Sun Powered Reef in French Riviera

[Lelef]

Hi everybody,
This is my first post on Reef Central, I've read your forum for years but my english is very poor to partecipate actively.
I've always been fascinated by the possibility of a more natural conduction of a reef tank.
I've read about Vitor Pestana's reef many many times ,he have done what for me was only a dream!
2 years ago I've moved from Milan,Italy to my new home in French Riviera and here the sunny days and the temperatures are good for a sun powered tank.
The French Riviera is a microclimate region an is also one of fhe part in the world with more sunny hours in the year so, never too cool ,never too hot and a lot of sun.
One of the biggest problem was to maintain my old 1000lt tank in Milan and build the new one, it takes 7 month and all worked with an automatic feeder and no water change! the corals suffered a lot but frags of them, all the live rock ,the DSB sand and all the fishes arrived in the new tank ,it was a long day of work!
I've decided to move my old fishes and invertebrates because some of them have been with me for 18 years or more.
I've startted with the idea of an acrlilic aquarium but Ive found a good tank dismissed by a shop ,the glasses was like new and was time and money saving,so the tank was disassembled ad reglued in my new house or better yust outtde one window.
I've decided to put the tank facing the south in a place than I can look at it from my sofa but with the tank and the sump outside the house so I can use natural lighting and all the works on the aquarium are more easy.
Some pictures of the first steps

 

[Lelef]

 

[dave.m]

Excellent!

Dave.M

 

[ace_92101]

That's a very unique design. I can't wait to see future updates.

 

[jdpiii3]

Very cool! I love natural sun-lit tanks!

 

[Lavoisier]

What a great set up. I like the sun shinning through the tank on onto the wall in the last photo. I'm not sure which I envy more--your tank or your location...wait, who am I kidding...the French Riviera!

 

[hybrid]

beautiful set up i to am jealous of your location i was there in 2008 & it was amazing

 

[bpcardona]

Tagging along..... Look interesting

 

[rpjaws74]

Agree nice tank!! and location

 

[Lelef]

thank you,
I've started the tank thinking that there are a lot of new and unusual things to understand and solve.
The tank is 1.5 meter x 1.5 x 0.67 height so 1500lt circa plus a 300lt sump
4 tunze 6100 with multicontroller no night mode is used
after one month I've added another 6100 and another multicontroller to make a better water movement ..6100 are old but I've used for years without problems.
the recirculating pump is rated 7000lt/h but whit the height ad the chiller should be no more than 5000lt/h
the skimmer was a grotech 250 that I've used the last 5 years in my old tank
I've replaced it with an heavily modified H&S 300.
The sistem requiremnt varies a lot from winter to sommer and olso the problems!
cooling
first summer I had no very big problems with the solar heating,front main window is a 12mm acrilic and can be easily removed for summer and my DIY chiller have done is job without problems
I use a 16000btu air conditioner external module connected to a self made titanium exchanger the exchanger is the external titanium tube (100mm diameter) of a racing exhaust pipe for motorbikes, outside the cold copper tubing + isolation and inside a labirint of diaprams to make long time exchange with water,now there are more ready solutions but I've done it a lot of years ago,I't's easy to clean,if the compressor fails is esay to change the whole external machine in minutes without disconnect the heat exchanger from the tank,It's controlled by a normal digital temperature meter
some pictures o the heat exchanger

 

[Lelef]

the pictures of the heat exchanger was taken in Milan and the exchanger was under the tank near the sump with a 5m long gas line to have the motor unit outside the house, now as you can see in picture n 5 it is yust at the side of the external unit beause I can use short water lines and It's more easy to clean it and also because in this way I've more place under the tank.
Luckily Ive found that the wind make a lot of work for cooling, the house looks at the sea and it's at the top of a very very small valley near the sea but the south is on the pool side were is the tank, so 90% of the wind is from or to the sea, the structure that contain the aquarium with the door opened work like an air scoop or an air extractor (it depends from wind direction)
At the beginning I've to open at the morning and close in the evening the door manually ,but the second summer in august was very hot, and the chiller can't mantain the temperature under 28°c so I've added a big fan and an automation to open and close the door , I've used a fan in the past but insede a house it make a lot of noise ,evaporation is a problem ad the result isn't very good but, outside it's completly differen ,evaporation isn't too much the noise is outside the house and it's very efficent, door and fan are wired to a separate temperature controller and it work so good that the chiller switch on really rarely, there is also a manual switch and a rain sensor that prevent the rain entering the tank.

