the 1700g stingray reef
- Thread starter spazz
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chainsaw5vent
New member
doeshthe owner know how much the setup adds to his electric bill???
Travis
10 and over club
]asnatlas said:Or a school of both
Love the videos... Is it just me or... I didn't seem to see the ray in any of the vids...
Thanks Travis and Marc...
Shawn
Hi Shawn, I'm not sure how often the ray makes appearances. He was out right when we got there for just a few short minutes. Then I didn't see him for quite a while. Then he came out for a minute or so and that is the last time I saw it. I did get one picture of the ray with my camera but it is really blurry so I chose not to post it.
Travis
10 and over club
NewMariner said:
Not sure how much rock but a lot less than you would think. It isn't until you see the tank from behind that you realize how much space there is behind the rocks. There really is almost as much space in behind the rocks as there is in front of them.
I'm not sure how old the owner is now, but he said he has been in the hobby since he was 10.
Travis
10 and over club
chainsaw5vent said:
Never asked that as it is a personal question to some. But I really don't think it would be that much as he has set the system up to be very energy efficient. It is also chiller-less so that makes a huge difference on the electric bill. This is just a guess, but I would say around $150-$200 per month tops.
I'm the owner of the stingray reef and I would like to say thank you to everyone for all the interest shown (Good or Bad) towards the system. Today is a very special day at our house. At 5:11 am our son "Colton" was born so it has been very busy for all of us. With the birth of our first son and the height of my busy work season ( we do excavating) time is very short. I will apologize to everyone in advance because I will not even be able to attempt to answer all the questions I will likely get. I will explain the system as thoroughly as possible here in hopes that it answers many common questions that this thread has posed.
Personal History and Experience: I'm 34 years old and have had aquariums since I was about 8-10 years old. I have a freshwater alligator Gar that is over 21 years old right now that I acquired back in 1984. Replicating ecosystems or biomes has always been an interest to me so the perfect mini system is the reef biotope. Other than years of amatuer studying along with trial and failure I have no formal training in animal husbandry and make no claims to. One of the most important lessons I have learned is to always keep your animals best interest at heart when setting up a captive system.
The Tank: The actual tank is made from acrylic. Chris from Midwest Custom Aquarium did a great job putting the tank together and I would highly recomend his work to anyone. The close dimensions are 15'5" x 5' by 33".
The support room: I learned long ago it was much easier and efficient to have a well thought out support room behind the tank than a space below the tank. Prior to this support room I had two other large systems with filtration rooms behind them so this was my third attempt at designing a fish room. I eliminated many of the mistakes that I had learned from the prior two fish rooms. In my opinion the most important elements are as follows:
1.Windows to vent humidity and control temperature.
2.Floor drains for water changes etc.
3.Sink and a toilet.
I designed this room to be a climate controlled environment seperately from the house. That means the support room and tank have their own heating and cooling controls independently of the main house. Their is a full basement adjacent but not underneath the fish room. I excavated the soil down 8 feet and backfilled and compacted with a sand based material to reinforce the sub grade. The foundation walls are poured concrete with 8 foot frost footing. The slab in the fish room is concrete poured to a depth of 6" and hydronically heated. Cooling for the room is done with a 1.5 ton system indepedent of the main house central airconditioning. This is one aspect that I will need to modify since it cannot keep up with the heat produced by the room. The main air ducts for the house run through the room in the ceiling and I get extra cooling from the homes central airconditiong which is able to keep up. The average year round Temperature in Minnesota is 45 degrees F. 3- 4 months of the year it gets hot and Humid with highs averaging 85-95 F. These are the months that my cooling capacity is a problem. Since I have two operational windows I simply open up a window or two to cool things down the other parts of the year. ( To be Continued)
Personal History and Experience: I'm 34 years old and have had aquariums since I was about 8-10 years old. I have a freshwater alligator Gar that is over 21 years old right now that I acquired back in 1984. Replicating ecosystems or biomes has always been an interest to me so the perfect mini system is the reef biotope. Other than years of amatuer studying along with trial and failure I have no formal training in animal husbandry and make no claims to. One of the most important lessons I have learned is to always keep your animals best interest at heart when setting up a captive system.
The Tank: The actual tank is made from acrylic. Chris from Midwest Custom Aquarium did a great job putting the tank together and I would highly recomend his work to anyone. The close dimensions are 15'5" x 5' by 33".
The support room: I learned long ago it was much easier and efficient to have a well thought out support room behind the tank than a space below the tank. Prior to this support room I had two other large systems with filtration rooms behind them so this was my third attempt at designing a fish room. I eliminated many of the mistakes that I had learned from the prior two fish rooms. In my opinion the most important elements are as follows:
1.Windows to vent humidity and control temperature.
2.Floor drains for water changes etc.
