Zachtos’ unique 240G reef w/ 375G sump/fuge-growout/RDSB/aggro tank

[zachtos]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14334452#post14334452 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
Sweating copper is very easy, but like anything you need to be meticulous as you prepare the fittings. You should learn how, because I think you'll like it.

I did look in that thread, but didn't see it. Sorry. Will you be posting a new set of pictures of it?

I'll post all new photos of everything after Feb.18th. My photobucket account ran out of bandwidth. Photos of the heater and all equipment are on page 9 of this thread, but you can't see them now =(

Learning to weld is on my list of things to learn how to do. As I'm already planning my next tank like a freak. I plan to have steel stand and steel light rack. It will be an in-wall, super energy efficient design. I may do luxeon rebel tri-star LEDs only for the next one pending a few experiments downstairs =)

This weekend's projects revolve around water changes and stressing the new water heater and ro unit upgrades.

 

[zachtos]

Update - 2.5 weeks after meltdown:

NO3 = 5-10ppm (dropping FAST)
Ammonia, NO2 = 0ppm
Alk=9-10dkh
calc/mg/phosphate=untested
SG.1025
temp=79F

Minor Hair algae bloom in the tank, nothing like my first one! My macro algae in the fuges is growing about 2 basket balls/ week

All zoanthids, mushrooms and frogspawn made a full recovery. Zoas are browned out naturally, but will recover quickly.

I plan to start dosing vitamin C for a month after my waterchange regimen is complete. I am on day 4 of 6 of my 20% daily water change plan. The water heater is working Great!!! My new RO unit upgrade lets me make 200 GPD!!!

I re-allocated fishes to remove aggression and bioload this weekend. (I drained the tank to 2" deep and grabbed them!!!)

Stocking list in display tank:
-Sailfin Tang
-Hippo Tang
-Purple Tang
-Emperor Angel
-Copperband Butterfly
-Clarkii Clownfish x 2
-Watchman goby - pink
-chromis x 2 (blue and a green)
-zoas, shrooms, frogspawn

Stocking list refugium display:
-Yellow Tang
-Flame Angel
-Bangaii Cardinal
-chaetomorpha, halimedia, and two other types of macro

Currently I'm feeding daily:
-pellets soaked in selco and garlic
-1 PE mysis cube
-Frozen meaty mix (2cube)
-1 sheet nori

For sale/waiting for credit
-2 scopas tang
-1 kole tang

planned additions:
-Cleanup crew!!! (astrae, nassarius, nerite, cerith, true turbo)
-Regal Angel ??? Considering/Researching for display
-toying w/ buying a PAR meter for $250 (mostly for the LED projects I obsess over)

*** Not sure if it's quite safe to add SPS yet this coming weekend, I'm guessing I should wait another week to be safe?***

 

[zachtos]

Corals coming this weekend!
tentative coral stock list: (75% milles, 20% moti caps style, 5% other)
steel blue mille
ora blue mille
green mille
sunset mille
pink/yellow mille
rose mille
teal/blue mille
peach/green mille
-orange, green, purple monti cap
=blue chalice, rainbow chalice
Green star polyps
blue tipped stag

*I'm TRYING to find these frags, not sure if I can get them all right away, but I will find them.

Nitrates are less then 5ppm now. I need to do one more water change this week and then tweak the mg/ca/alk levels accordingly.

I added 250 cerith snails and 50 nassarius as a cleanup crew for my tanks. The lights have been out for 3 days while they clean the tank up. Only a tiny bit of hair algae remains and it should be clean tonight when I get home.

I'm currently soaking hikari pellets of various size in selco and garlic to feed to the fishes. Everyone is looking good. My emperor angel is starting to change color. It will be interesting to watch him change over the next year. I will post periodic morph updates if I can get him to hold still. The flame angel is also eating well. Too bad he's not in my display =(

I ordered a PAR meter finally . I know many of you will look forward to seeing PAR measurements in a 240G SPS w/ a good bulb layout and icecap ballasts. I will make one of those photos w/ the numbers right on it. I will also measure my LED hood for those that followed that boring thread. I can't wait to start measuring PAR at new people's house. I figure it will help me w/ coral placement and will be nice to be able to help other people out in exchange for a free frag now and then. I'll also use it for a future LED upgrade and to decide how to light... the next tank.

*One more day until photobucket lets me show photos again! expect photos when I have something neat to photograph!

