great purpose.

The small HOB tank holds about 1L whilst the 2 larger ones hold 2L each,
conveniently all that is needed is a tiny Eheim Compact 300 set to low on the HOBs input pipe and it works perfectly and silently! The 2L HOBs are perfect for STAND A all the tanks on STAND A have 300mm long compartments whilst the 2L HOBs are 26cm long, so they sit neatly and firm.

There is a large potential on a further 10 small nano species being capable of kept increasing the crew vastly

Oh and here is a sea star I got recently


More to come :dance:

 

[tupes]

Where do you get those hob tanks?

 

[Kharn]

Where do you get those hob tanks?

I got mine from my LFS I bought them all when I saw them seeing as they were only $20 but I Have also ordered more, they come from some cheap chinese company, be good as a HOB Refugium too for just live rock, macro algae and pod production.

 

[Kharn]

EDIT: The larger ones are actually not 2L they are 4.2L still a good size being 26cm long since most tanks are in the 1ft,2ft,3ft,4ft etc size range so you could 'stack these' on most conventional tanks.

Can't say anything about them supporting a clip on light as well.

 

[Kharn]

All up with the very soon additions from the Major Filtration Upgrades I have guesstimated that the complete compartment spacing for each individual species ranging from <50mm to >300mm will be at... 42 compartments for 42 stomatopods .

 

[Kharn]

2 test subjects should be arriving tomorrow and the following day, 1 of the 16 powerheads and 1 of the lights, I found a new light to go with from a local place even though it is cheaper it does use 3w individual LED chips rather then my current strip light setup and each light is more then 3times as powerful (wattage wise) current 2 foot led strips lights are 18W whilst these new ones are same size but 48W.

I only pray that these lights aren't going to chew the power something crazy...if so then all is good and I'll get the other 10 they still have the 50:50 white:Blue and the ability to turn 1 off whilst the other stays on just no dimmers or fancy colors (red green uv).

About $1k less then E.shines overall and about $1k more then my current lights overall.

 

[Kharn]

The Beginning of 'The Ultimate Multi Mantis Upgrade'...

The designs of the overall additional Filtration Stands has been simplified with the removal of 2 tanks. Now each Filtration Stand holds 2 tanks, 1 is for equipment/the bottom sump and the top sump is a full refugium, to make up for the missing 2 tanks, each refugium was increased in volume.

It' is still the same concept, Bottom Display Tank drains into a HOB LifeReef Overflow where the water exits into the 1st sump/Equipment sump, Skimmer does its job then water is sucked up the Return Pump and deposited into the Refugium, the Refugium sitting slightly above the Top Display Tank has a spillway/overflow lip where the water exits the Refugium to enter the Top Display tank, Top Display is connected to Middle Display and Middle Display is connected to Bottom Display, thus the cycle continues.

Ok so I did say that this is the beginning of the Major Upgrade...so I will state what I have rite now for an OLD vs NEW comparison.

OLD
Lights
- 3x60cm 18W LED Strip lights (2 white rows + 1 blue row per fixture)
- 3x90cm 28W LED Strip lights (2 white rows + 1 blue row per fixture)
- 2x120cm 37W LED Strip lights (2 white rows + 1 blue row per fixture)

Filter Equipment
- 3x FX5 External Canister Filters

NEW
Lights
- 4x60cm 48W LED 3W leds (50:50 blue:white per fixture)
- 5x90cm 72W LED 3W leds (50:50 blue:white per fixture)
- 2x120cm 96W LED 3W leds (50:50 blue:white per fixture)

Filter Equipment
- 3x Marine Sources Super Devil Cone Skimmer 900L


_________________________________________________________________

I also got the return pumps & pumps for the larger smasher PVC burrows, still to come are the Filtration Tanks (equipment sumps & refugiums) + their stands & the 16 powerheads.

 

[Maleci]

Why not just plumb it all into 1 sump and get a single large skimmer instead of the set of 3?

 

[Kharn]

Why not just plumb it all into 1 sump and get a single large skimmer instead of the set of 3?

I want the most volume I can get out of the space that is available also I guess you could say that the more tanks you link together the larger the risk of disease spreading to every tank inhabitant, with 3 systems if 1 get's infected at least I have 2 as back ups.

Having said all this those 3 skimmers were quite cheap in price but from what I read great in performance (one of the best if not the best bang for buck skimmer out there). They were $200ea...

More tanks also means the possibility for more Stomatopods too hence each Refugium has compartments just like the display tanks (to house the less interactive / duplicate species under my care, I got 4 G.smithii so 3 will go into Refugiums).