3.Sink and a toilet.
I designed this room to be a climate controlled environment seperately from the house. That means the support room and tank have their own heating and cooling controls independently of the main house. Their is a full basement adjacent but not underneath the fish room. I excavated the soil down 8 feet and backfilled and compacted with a sand based material to reinforce the sub grade. The foundation walls are poured concrete with 8 foot frost footing. The slab in the fish room is concrete poured to a depth of 6" and hydronically heated. Cooling for the room is done with a 1.5 ton system indepedent of the main house central airconditioning. This is one aspect that I will need to modify since it cannot keep up with the heat produced by the room. The main air ducts for the house run through the room in the ceiling and I get extra cooling from the homes central airconditiong which is able to keep up. The average year round Temperature in Minnesota is 45 degrees F. 3- 4 months of the year it gets hot and Humid with highs averaging 85-95 F. These are the months that my cooling capacity is a problem. Since I have two operational windows I simply open up a window or two to cool things down the other parts of the year. ( To be Continued)
Heating and Cooling Cont: I have two "bathrooms" fans in located in the ceiling of the room. One is ducted to the inside of the house so I can flip a switch and re-use the warm air produced by the acquarium and it's accesories. The other fan is ducted to the outside so I can further vent any excess heat and humidity during the warm months.
The House and the room design:
For 2 years I worked on the design of the home and the fish room prior to commencing construction. I built the home myself to save as much money as possible and be able to put it towards the different components of the house. I built the original house back in 2000 and installed a 220 gallon and 150 gallon reef into the basement with frags tanks etc. Total system volume was around 700 gallons. Well after about two years this wasn't big enough, but I had no room to expand due to the size of the house. So I planned an addition that would include this large reef tank and bring it up out of the basement into the main living room. The entire house is made out of logs and the room this tank is in is about 40' by 24' with a vaulted ceiling. I expanded our main living room and made the entire addition along with our curent living room the new living room. I wanted as much space as possible to help elimanate and dissapate any excess humidity which might escape from the sealed fish room. This worked almost to well. Without the interior fans recirculating the heat and humidity from the fish room the rest of the house gets very dry. The humidity helps keep the logs from checking and cracking and the vaulted ceilings distribute the moisture through the room without concentrating it in any small area. My first fish room was in a small house and I had the same problems that Mister 4000 had. Eliminating this potential threat was a very large issue which I think is under control.
Components: Greg and Bob from ReefMania built my Caclium reactors and my skimmer. They are both great guys to work with and I would highly reccomend Reefmania to everyone. One calcium reactor is a reverse flow with a ph monitor incorpated into the design. I personally don't see any benefit to the reverse flow over a regular reactor but I love the ph montor. At any time I can tune or tweak the reactor to optimize the ph in the main chamber. The nicest thing about the skimmer is the wet neck. I feel that this little design change doubled the productivity of my skimmer. I am currently working with Spazz on some skimmer modifications to see if we can further increase productivity. I have seen some of his skimmers and he has a very unique cone design to his skimmer which I could see having an advantage. I will keep everyone posted. Further more I was impressed with the research he has been putting in towards maximizing the potential output of the skimmer and I look forward to working with him.
Lighting: The tank has 6 - 400 watt halides along the front and sides to cover the reef slopes. The back or top of the reef is lit by 3 - 250 watt halides. All the halides are in Luminarc Reflectors. The original canopy had 11 400 watt halides and 1 250 watt halide prior to the luminarcs. I tested out two of these reflectors and was sold instantly. I was able to eliminate about 1550 watts per hour of lighting due to these reflectors. I also have 12 vho bulbs in the spaces not covered by the reflectors.
The House and the room design:
For 2 years I worked on the design of the home and the fish room prior to commencing construction. I built the home myself to save as much money as possible and be able to put it towards the different components of the house. I built the original house back in 2000 and installed a 220 gallon and 150 gallon reef into the basement with frags tanks etc. Total system volume was around 700 gallons. Well after about two years this wasn't big enough, but I had no room to expand due to the size of the house. So I planned an addition that would include this large reef tank and bring it up out of the basement into the main living room. The entire house is made out of logs and the room this tank is in is about 40' by 24' with a vaulted ceiling. I expanded our main living room and made the entire addition along with our curent living room the new living room. I wanted as much space as possible to help elimanate and dissapate any excess humidity which might escape from the sealed fish room. This worked almost to well. Without the interior fans recirculating the heat and humidity from the fish room the rest of the house gets very dry. The humidity helps keep the logs from checking and cracking and the vaulted ceilings distribute the moisture through the room without concentrating it in any small area. My first fish room was in a small house and I had the same problems that Mister 4000 had. Eliminating this potential threat was a very large issue which I think is under control.
