SPS...Non-Photosynthetic mixed reef build

[britreefer]

Hello all and thanks for reading.

So here is the lowdown. I am a new member to RC but by no means a new reefer. I have had a number of aquariums, vivariums, terrariums and any other combo you can think of over the years. so finally I will be putting all these disciplines together to make hopefully a very unique tank for all.

Goals:

1. build a vibrant SPS reef- which produces viable maricultured frags with emphasis on generational separation= IMO hardier corals, better success for new reefers, and better color retaining abilities.

2. House thriving NPS corals with mimicked environment (frags would be a bonus!

3. experiment with temps, lighting, natural systems, feeding, flow and in ways challenge common reef keeping belief's with these.

So now I hopefully have your attentions lets go into some detail on strategies, set-ups, systems, and hopefully some really good conversations for more advanced hobbyists.

The plan:

due to size restraints I will be using a standard 75 gallon.
I want to show what can be done in a reasonable size aquarium on a reasonable budget. you will not see $400 power heads, $2500 lighting systems, $10000 sump rooms, or any crazy thing out of most peoples reach. you also will not be seeing again IMO any non natural zeo systems (we will get to that soon I am sure).
I will have a 30g or 40g breeder as a sump for the skimmer, refugium and other equipment. Attached to this will be a roughly 30 gallon "mangrovium" for mangroves and I may or may not set up another 30 or 40 gallon above the main sump strictly for frags...when I need it we can build it right.

lighting is planed to be with DIY LED's 2 pendants of 36 or 24 cree's

misc stuff will include a mini fridge, dosing pump, phyto cultures, roti cultures.

So the main display will be 75 gallons as stated which will have as close to natural rock work as I can create using Live rock and concrete ..., I will be using a sort of hybrid closed loop system with hidden pipes for multiple flow outlets which will be on timers for variable currents/ turbulance. There will be a foam/concrete cave build to the right hand side of the tank which will have its own flow system. this cave will be where the NPS are housed. the flow for this will be something I havent seen done so I hope people will comment and enjoy reading about. The cave will have a flow system to create an eddie with a circulation within to maintain particle suspension and optimal feeding time for NPS corals. The cave will have timed pumps for flushing similar to a natural environment.
The display drains into the main sump which will have the skimmer.(havent decided on type yet) the mangroves will be attatched to this and there is a planned algae scrubber too....some may be saying overrr killll but my plan is to maximize nutrient export in the most efficient natural way. this not only maintains water conditions it also benefits corals and other organisms due to the increase in food availability and natural system buffering. I will need all this because of the amount of food that will be pumped through the system for the NPS and other column feeding organisms I tend to house. Ill leave this here for now and hope people are interested. let me here what you all think.

 

[bobkill]

Sounds like a blast of a set up - don't see many sps nps tanks - are you goin to manually feed the nps? I don't think it is over kill to have more than the miniumly 'cleaning' tools- I am a big fan of automation - I like the idea of the cryptic zone cave- you could getsome sponges in the back of that to add to your natural filter ideas- The 'closed' loop sounds tricky bc you will need heavy and weak flow but planning is half the fun in this hobby - also love the idea of 'rare'er sps - I will be following for sure

 

[britreefer]

hey thanks for reading, it should be a lot of fun. lots of different routes to take. I will probably have to manually feed tubastrea and dendrophillia for a while but the dendronephthya will be fine catching the suspended phyto I think. The main goal is for the currents and correct placement of the dosing pump to deliver food and keep it suspended a lot longer than in any other tank. This means less food because the food that is put in is used to its full potential if that makes sense? I agree with your comment on the closed loop, I havent decided how to do that yet. I was thinking of making an oversized overflow with holes in it for snug fitting pipes to come through and attached to power heads which will be hooked up to a wave maker.. just havent found any power heads that allow this pipe connection and can handle the surging of the wave maker. Any suggestions? nice idea on the cryptic refugium, hadent given it a though really coz I had so many other filter areas but got a big enough sump i could makea part dark and just have the sponges so many options.

 

[Fsurocks99]

Sounds great man!

 

[britreefer]

some pictures for visuals

some pictures for visuals

These are exactly to scale of the room, standard aquariums and skimmer, let me know what you guys think. These are to help you visualize the layout.