 

[zachtos]

Woohoo! I got my PAR meter today. I know many of you are hungry for PAR reads from a pure T5 tank too! I also measured my LED hood. The LED hood, unfortunately, was only about 33% as strong as my T5. My T5 gave reads from 200 PAR near the 18" depth, and 500 PAR at 6" depth!!! I get reads as good as 400-250W MH easily. Hurray for scientific proof. I shall post perty pictures for you all in the coming week. =)

*I also picked up a bunch of millepore frags, monti caps and chalice for my tank. I'll be starting the restock and some photos soon. It's coming back to life!

NO2 =2ppm, Phosphate 0ppm, kh=9, calc=410, mg=1400

 

[zachtos]

I tested the PAR in my reef this weekend with my new PAR meter from apogee. I concluded that I EASILY get the same PAR as anyone with any type of metal halide. My bulbs are mostly 2 months old, some are 6 months old. I would call my 'Blend' of lights, 14K average. At about 1" under each individual bulb I get a peak of 1000-1300 PAR. My lights sit about 5 or 6" down from the water surface. There is about 25% less PAR along in the absolute center of the tank because that is where the 3' bulbs butt against eachother. The bulbs seem to have very low PAR on the last 1.5" of the glass tube on both ends. Keep this in mind when you light your tank. I was suprised to learn how hight the PAR was in the center, I thought it was much less, but the lights seem to blend well about 6" down, so the endcap gap in the center doesn't make much difference.

I have compared this to several PAR reading diagrams online and they are able to outcompete metal halides (400W and 250W) in many ways, BUT not by much. The real benefit here, is that I get VERY even distribution among my entire reef, as expected. The MH has some real good hotspots, but has a lot of drop off points too. I still firmly believe in the T5 for energy savings, heat dissipation from reduced wattage. You must use icecap ballasts and individual reflectors or you will have drastically lower PAR MH obviosly has shimmer effect from the point source of light. I have learned how to replicate this by adding a few high powered LEDs along the T5's (more to come on that later).

(my tank obviously does not look like this now, image is for your reference)

*I tested my LED hood FYI, it's not good. It only gave about a third of what you see here, it's quite depressing, but then again, the new rebel LED's are about 3 times stronger, so don't be discouraged!!!

 

[jiriki]

I read the whole thread. Very cool except for the disaster but you learned a lot from it. I'm almost inspired to post my own tank build thread.

The T5 results are awesome. I currently have a 3x 250w MH fixture. I may convert to T5's. How often are you replace used bulbs? Not counting the ones that are getting blown? Are you using your PAR meter to determine when to replace bulbs?

 

[zachtos]

No need to convert from T5 unless you are having heat issues. Both lighting types are very similar in outputs. But if you do convert, you will lose that shimmer effect (purely asethic). But, you gain the ability to change the color of your tank easily.

I'm using my PAR meter mostly to find good locations for coral placement, and to satisfy my curiosity. I used to use my LUX meter to determine individual bulbs for replacement, but I may start trying to use the PAR meter instead as it's less prone to number fluctuation from color shifting.

*I recently stocked the tank with 15 new frags (1 pending). I'll post about that when I have time to get new photos. It's very boring looking with all the tiny little frags but I do need monthly updates at a minimum. (they are all mille's, w/a center area w/ monti caps and chalices)

 

[mcliffy2]

Very cool post, thanks for doing the legwork on this.

You must use icecap ballasts and individual reflectors or you will have drastically lower PAR

The above isn't necessarily true...thats one way to get the job done with T5s -- the other is individual reflectors and active cooling. I prefer this type of setup since it uses less energy and the bulbs last longer since not overdriven.

 

[zachtos]

You're probably right, I did only test a few other T5 setups which did not use icecap ballasts. I do not have any of the more expensive rivals to icecap to test, such as the ati powermodules or tek lights. They may be comparable, but I can't see how they could out-compete a light that is purposely being overdriven, unless they do to?

 

[zachtos]

Here are some recent tank shots. I did not take any macro photos of my new frags because many of them are still browned out from the person that was holding them for me. They are starting to color up. I have all the millepore spread about 10" from eachother, as I know how fast they grow. The plating montipora/chalice are in the center section of the tank so the fish will have swimming space in the middle. I also placed 4 unknown SPS on the back walls of the tank to see if they will grow off from it. My natural gas heater is working fine too, I am not sure of the savings yet, need a few months to see the bills start rolling in.