Components: Greg and Bob from ReefMania built my Caclium reactors and my skimmer. They are both great guys to work with and I would highly reccomend Reefmania to everyone. One calcium reactor is a reverse flow with a ph monitor incorpated into the design. I personally don't see any benefit to the reverse flow over a regular reactor but I love the ph montor. At any time I can tune or tweak the reactor to optimize the ph in the main chamber. The nicest thing about the skimmer is the wet neck. I feel that this little design change doubled the productivity of my skimmer. I am currently working with Spazz on some skimmer modifications to see if we can further increase productivity. I have seen some of his skimmers and he has a very unique cone design to his skimmer which I could see having an advantage. I will keep everyone posted. Further more I was impressed with the research he has been putting in towards maximizing the potential output of the skimmer and I look forward to working with him.
Lighting: The tank has 6 - 400 watt halides along the front and sides to cover the reef slopes. The back or top of the reef is lit by 3 - 250 watt halides. All the halides are in Luminarc Reflectors. The original canopy had 11 400 watt halides and 1 250 watt halide prior to the luminarcs. I tested out two of these reflectors and was sold instantly. I was able to eliminate about 1550 watts per hour of lighting due to these reflectors. I also have 12 vho bulbs in the spaces not covered by the reflectors.
spazz
New member
congrats on the new baby boy! i hope you and your family are happy and healthy. its always hair rasing when a new child is born. i bet you had a couple of sleepless nights in in the last week. i think i rember telling you that your tank would be voted reef tank of the month with in 6 months of you posting that you owned it. well the bet is on. i bet one frag of anything in my tank that it will be 6 months or less. im placing my vote right after i get done making this post. i wish thay had reef tank of the year because i know this beautiful system would be voted in for that honor hands down.
next time i come over i will make sure there is a diper on my face to contorl the drool. he he he
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next time i come over i will make sure there is a diper on my face to contorl the drool. he he he
<a href='http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb008_ZNxdm41495US' target='_blank'><img src='http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/36/36_1_55.gif' alt='Clapping Hands' border=0></a>
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Flow:
The main returns are powered by 2 sequence 5800's which bring the water back up the aquarium and through 4 sea swirls which are located in the front. 5 Tunzes further push water through the system. Total water movement is about 22,000- 25,000 GPH. This really isn't much but the tank was design to have slower water movement areas. The entire center island is supposed to have low flow. I did this to give the fish a break point or rest area. Further more I could place lower flow loving specimens in this area. The tank was designed to have two high flow reef walls on each side with lagoon in the center. All the pumps where placed to have a periodic crashing point which would create a random water current through out the system. Absolutely no pumps were aimed into this low flow area but the water crashing is so effective their really isn't much less flow in this area. I have actually seen water vortexes created in a lot of different areas of the tank ( really cool affect).
I'm getting tired so my spelling is getting bad but i'll try to cover some more stuff for everyone. I will try to check back another day and give more info but this will be it for awhile.
PVC Racks.
One of my more thoroughly researched points. The entire reef structure is hollow behind the rock work. I did this so the fish could get away from the people whenever they wanted and to increase the effectiveness of the biological filter. This was also somewhat modeled after Tyrees sponge biotope. The actual racks are nothing more than pvc piping coverd in Great Stuff styrofoam in a can. After researching for countless hours on Reef Central I found out the syrofoam in a can breaks down due to U.V lights. To eliminate this problem I covered the styrofoam with Epoxy resin. While the resin was hardening I used aragonite to dab (with a paint brush) into the curing resin. This worked awesome! The end product looked like a base rock. After it became covered with coraline algae the pvc rack can't be identified from the live rock.
Live Rock: During the planning proccess I collected cheap live rock from peoples tanks that were selling or moving. I also traded coral frags for live rock and investigated making man made rock. I placed all the excess rock in a 150 gallon tank which was hooked up to my main displays on my original system. By the time the new large tank was ready I had most of the rock I would need. I did purchase about three hundred pounds from a friend who was shutting down his tanks while mine was being contructed. Total guesstimeted live rock would be about 1200 -1400 lbs. After the racks were in place I began setting the rock work up just to cover the racks. Since most of the design work went into the racks placing the rocks was a breeze. Further more I didn't have to hide much of the rack system since I knew it would become corraline encrusted and look like live rock. I noticed that many of the hitchhiker corals on the rock work were doing great in the tank on the first day. I continued for about a month aquascaping and monitoriing the hitchhikers. Not only did they look good but they were growing. Since I was using cured rock from my system in the basement there was no cycling and no die off.
The inhabitants.
Lot's of corals- sps dominate, some lps, zooanthids etc.
The fish:
1. one blue spotted ribbontail stingray.
2. Varoius leopard wrasses.
3. Large Black tang.
4. Yellow scopas tang.
5.African blue hippo tang.