 

[Maleci]

Ah fair enough. I'm most likely going to use a single 40b for a sump on mine with all the filtration. I can always plumb in more if I need more water volume. Thinking of doing custom acrylic tanks broken into sections and drill oversized drains for each compartment so I can hopefully have a single hammerhead or similar external pump serve as a return with enough flow to not need to go spend a small fortune on dozens of powerheads.

 

[Kharn]

The upgrades are only for the sake of corals, as the system is now each Stomatopod is thriving healthy. As for spending a small fortune on powerheads, if you do the research you can get nearly 2 dozen GOOD (Tunze) powerheads for under $600...

I'm getting Tunze 6015's the smallest powerheads, I am running 1 6025 on my Live Food tank, it was one of the first pieces of equipment I purchased for my original 4foot tank 2 years ago...the powerhead has NEVER failed, magnet as strong as day 1 flow as powerful as day 1.

 

[Kharn]

Today I went about swapping out the old lights for the new ones, there was an instantly noticeable difference...I also placed timers under each light plug (2 plugs per light so 22 plugs a.k.a 22 timers), I haven't set the timers yet but will once I get it everything running.

Once the skimmers and refugiums are active and running and the lights on their daily cycle, I'll start to look at corals more seriously ...

Speaking of daily Light Cycle this is what I had in mind, feel free to comment.

Dawn - 6AM - Blue Lights
Morning - 8AM - Blue & White Lights
Midday - 12NOON - Blue & White Lights
Afternoon - 4pm - Blue & White Lights
Dusk - 8pm - Blue Lights
Midnight - 10pm - Darkness
repeat

Midnight to Dawn = 8hrs = 0 lights
Dawn to Morning = 2hrs = Blue Lights
Morning to Midday = 4hrs = Blue & White Lights
Midday to Afternoon = 4hrs = Blue & White Lights
Afternoon to Dusk = 4hrs = Blue & White Lights
Dusk to Midnight = 2hrs = Blue Lights
Midnight to Dawn = 8hrs = 0 lights
repeat

Total Colors & Hours
No Lights = 8hrs
Blue Lights only = 4hrs
Blue & White Lights = 12hrs

 

[Kharn]

Oh...

I also purchased new power boards (with surge protection) + I rearranged EVERY power chord and the new power boards, NO power board is on the floor all are screwed into the rear wall about 1.5mtrs off the floor and each stand has its own set of boards with plugs in directly line to the equipment no crossing and tangling, to further help, I added tags to all 50 power chords labeling each one and what it does.

It's a jungle of cables but it's neat, organized and well and truly away from the water & the floors, it will all need to be rearranged again after the new stands are built and put in place.

 

[Kharn]

In the past I haven't really liked skimmers which was one of the reasons I designed my original system to be quite basic and only have inhabitants (particularly corals) that could 'survive' within such a system (Shrooms, Zoas & Hardy LPS).

Whilst my success was well with these few other inhabitants their growths were somewhat nonexistent...In order to provide for other inhabitants such as and specifically corals I had to upgrade and mixed with the knowledge I have gained about stomatopods since I first started I began to rethink my current working system.

I knew that if I was going to go down the skimmer road again I wanted to get something INSUMP rather then HOB as my success with the Deltec MCE HOB series was nothing but bad and likely all my fault either way the skimmer would just never "settle" it would either never pull enough foam or always pull too much and overflow, Deltec is to trusted for me to believe it was the skimmer so I stick with myself being the fault...

Having said all this and in order to take the next step in my system I bought some skimmers from another trusted maker Marine Sources Red Devil Super Cone Series, here is one with a coke can beside it to demonstrate the size difference, something I am still amazed at!



Seeing these skimmers has turned me my fears from phobia to anxious & eager! I really can't wait to see these bad boys in action as I read such great things about them online.

I need to wait for my tanks to be built before I can see these beasts in action, not only do I hear good things about the skimmer but a lot about the pump series too, "very quiet" "1/2 the power usage".

 

[Kharn]

 

[Kharn]

Here is a mock setup side view of how each stand will look after the filtration upgrade is completed.

Simple concept really...Bottom Display tank feeds water to Equipment Sump via LifeReef HOB Overflow, Skimmer in Equipment Sump does its job and the Return Pump also does it's job pumping water up to the Refugium Sump, where all the Bio-life filters the water further before spilling out and into the Top Display tank, spillage occurs simply via gravity with the Refugium Sump offset a couple inches above the Top Display Tank.

I like to think that one of the added bonuses of having the refugium at the end and gravity fed back into the Display System means, most if not all life will survive, no worries about Skimmers/Pumps etc. turning into blenders and chomping it all up.



More to come

 

[Maleci]

Hm those skimmers look a lot like my cs2 I run on my sps reef. What pump are they running? the pks-1000's are really nice pumps.

 

[Kharn]

They run on the DEVIL SP3/13W