New SPS stock list:
Sky Blue Mille
Rose Mille / ORA Red Mille
Nathan's Green Mille / ORA Green Mille
Steel Blue Mille / ORA Blue Mille
Pink/Green Mille
Pink/Yellow Mille
Yellow Humilis
Orange Digi
Green Slimer
Blue Tipped Stag
Oxypora (blue/purple)
Blue Chalice
Green/red polyp Monti Cap
Orange/Red Monti Cap
2 varieties of GSP for background wall
*pending: Palmer's Blue Mille

Special thanks to Jeff from MSX Reef Creations, for donation of 4 Unknown SPS acro frags.

I also now own a lawnmower blenny, courtesey of fishlover at MR forums.

I changed the tank around so that ALL the water gets dumped into the frag tank through a filter sock. This hopefully will lower my nutrients. I have the sock hung from metal hooks drilled into each side of the 1.5" pipe. This also is lowering my micro bubble issue.

My display refugium

I am also now dumping the ozone reactor, calcium reactor, phosban reactor and sulfur reactor effluent into the downstairs refugium in hopes that the chaetomorpha growth levels will explode from the increased levels of CO2 and lower ph.

my emperor looks like he's getting ready to start morphing over the next year, he is very happy in the display tank now

The emperor angel is now eating all my zoanthids, as expected. This is not a major concern to myself as I am determined to now carry a SPS dominant reef with the exception of the GSP backwall and 2 chalices. I don't want the Zoas getting in the way of my SPS bases when they begin to grow out. I will attempt to start selling as many zoa frag packs as I can. They are starting to color back up now.

***********************8
New exciting project planned. Variable frequency drive (VFD) to power a 3 phase, 1/2 horsepower, 3450 RPM, TEFC, 56J frame motor with a reeflo centrifugal pump head. I will then pulse this pump from 15hz to 90hz through various penductors in the display. The resulting effect will be a surge similar to waves crashing into the reef. Preliminary numbers are 20,000gph surges. This project is in works and parts are in planning stages. I plan to replace all 4 of my maxi jet mods, 1 tunze stream and tunze wavebox with this one device. If the project is a success, I will sell all of the existing water movement equipment to help finance the project. This is an idea directly stolen from Liveforphysics here at RC, but does require a tremendous amount of knowledge in motors, power systems and control systems. Estimated project cost is $600-$800 at this point, but it could be a worthy flow upgrade, as I already determined that my lighting and water quality are in good shape. (flow, water quality and lighting trinity)

 

[zachtos]

Oh, and for the first time in almost 1 year, I have UNDETECTABLE NITRATES!!!! I'm so happy! It has been such a struggle to figure out how to get them down, but I think it was just from too many fish. I do not plan to add anything, but I'm happy. The fish will continue to grow and get bigger, but hopefully my liverock will get better w/ age as they grow.

 

[zachtos]

Long overdue update:

Tank is recovering and is in grow out mode. Fish are fat, healthy and disease free. Corals are colorful and growing thick bases before sprouting out. Most frags are only 4 months old or less.

Coral selection is mostly millepore and montipore. I like the colors best and the the high growth rates. I am keeping everything spread out for this tank so I don't have another pruning nightmare.

Coral:
-Millipore: palmer's blue, nathan's green, steel blue, peach & green, pink & yellow, rose, superman mille ?, bubblegum mille ?
-Montipore: strawberry patch, tyree flower petal, red, green, idaho grape
-misc coral: blue chalice LPS ?, yellow humilis, green slimer, unknown acro, green star polyp, 3 small zoa colonies, green hairy mushrom (not on purpose), green mushrooms.

recent left side shot

recent center shot, mostly montipore (no macro shots today)

recent right side shot, all the fish hang out on this side because the nori goes here

end shot

recent full tank shot



Fish selection is lower now then before. I want to keep bio load and agression down. Only 3 tangs in the display and one angelfish. Copperband keeps the aptasia away and the angelfish keeps my zoanthids in his belly.

Fish

-Emperor Angelfish

-Sailfin tang (desjarni)

-Hippo tang

-Purple tang

-Copperband butterflyfish
-2 chromis (1 blue 1 green)
-1 cleaner wrasse
-1 lawnmower blenny
-1 pink spotted watchman goby
-(fuge) yellow tang
-(fuge) flame angel angelfish
-(fuge) bangaii cardinal



Inverts
-200 Cerith snails (large)
-50 nassarius snails
-6 mexican turbo snails
-1 fighting conch
-24 red emerald crabs
-4 black spine urchins
-2 cleaner shrimp
-6 peppermint shrimp
-1 bristle star
-1 serpent star

 

[zachtos]

Filtration & equipment:
-50G refugium (70W HPS lighting)
-75G refugium (120W of T8 lighting)
-Skimmer w/ dual mesh mod needewheel (0.5 gallon/week skimmate currently)
-carbon (2 cup / 2 weeks)
-granular ferric oxide (phosban) (80ml / 2 weeks)
-ozone (200mg/hr x 2) & reactor(maintain 485 ORP)
-Calcium reactor (2 chambers filled w/ dead corals)
-Hot Water Heater recirculation coil (heats tank using natural gas)

My refugium has become a show tank!