6. Chevron Tang.
7.two purple tangs.
8. Orange spotted rabbit fish
9. Two scribbled rabbit fishes.
10. Fairy wrasses.
11. Dragon headed pipefish.
12. Gem Tang.
13. Flame fin Tang.
I think the tank has a small fishload. One interesting observation is the fishes behavior, everyone that has been over has said that the fish don't seem to fight. I believe the ability to get away from each other and out of sight from the main viewing pane makes a big difference. The different tangs and rabbit fishes actually school. A red sea sailfin tang actually started to nip the tail of the stingray so he is being donated to a good home.
Thats all for now. I will check back and periodically answer questions and add to the info. I will gladly share all I can with everyone. Reef central has been one of the best tools in my tank design and knowledge acquisition. I will also try to post pictures over the winter( I will have to figure out how). Work and the new baby will keep me swamped for the next few months but things may slow down to a normal pace sometime. Thank you everyone for posting the pictures and Videos and Thank you everyone for the interest in the system.
The main returns are powered by 2 sequence 5800's which bring the water back up the aquarium and through 4 sea swirls which are located in the front. 5 Tunzes further push water through the system. Total water movement is about 22,000- 25,000 GPH. This really isn't much but the tank was design to have slower water movement areas. The entire center island is supposed to have low flow. I did this to give the fish a break point or rest area. Further more I could place lower flow loving specimens in this area. The tank was designed to have two high flow reef walls on each side with lagoon in the center. All the pumps where placed to have a periodic crashing point which would create a random water current through out the system. Absolutely no pumps were aimed into this low flow area but the water crashing is so effective their really isn't much less flow in this area. I have actually seen water vortexes created in a lot of different areas of the tank ( really cool affect).
I'm getting tired so my spelling is getting bad but i'll try to cover some more stuff for everyone. I will try to check back another day and give more info but this will be it for awhile.
PVC Racks.
One of my more thoroughly researched points. The entire reef structure is hollow behind the rock work. I did this so the fish could get away from the people whenever they wanted and to increase the effectiveness of the biological filter. This was also somewhat modeled after Tyrees sponge biotope. The actual racks are nothing more than pvc piping coverd in Great Stuff styrofoam in a can. After researching for countless hours on Reef Central I found out the syrofoam in a can breaks down due to U.V lights. To eliminate this problem I covered the styrofoam with Epoxy resin. While the resin was hardening I used aragonite to dab (with a paint brush) into the curing resin. This worked awesome! The end product looked like a base rock. After it became covered with coraline algae the pvc rack can't be identified from the live rock.
Live Rock: During the planning proccess I collected cheap live rock from peoples tanks that were selling or moving. I also traded coral frags for live rock and investigated making man made rock. I placed all the excess rock in a 150 gallon tank which was hooked up to my main displays on my original system. By the time the new large tank was ready I had most of the rock I would need. I did purchase about three hundred pounds from a friend who was shutting down his tanks while mine was being contructed. Total guesstimeted live rock would be about 1200 -1400 lbs. After the racks were in place I began setting the rock work up just to cover the racks. Since most of the design work went into the racks placing the rocks was a breeze. Further more I didn't have to hide much of the rack system since I knew it would become corraline encrusted and look like live rock. I noticed that many of the hitchhiker corals on the rock work were doing great in the tank on the first day. I continued for about a month aquascaping and monitoriing the hitchhikers. Not only did they look good but they were growing. Since I was using cured rock from my system in the basement there was no cycling and no die off.
The inhabitants.
Lot's of corals- sps dominate, some lps, zooanthids etc.
The fish:
1. one blue spotted ribbontail stingray.
2. Varoius leopard wrasses.
3. Large Black tang.
4. Yellow scopas tang.
5.African blue hippo tang.
6. Chevron Tang.
7.two purple tangs.
8. Orange spotted rabbit fish
9. Two scribbled rabbit fishes.
10. Fairy wrasses.
11. Dragon headed pipefish.
12. Gem Tang.
13. Flame fin Tang.
I think the tank has a small fishload. One interesting observation is the fishes behavior, everyone that has been over has said that the fish don't seem to fight. I believe the ability to get away from each other and out of sight from the main viewing pane makes a big difference. The different tangs and rabbit fishes actually school. A red sea sailfin tang actually started to nip the tail of the stingray so he is being donated to a good home.
Thats all for now. I will check back and periodically answer questions and add to the info. I will gladly share all I can with everyone. Reef central has been one of the best tools in my tank design and knowledge acquisition. I will also try to post pictures over the winter( I will have to figure out how). Work and the new baby will keep me swamped for the next few months but things may slow down to a normal pace sometime. Thank you everyone for posting the pictures and Videos and Thank you everyone for the interest in the system.
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