Heating
If cooling was good heating was really a problem , I've had many ploblems the firs year also because it was really cold (who lives in Europe shure remember) ,I use 2 250w heater and a 300w heater, but it isn't enough, at the beginning I've added 2 300w heater but it wasn't a solution, the problem is the poor heat exchange betwin the titanium heaters and water so I've added a tunze 6080 just in front of the heaters that switch on with the heaters and it works really well also only with two 250w and one 300w heater,for emergency ther is also an air heater in the tank room.
I think that the heating problem is due to a poor isolation, the tank stand as a 80mm isolation water resistant wall but the door has insulating glass all the rest is plastic, ,the front is very thick and is ok but the top ad the other side are not, and is hard to find a company that makes curved insulating glasses.

 

[Lelef]

Light
The sun is natural light and probably the most intense light available for a reef tank but during the year the sun light is never the same.
The first spring/summer at the beginnig the corals growth was impressive and calcium ,magnesium an other was a problem to mantain, also colors was wonderfull but in the middle of the summer the sun is too much!
In my previous tank montiporas was the easiest and the faster sps ,now acropora is easy and fast and montiporas has a lot of problems, ,good colors ,small growing ad they grows downward not olnly foliosa but also digitata,
In full summer the sun was too much and some corals suffered a lot and some frags was sunburned! the ligth of the sun is a little too yellow, under some meter of water the water works like a filter but in 67cm of water in a tank with the light entering also from the sides is not ,so I've added a light filter over the tank ,I've used a blue Lee Filter rolled in a modified Velux roller blind so I can easily open and close it when needed.
The blue filter I've uset have a big loss of light intensity ,it isn't a problem with sun light,I've started with this model http://www.leefilters.com/lighting/colour-details.html#202&filter=cf&sort=number, there are more intense blue in their filter line but this seems to work fine.

On the contrary in winter the sun light is too poor , the first winter all the corals changed colors a lot and stopped growing the solution was to use HQI ligt but on motorized movement on rails so the reflectors dosn't cover the sun in light hours but they move over the tank when needed.
I've used HQI instead of leds or T5 because they works also like an heater and in winter this is usefull.
2 lumenark wis a 250w at the rigt and 400w at the left because the ligts assembly can't be placed at the center of the tank.
The movement is on door rails just in the same line of the Velux roller and to move it I've used a long satellite dish actuator ,it's quite cheap and weatherproof ,I've changed the external tube with a PVC one to make it more resistant to salt water and weight saving.
The sistem is controlled by a double timer and a light sensor ,when light hours
are less in winter or in rainy days the ligt sensor enables the timers that switch on the lamps and moves at very slow speed the reflectors over the tank.
"Velux Filter"

Lights in the start position

full travel position in a rainy day

disch motor

late evening winter

 

[robcampman]

Nice build. I have given cooling and heating sunlit reef systems a lot of thought last years.
Conclusion is you need something to buffer the differences in temperature.. and i guess your pool could be of some help to cool during the summers. Check ebay for some excellent titanium heat exchangers for cheap from russia.

 

[Chriskk]

Looks great love natural sunlit reefs!

 

[acabgd]

One of the best builds on RC, hands down! Give us more shots of the tank proper.

 

[Lelef]

Nice build. I have given cooling and heating sunlit reef systems a lot of thought last years.

I've never heard abuot it before, it seems a great idea, Thank You!

Also an heat exchanger with the pool water is easy to do ,the fan/automatic door is at the moment the most energy saving solution for cooling ad solve also an other problem, in winter whith low temperature outside there is a lot of condensation on the enclosure windows but also wiith -1c° outside at 2 pm in a sunny day the sun is so strong that refrigeration is needed and when the fan and automatic door are working they also reduce the condensation problem that is limitation for sun light

 

[Lelef]

safety
There are a lot of thing that can go wrong or stop working with a reef tank so is importan to have something that reduce the risk ,gives the longhest time as possible to solve it and that make me know also when I'm not at home that there is a problem.
AC fails
AC fails are very rare but when it happens it kills the tank,it can be a problem of a single house and it's ease so solve but could be a problem of a whole part of the town and normally it happens in the worst meteorogical condition so usually also the house heating fails, it's a snowball effect ,there is no heating or cooling, no water movement no oxigenation, ad when a coral or a fish dies the pollution make the tank condition more difficult some other animals die and the problem becomes bigger faster and faster.