Love the colors of the contrasting macro algae


Display Lighting
*New schedule: ON 5 hours, OFF 6 hours, ON 5 hours, OFF, 8 hours
(on 7am-12pm, & on 6pm-11pm)
-T5 display lighting 36" x 12 bulbs on icecap ballasts
-ati blu plus/special configuration (16K overalll color)
-500-250 PAR coral zones
-825W power draw w/ fans

Paramaters:
-nitrate: 0.5ppm
-9-10dkh
-Calcium: 450ppm
-magnesium: 1250ppm
-ammonia/nitrite: 0ppm
-78-80F temp (winter-summer)
-SG: 1.025
-ORP: 485ppm
-phosphate: 0ppm (don't test often)

under the hood

my new plumbing layout, no powerheads, everything comes out of a manifold fed by the reeflo 4600gph pump (1000gph goes to the equpment shown)

I now run filter socks, nylon 100micron, changed 3 times/week (all water flows through 2 socks), works EXCELLENT highly recomend

I now run a High pressure sodium 70 watt bulb over my 50G refugium. I can't express what a difference this makes. I grow 2 - 5 gallon buckets of macro algae a month!!! I used to grow a quarter of that!!! My skimmer barely has anything to skim now!

Maintenance:
-3/4 sheet nori/day
-hikari pellets soaked in selco/garlic day 1
-home made seafood blend odd day 2
-hikari pellets soaked in selco/garlic day 3
-mysis shrimp & PE mysis day 4
-3week 12% water change schedule (60G)


Water Flow
-1 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifd6P8mqEmI">zachtos storm drive</a> (25,000gph surges day, 35,000gph surges storm mode)
-1 reeflo 4600gph return (1000 to display, 500 to fuge, 500 to equip)
*no power heads anywhere!

* A brief note about my storm drive. It's a commercial product so I wont divulge any info about it here. I simply wanted to note that all of my flow (random and stream) is now handled by this one device. I use less electricity now and have a much higher flow with no maintenance anymore. I am very pleased with it and so are my corals.


Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been discouraged since the crash and have been staying busy with other projects while the tank re-grows. Actually, I have been very busy building my new infrared warfare project. For those in the Michigan area that are interested in running around outside playing a real life video game shooter, visit <a href ="http://www.ircombat.com">IRcombat.com</a> to check out my latest creation.

 

[melev]

Nice to see these updates and that things are on the upswing again.

I love your refugium pictures. It looks like the Yellow Tang isn't doing much damage to all that macro. Is that the same tank that uses the sodium bulb, or did you set up a different refugium and the Yellow Tang/Flame Angel Planted Tank is another display? It's very pretty. What type of algae is the one with the green vertical ribbons connected to the running streamers?

I like your Surge system. Does it have the same music and crazy lighting at all times? That's really neat.

Try bumping up your Magnesium to around 1400ppm. Your Montipora sp. will really appreciate it.

 

[zachtos]

Thanks, I have two fuges. One upstairs and one downstairs. the one downstairs is powered by the HPS light, the upstairs by standard T8 bulbs (eventually will install HPS x 1 and 1 T8 to drown out the color). The upstairs tank has the fish and the nice (unknown name) seaweed and chaetomorpha. I don't feed those fish only but some mysis once/week and they are as fat as ever. (they must eat macro and pods).

*I highly highly recommend the ugly yellow HPS bulbs over fuges (not easy to find). It puts out around 300 PAR at surface but the spectrum must be dead on for macro (as I've tried all types of CF/T8 lighting). I no longer need a skimmer and have debated turning it off to save energy. Lately I only get 1 gallon of light skim per two weeks!

I love the storm drive. Hassle free and cheaper then powerheads failing on my all the time. Basically just a 3 phase motor powering some eductors on a VFD w/ a special controller. (very specifically sized motor/vfd/eductor combo for maximum effect). The corals have really extended polyps and the fish LOVE the flow at peak surges.

I'll give the Mg a bump tonight, I go through 16 cups of dow magflake per month usually. I use tropic marin 300G bags of salt mix.

