The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[Sparkss]

you are right that I could change the unit date to accomodate those changes, but that would only be beneficial for the lighting.. and you stated that the temperature fluctuations are the only ones you see value in (and those we would want to match the seasons). So if we set the date to adjust the lighting, then we lose the temperature, and vice versa. Although the lowest temp that the controller will set is still a full degeree and a half lower than the lowest your tank goes. The 80.5 high end does not bother me so much as the 75 degree lower end. I still need to do alot more research on that before I buy into it . We currently keep our tanks right around 79.

We put a couple of "test" corals into the tank this evening, so we will see how they fare through the evening. Hopefully they will be fine tomorrow morning.

 

[jnarowe]

My tank has been at 75F quite a bit and I don't see any problem with that. I used to use the seasonal lighting but that was just too much light with my lighting scheme and unneccessary IMO. And I let temps. do what they want. My heaters never come on and in fact, even though it is "Winter" I only have 1 800W heater in my system right now. Part of that is the volume of water of course.

 

[mrcrab]

Can't remember where, it was one of the big boys, calfo, borneman but I read corals grow better at 76> degrees. I use a ranco controller and the heaters come on at 75 and the fans come on at 77.

 

[jnarowe]

That's about what I have too. My fans come on at 78F and go off at 76.5F. The tank will drift up to about 79.5 and down to 76F on average. It's not pegged as close as yours but it is very energy efficient!

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9195729#post9195729 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mrcrab
Can't remember where, it was one of the big boys, calfo, borneman but I read corals grow better at 76> degrees. I use a ranco controller and the heaters come on at 75 and the fans come on at 77.

well, 75 is a degree below that, but only for 1 month, according to the seasonal variance, so it should be OK. I just want to be sure that how they set it up would be OK for a reef tank, versus what might be OK for a FOWLR.

It would be more efficient to run it that way (by the season). I will give that a try when I switch everything over to the new tank.

 

[mrcrab]

the only detriment mentioned in the article for <76 was the corals stop growing at that temp.

 

[GreshamH]

Huh, I know more then a handfull of old salties with over grown tanks that run in the low 70's. Mine's now at 74 and growing well. It really depends on what corals you ahve, and where they came from.

 

[mrcrab]

only quoting an article I read. I'll try and find the resource.

 

[TandN]

Looks awesome CONGRATS

 

[Sparkss]

Makes sense that it would all depend on where the corals came from, etc, Gresh. Thanks for the feedback on the temperature question

Ditto to you too mrcrab. Based on the feedback from you all, and Johnathan, I think I will definitely start using the seasonal temperature tables with the AC


UPDATE

The 4 corals I put in seem to be doing fine this morning, although they were majorly stressed last night to the point that I considered postponing this weekends activities to try to track down the root casue of the distress. The zoas, cyphastrea, and 2 different kinds of montis seem to be doing ok this morning, but I will know more once the lights come on.

I am starting to regret the live sand addition. I keep finding "bad" hitchikers in the tank. I had thought that the source we got it from had been more conscientious about what went into his tank(s), but it appears not. Then again he did tell me that it was mainly a softie tank with a few fish. After a couple of hitchiker mythrax crabs (ok, not considered bad by some people), several worms that seemed to match the onoeno (sp?) worm pictures, which is a predatory, not reef safe, worm, a weird nudi/worm that I have yet to ID (and yet to catch, as it escapaed my last attempt) numerous sundials and last night a good sized (1"+)predatory whelk. I would have been livid if I had missed it and ended up finding it one morning dining on one of our clams . So all in all generally regretting getting the sand, or at least putting it into the tank. I should have just let it all die off in the buckets and dealt with it later .

 

[GreshamH]

That sucks Tom. I could always get you a puffer or two while your coral less They should take care of the snails . Once your done, just give them back to me. Mmm, and maybe a big lunare wrasse

 

[Sparkss]

Gresh, I just don't know if I got them all or not.. and not sure if a puffer would take care ones like the larger one i found last night.