What the main room looks like

a close up of the display

this is a top view of the room and aquarium placement, note the passage behind for access to sumps frag tanks etc

And the close up of the equipment and sumps from behind

 

[Fsurocks99]

Gonna be sick!

 

[TucanSam007]

Wow that design looks badass! I'll tag along on this

 

[bobkill]

I really think if you are will to add a extra bulk head and return line with a smaller pump you could run a return that was 'just' a feed return that could come up threw the 'cave' - that way you could run it on a timer and feed small amounts via a dosing Pumps from a mini fridge or whatever type of food you plan on running g - or I would get a brs doser and just run the thin small line threw a return pipe and bam you have a spot feeding set to a timer so you can get your contact time and as feed as many times as possible - that would allow you to run it into that cryptic zone of the cave so the current won't scatter it -

The blue print above looks awesome -

Have you thoughabout doing a Plenum ? I have one in a 40g cube with led sps and 3 'big' (but small) fish here link to the build
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2063443&highlight=40g+led
It has allowed me to use zero other forms of filtration -

I will be following !

 

[bobkill]

And as far as powerheads and the wavemaker I would say that flow is going to be tricky as we have mentioned so I would do as many return lines with pumps that your budget drilling skill and nerves can handle - if you did small pumps with more lines you could direct the flow very well- and then always add directed powerheads to add surges or random waves to a area of sps - I really think we need the rock design with cave to get this down ? I feel a part of this ! I am sure someone on rc has done this before and could show the easiest cheapest way

 

[britreefer]

hey, Thanks everyone. Im stoked on the responses. your on track bobkill, I already have the mini fridge and dosing pump in the plans. Because the cave will sort of be a separate system. I was planning on hooking the dosing tubes up to this pretty much how you described. One thing that is hard to describe is the eddie in the cave, what I was planning was to have this set up to keep lots of food within the cave for a max amount of time. Instead of having the feeding tubes plumbed into the pumps I would run a line through the tank which will be hidden in the cement rock work and will be injected in at the right angle for the eddie to carry it on its merry way. The flow in the cave will be very important as the object of the system is to run one system with basically two micro-habitats within. many people do this without thinking but I think with some careful planning this natural occurance can be replicated in our living rooms for very specific purposes. Havent thought about doing a plenium. They can be a pain sometimes and there is so much going on in this system a plenium might be more then i want. the mangrovium that i have dubed it, will have a relatively deep sand bed, a big nutrient sink hopefully that the mangroves and algae can suck up. i will be working on making a rock work plan for next update.

 

[britreefer]

Ok so finally been able to throw something together for the cave rock work. the pics do not show how curved i will make the ceiling and back to help with the flow but google sketch up is hard when dealing with curves..at least for me. you should get the general idea tho. the flow being forced up to the ceiling will circulate within the cave. because the flow is towards the edge of the cave it creates a barrier like an edie edge so the particles just keep going around and around with little escaping = longer feeding for less quantity of food. let me know what you think.

notice the holes in the below picture in the rock work. this is to allow some filtered light in to the cave for viewing. as corals branch over it should be a cool effect

 

[Fsurocks99]

The design looks awesome!

 

[jayg4u]

Yeah good design

 

[victor_c3]

Interesting idea. I'm currently planning on building a system for my desk at work, but I can't make up my mind whether or not I want to go with an SPS system or an NPS. Perhaps I'll steal your idea of a cave structure with SPS corals on top...

I don't know if you can stomache reading science journals, but I found a lot of interesting articles about NPS articles on the following link http://www.azoox.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=22. One of the interesting thing that I came accross was that in one study it was found that gorgonians grew significantly better in a non-random flow environment than in a random flow environment. From how I understood what you wrote, it seems as if your plan in on the right track with the flow in the cave area.

Also, have a plan for dealing with tremendous ammounts of aptasia (probably more than you could realistically remove manually). The ammount of food that is required to be in the water column to support most NPS organisms is, unfortunately, oprtimum for aptasia as well.

I've seen on an NPS forum where a lot of people have plumbed their NPS tanks into the same sump as their SPS systems without any detrement to the SPS systems. In fact, many people claim that the extra food making its way to their SPS systems seems to help their SPS corals as well.