 

[melev]

When you mix up your Magnesium, try using exactly one gallon of RO/DI water, 7.25 cups of Mag Flake, and .75 of a cup of Epsons salt. Randy Holmes-Farley has an article on it (the original Two Part writeup) where he explains to mix each one separately with that was one gallon (a little for the Epsons, the majority for the Mag Flake) then combining it together. You'll probably discover that it is a better ionic balance and won't need as much.

My system isn't as big as yours, but I'm not using as much as you are. A single gallon (divided into four 2-liter bottles) lasts my system several months.

 

[zachtos]

The tank is doing well. No nitrates or phosphates, steady paramaters and all SPS frags are starting to take off. After nearly 3 years of using T5 lighting for SPS growth, I think I'm sick of it. No matter how hard I try, I can't get certain species of SPS to have bright colorful polyps. Mostly blues (they end up w/ brown polyps every time). I have awesome flow and water quality. It has to be the fact that my PAR is in the minimum requirement level (250-500 at best).

I am planning to upgrade to pure 400W MH. This will not be a very expensive upgrade vs. T5, but the amount of energy used each month will aproximately double. The anticipated PAR gain is nearly double though. See this article for evidence of 400W PAR readings, much better then T5, but more energy of course. Pluse, like most, I love the shimmer effect of a point source of light... since plasma and LED are still not ready for the hobby, I'm going back to the old stand by... Metal halide.

I am planning to build a new hood (won't be pretty though) and install:
3 x 400W coralvue reeflux 12k SE bulbs on coralvue electronic dimmable ballasts with lumenbrite 3 mini reflectors about 18" from the water surface.

I will likely sell most of my T5 equipment (I'll keep one of the 3 sets just in case) to finance the project a bit.... and my Wii... and anything else I can pawn to keep my sickness of a hobby going.

The energy bill will go up to $47/mo from lighting vs $25/mo from T5. I am hopeful that increased growth rates and color will help me sell the occasional rare frag to help offset a bit of the monthly cost.

What are your thoughts on a upgrade / change to MH? (eventually I will carry these to the next system too)

*I also intend to add a new school of chromis to help liven up the tank a bit. The big guys seem to hide a lot now with the storm drive. But the lil guys love it. go figure.

I plan to start doing youtube video updates instead of text updates soon, it's faster and more interesting, but a bit more time consuming on my end, barely.

 

[Bax]

I am deeply entrenched in the MH + T-5 supplement camp. I have 12K Reflux 400 w MH in LA minis with T-5 supplementation and I can't imagine anything else for lighting that would give me the same result and look.

I actually bought a dual 250 Gallaxy ballast to down grade and save a little on the electric bill and heat transfer, but just can't pull the trigger on it. I may mix the 400s & 250s when I set up my 8' tank, we'll see.

I see some reefers having fantastic results on T-5 only, so there's no doubt it can be done. Personally, I would only go T-5 only if there were no other means to controll heat. That said, I may be doing just that on a smaller, 100ish g, tank I am considering setting up in at home. But, for my bigger office tank, it's MH/T-5 combo.

If MH is what you like, go for it!

 

[zachtos]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15632248#post15632248 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zachtos
Is it safe to say that a well designed T5 system will be equivalent to your average 250W MH setup?

I get 300-500 PAR in most 12-6" depths but never could get SPS to really grow deeper then that, and I can barely keep my SPS color up on many of my SPS polyps regardless (great water quality and INSANE flow)

I am thinking of scrapping my T5 assembly for a 400W MH setup as this seems to beat out even the best T5 setups? Is this a safe assumption?

--------------------

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15635767#post15635767 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by The Grim Reefer
Yeah, pretty much. If you use good halide reflectors and 10 to 14K lamps the 250's will beat out most T5's but if you run more blue lamps, like a 20K the T5's will probably win out.

excellent information, this should be worth re-iterating in another thread. after using T5 for many years, I now understand it's limitations and best uses and this sums it up nicely. thank you.

 

[zachtos]

Well, I made the leap to 400W MH last night. The PAR values are about double what you see above for a T5 tank. The outskirts of the reflector may be equal to or greater then the T5 assembly, but overall, the 400W MH blows the T5 out of the water. The energy consumption is equal to the T5 too (this is because you run MH for only about 6 hours/day vs 10 hours/day T5). The temperature should be a non issue because the lights are a staggering 16" from the surface, vs 6" from the surface for the T5's.

I can see the appeal for T5 for better coverage though, there are fewer hotspots, but it does not give you the ability to place light loving Corals (like my blue milles) under high light, thus they reward you with poop brown polyps no matter your flow and water quality.

pix soon w/ PAR diagrams