In the house there is a 380v triphase ac line so 3 220v lines are available ,so I've 2 different lines for the aquarium, one "master" that is for the most important things and a slave that is for the loads that are less important for the life of the tank ,with 2 AC lines the chance that all the lines fails is less.
It sems an error that I've not mixed "life needed" lods and the other on the 2 ac lines to reduce the ac fails problem but the reason is that the master AC line has a big ups whith a big battery group, the unit is an heavy duty capable of 2,5Kw continuos and 4kw peak and the batteries are 2 24v 197Ah in series (the ups use 48v dc) sometimes is possible to have an ac fail of some hours then the power is temporaly avaiable for a moment and then to solve the prloblems on the line an other ac fail occours, the ups is able to switch after an ac fail in a fast charging mode and full charge the battereis in half hour.
The UPS ca also be connected to a gasoline generator, it has to be connected and started manually so after a lot of hour if the batteries are discarged there is one more chance ,with my old tank I've used only one time in 10 years the gasoline generator but it saved my tank.
The master ac line is for recirculating pump, movement, heaters,skimmer ,fan/door for cooling and osmosis water.
I'm ready to add a small 1.5kw (2.7 peak)solar system just for the master line so it can work during the sun hours as a stand alone system and during ac fails it makes the batteries life longher.

hd UPS

Batteries

solar panels waiting to go in place

 

[Lelef]

auto Top up
I've don a water line and a waste just under the tank support so the revers osmosis is automatic, it fills a 170lt pvc tank just near the sump, it starts working just when the tank is half empty so in case of AC fail when probably the water pressur goes down ,the auto tapping system has some liters to work with,
The water waste line is also usefull for water cange ,Ive also put a small washbasin near the sump ,it is usefull to clean the skimmer and other things.
Heating and cooling
For safety reasons I've 2 systems for cooling and 2 for heating, water heaters and fan/automatic door wired to the master line (with UPS support) the chiller and the emergency air heater on the slave line because they drain a lot of current.
Every system has it's own temperature controller and all the sensors are in the tank (if the sump is cold or hot isn't a problem ) I've usede separate controllers because if one fails (example the heating continuse working ,and it really happened) the other system (the fan) works against, after this there are the 2 emergency system ,chiller and air heater then can help and in fails working against each other, this system in case of fails is a energy eater I know but it gives a longer time to solve the problem.
The automatic door in winter is the only access to the tank ,in case of fails there is an othe door that can be opened manually.
Alarms
In my old tank I've used a self made alarm system with gsm for sms and web interface I've used a compaq palm device a T28 gsm and a board with a Microchip PIC connected with a serial interface it was able to measure temperature ,water levels ,ph and ac fails make graphs also on a web page and send sms and e-mails in case of failures,I've used this system for years.
I've worked some year in software and electronic engineering so write the software for the palm device and the code for the micro was quite easy.
Now there are a lot of easiest way to do it I've integrated the tank alarms sensors with the house alarm ,the sensors are wireless so very easy to use and the alarm has built in customizable sms ,phone and email.
I use this sensors ,AC fais is just integrated in the alarm system, Temperature, a temperature controlled is connected to an alarn nc sensor (I use nc because also if the T controller fails the alarm works ) for too cold temperature and another for too hot,
one for Low sump water level and one for too hight water level ,probably I will add one for the osmosis.
I've always used also a web cam to look at the tank when I'm on holidays, now I use a wifi ip cam it has a lot of usefull utilities ,one is that not also I can see the cam via web or portable phone but it can send pictures at programmed time to an e-mail address.

 

[Eddie V]

Unique indeed, I like it.

 

[Lelef]

Some pictures of the corals taken under hqi, not everithing goes well, some suffered for too much light (ricordeas and a pair of sps)