Anyways, I'm interested in your build and I'd love to see it come togehter for you.

 

[victor_c3]

Hmmmm about that link above....

I don't know what is going on with reefcentral and posting the link above. Everytime I try to edit my post to change the link to the correct one, it changes back to the wrong one when I post it. swap out the words "clay-boa.com" with azoox dot org and keep the rest of the link the same. It should work.

 

[chrishayes]

What a cool idea! This takes me back to when I was a teen making "all in one" tanks. I actually built a 75g into a "ecosystem" with a 6" water zone with gravel and plants sporting both above and below water line growth types that was filled with local species of gobies, salamanders and river minnows. Then I sloped this to a kitty litter clay "landmass" covered with topsoil and terrestrial moss that kept frogs and newts happy. I then built a 2x4 and chicken wire cage above the tank with branches spanning from side to side where I kept a pair of chemelions and finches!

Of course there were things that didnt work due to asking too much from a system that couldnt handle it but what a joy to sit and watch! Sometimes us animal lovers can get bored with run of the mill setups and just need to make things up as we go to keep the interest alive...that seems to be what you are doing! I am certainly tagging along for this one!

Also, I love the attic as the spot for this system! All those unusable nooks in the archetechture lends itself to this type of creative system! Are you concerned with the heat in the summer time? I used to live in a craftsman style house with an attic like that and boy was it hot in the summer here in Ohio.

 

[britreefer]

Victor c3- I actually read too many scientific journals, a have folders of them that I read. a reason for this endeavor. Your exactly right with the flow idea, sps seem to want relatively random strong currents to stimulate polyp extension and the feeding response. the cave like in wild will have a relatively stable circulation flow with random flushings to keep things from settling..exactly like in the wild. Im a firm believer evolution caused SPS corals to develop so many small polyps for maximizing food capture. Think, more mouths= more chances for food right? I think the added food to my system and the correct filtration will make for very pristine conditions because the food added will be utilized more efficiently. not just being dumped in in mass quantities like many other NPS systems. that was a sweet link, i usually use my university search for papers but will def be trolling through that. I like your idea for your tank. It will be interesting in a small tank. you could easily keep tubastrea or dendrophellia with SPS the filer feeders may be a worthy challange in a desktop though. send me your post if you set it up, very interested in that.

Chrisshays- thanks for the comments! I have thought about summer yes, im using LED's so hoping i will have less issues than most. I also have the benefit that the house I live in is my best friends and his dad is an AC engineer and designed the system so its super efficient. meaning I can run it all I need and only pay a fraction..score! I love all the terrariums. if you have pics post! I want to see.

I will get some pics up of the tank and equipment that im slowly collecting. lots of work to do. the house is being remodeled so got a month or so before I can get water in...to long!

 

[britreefer]

Ok so have been working on the design some more and when I get some more time will show you guys the remodeling and tank I picked up. Hopefully some building and experimenting will be happening very soon!! I figured id ask for some opinions first though. I cant decide if I want the second sump in the window well (the mangrovium) to be a 40 long and use sunlight for the mangroves.. or block the window, use energy saver daylight bulbs for the mangroves and put a 29g or two 29's stacked right in front of the window running off of the mangrovium. These would be strictly frag tanks and experiment tanks. What ya think? Also..remember this is upstairs. I am confident it will hold but would love some opinions.

 

[kaserpick]

Very cool idea! :thumbsup: I've always been curious if keeping NPS and SPS corals together couldn't benefit each other some how. The food that would escape the cave (if the right size) could easily be utilized by your SPS. This should make for a very 'fuzzy' tank with great polyp extension.

It kind of makes me feel lame about my simple tank idea. :lmao:

 

[chrishayes]

sunlight may be tough since you have similar weather as we have here in ohio. Its too variable. What direction is it facing? ALso youd have your mangroves growing into the window since you cant rotate them. Personally I like to control my system so id go flo's. As to whether itd hold, thats dependant on your homes construction. you have any idea where the floor joists are and which direction they are facing? If its up against an outside wall and the length is over 26"(typical joist spacing of older homes is 24" OC) youre prolly ok. Itd be even better if the joists were near todays code. Being close to a wall helps because you are at the strongest point of the structure.