Checked closer this morning and the cyphastrea frag had started bleaching, the zoas opened up and the monti's seem ok, but possibly a little stressed still. Going to run a full set of tests on the water shortly.

I went ahead and moved a small rock with some gold laced cloves into the tank. We will see how they fare in the mean time.

 

[GreshamH]

The puffer I have in mind would munch it, no worries I just have to see if that puppy is still around

If Max still has it, it could do the job. The guy could take you finger off :lol:

 

[Sparkss]

ouch.. hehehe

Depending on how things go we are going to try to start moving corals over this weekend so that we can get the prop tank torn down, but I am unsure how that whole timeline will work out now

 

[Sparkss]

Well, I figured out what was causing the coral stress.. the heaters appear to have overly crappy thermostats and the thermometer we were using sucked even worse *sigh*. When I swung the temp probe from our controller over the new tank was a full 2 degrees hotter than the old tank, so when moving them over it was a huge temperature shock. Luckily we did the "test corals" before moninv everything over and found the issue. Unplugged the heaters and put some fans over the tank to bring the temp down then reset the thermostats on the heaters and started bringing the livestock over from the prop tank.


8 hours later and we finally pushed back and went to bed (well, I took a shower first because I was head to toe salty).

Not sure if we are going to have any room left for "new" corals, and we have only moved over the prop tank (then again it was a 3' X 3' prop that was pretty full). We still have the display tank to move over after the sumps are setup and we have a more appropriately sized skimmer running on it (versus the HOB remora that is propped up in the tank currently). That will hopefully be about this time next week, but it is hard to tell at this point exactly how the timeline will play out.


I am off to HD to pick up the materials to start building the walls to "define" the fish room within the garage. But in the mean time here is a quick FTS of the tank this morning after the lights came on.

I will take some more later on this evening, after the tank clears a bit more, and more closeups of the livestock of course.

 

[jnarowe]

Tom,

I was comiserating with Curt at Neptune about how I would really prefer a starfire tank rather than the acrylic, and he said something interesting. He said that he would love a starfire tank but couldn't use one because he is in earthquake country.

I am too, and would like to know if there were any special considerations made in the install of your tank or if the tank was assembled with any particular method for extra safety in a quake.

 

[jacmyoung]

Looks like a winner to me, can't wait for more pics.

BTW Tom I posted a hybrid PBT pic in MARS forum.

 

[Sparkss]

Johnathan
We are outside of the fault line areas where we live, although pretty much all of the West Coast is likely considered earth quake territory. When we bought our home we were assessed for earth quake and flood insurance and were told that we were not in the "zones" for either, IIRC, but that was several years ago.

Short answer is we just built it like a brick **** house, as rock solid as we could.

jacmyoung
See, now you are just teasing me

I saw the reply to that thread but had not yet read up on it. How is the hybrid temperament wise ? As bad, worse or better than a regualr PBT ? You will have to let me know . As it stands we decided against a PBT due to their reputation as being second only to a Sohal for meanness and aggression *sigh*.


Well, I am off to take the trailer back, all materials are safely here now (10' 2x4s *it is a tall ceiling in there*, green boad dryall, etc). I have already taken down the prop tank and it is catching rain in the back yard currently (our neighbors must love us for our acrylic graveyard out there )).

I hope to have the wall up and the one side of sheetrock today, then I will assess how much further I want to go tonight. We are sort of screwed because it is raining out, so I can't primer and/or paint for a while, and the sumps were going to be up against the one wall, so that means it all needs to wait for drier weather before I can even start the RO/DI filling them *sigh*.

Either way I should have more pictures later on this evening, unless I manage to nail gun my foot to the floor or something

 

[jacmyoung]

I feel your pain Tom, the rain sucks even without a project at hand.

The hybrids I saw were very similar in temperament to a PBT, if I have to choose then the hybrid is on the more aggressive side. But with the tank of your size I don't think PBT aggression will be an issue.

Of course if your goal is to have a naked pair dancing for you without paying admission, then I can't feel sorry for you

 

[Sparkss]

Hahahahahaha.. point taken jacmyoung . Thanks for the info