Reef Tanks

[wgscott]

How'd I miss this?

I've had reef tanks since 1998. I am now down to one simple 100 gallon acrylic one with primarily soft corals, LPS corals, and a few fish. I took it to my office so that I could socialize my electric bill, which, with 300 Watts of HQI halide and another 200 W of compact fluorescent and god only knows how much to drive all the pumps, etc...

A fine hobby. Makes the audio stuff look inexpensive.

[Steve Williams]

Pictures would be wonderful

[wgscott]

I'll dig some out. I've kind of been neglecting things and need to clean it up a bit before taking any new ones.

Did you start one?

[wgscott]

I have surprisingly few photos, and none are particularly good. This looks like it was taken just before I migrated from a 55 gallon sump-less tank to a 100 gallon.







Sorry the photos kind of suck.

[pwfletcher]

Salt water tanks are so tough ;-(

[elescher]

Salt water tanks are so tough ;-(

These are some photos of my 1 year old reef tank. If you are interested in seeing some photos of my filtration and lighting, etc., please let me know and I will post them. Thanks for looking.

Steve

[Steve Williams]

I'd like to see them

[elescher]

Attachment 8479Attachment 8480Attachment 8481Attachment 8482Attachment 8483The complete system occupies 3 rooms. The main display tank is in the main part of the basement (where my HT setup is).

In my laundry room (photos 2&4) I have my prefilter sump. The water enters from the display tank and goes through (stage 1) four filter "socks" (referred to as mechanical filtration) which weed out the larger debris that can get stuck in pumps and cause failure. The water then passes through 5 lbs. of special porous material (referred to as biological filtration) (stage 2) that is designed to grow bacteria (the good kind) which keeps the tank alive. This bacteria counters the detrimental effects of fish poop, uneaten decaying food and other matter and oxygenates the water which helps maintain the proper PH of the water (1.026 SG). The water then enters (stage 3) that has a protein skimmer in it. This device filters out the smallest debris and other various unwanted substances that the mechanical filtration cannot grab. A pump injects tiny bubbles into a chamber which float to the top and as they rise in the chamber various types of proteins that need to be managed adhere to the bubbles and eventually a thick black disgusting SMELLY foam is produced which is pushed up the neck of the skimmer and into a cup that is emptied daily. The skimmer also oxygenates the water. At this point the water still needs a few more things done to provide a healthy environment for success. The water is now pumped into two separate media reactors. One has charcoal in it to clarify the water and the other has a product (basically it is rust) that is designed to keep the phosphate levels down to a minimum (.01% ppm.) Excessive phosphates will cause algae to grow out of control which eventually will suffocate everything in the tank by using up all the oxygen and will grow over everything and literally "take over" the tank. This is one of the hardest things to manage in reef tanks because corals need an abundance of light in order to grow. This is where most enthusiasts fail. Finally the water goes through a UV Sterilizer where it is pushed through a tube that houses the UV light and passes at a slow rate of about 150 G.P.H. This kills all....good and bad. Some hobbyists don't think UV should be used in reef tanks but I obviously don't agree. Another issue that needs addressing is water evaporation. Water evaporates...salt doesn't. It is critical that a consistent salinity level or specific gravity (SG) be maintained. As water evaporates, the specific gravity goes up. For this I have a float valve in the sump. When the water level goes down due to evaporation the valve opens up and lets fresh RODI water into the sump until it is at the set level. This keeps the salt to water ratio stable.

The closet in the basement (photo1) has a sump in it that houses my heaters/chiller coil/return pumps for the main display tank and to my in-wall tank (photos in next post) I also grow copepods and other animals in here which is food for the fish and coral. This needs to be done at the final stage because this critical food source would be killed by the UV. Another function of this sump is to prevent bubbles from returning into the display tanks. It has baffles that the water needs to go up and over several times which gives the bubbles a chance to escape before returning to the tanks.

In my boiler room is where I mix my water and salt. I have a 75 gallon drum that I fill up with RODI water and add the salt (comes in buckets that make about 200 gallons of saltwater with a SG of 1.026). Even with all the filtration implemented water changes still need to be made monthly, sometimes more often depending on how well your system is designed. Usually 15 to 20% of the total water volume in the system. My main display tank is 220 gallons and my in wall tank is about 50 gallons add another 30 gallons for the water going through the filtration and your up to about 60 gallons worth of water that needs to be changed regularly.

This is obviously a passion of mine equal to my audio endeavors. It seems that there a few "reefers" here and maybe some that want to get into the hobby too. I enjoyed writing this post and hope I didn't bore anyone with it. There are other important things that I can talk about such as lighting requirements (I switched from Metal Halide to LED), water flow and movement (my system has around 10,000 GPH of water pumping) and more.

Time to go listen to some music. BTW my main system:

Vivid Audio G2
VAC Sig IIa
Viola Symphony
Stahl Tek Opus Prime/A.B.C.
GPA racks/Stillpoints
Mac Mini with SSD and outboard PS/Amarra
Tripoint Troy
Audience 2 PTOPT (whatever) for digital
UPGRADED FUSES IN ALL ***in fact Stahl Tek (Purist Audio Design) now ships there new Opus Prime DAC with all upgraded fuses.

[Steve Williams]

you are one serious hobbyist here

[elescher]

I would say dedicated more so than serious.