My new coral prop system

[Philip Root]

Originally posted by aqua5
do you have some pictures for what do you use to bring the water to the sump?do you have anything to stop flooding in the frag tubs?

do you have some pictures for what do you use to bring the water to the sump?

Each tub has a 2" pipe that takes the water to the sump there is a picture on page one of this thread.

Do you have anything to stop flooding in the frag tubs?

Why, yes, luck is always on my side. And there is not enough water in the sump to flood a tub.


Philip

[NuclearReefs]

great job man,, thats awsome

[aqua5]

1.)is there any surface agitation?

2.)how do you see in with the pumps running?

3.)how far below water are the outputs?

4.)what is a pump screen?



thanks alot

[jathan_innerarity]

I really like your set up. It is really pleasin to the eye. Are you still not impressed with your MRC Nelsen reactor?

[Philip Root]

Originally posted by aqua5
1.)is there any surface agitation?

2.)how do you see in with the pumps running?

3.)how far below water are the outputs?

4.)what is a pump screen?



thanks alot

1.) Yes there is surface agitation I will go in to detail in question 3.

2.) There is a few way to "see in"
A.) A veiwing box. Wich is a glass that floats on the top of
the tank to look down in to.
B.) You can shut off the flow to the barrel by turning the
valve off.
3.)The out puts are about 4" under the water pointed back up
towards the top of the water at about a 45 degree angel.

4.) The pump screen is a 2" pvc with slits cut in it and capped off.
I think that I am going to change it so it will be a bit bigger.

Philip

[Philip Root]

Originally posted by jathan_innerarity
I really like your set up. It is really pleasin to the eye. Are you still not impressed with your MRC Nelsen reactor?

At this point in time no. I recived it 3 weeks ago and it is still not working. I have call MRC 4 times and emailed them 5 or so times and he returned my call to day finally. To me he was giving me the run around. I did get him on email a few times but he was no help. He said he was sending out the parts to fix it today. The Nelsen Reactor has a little white mixer, every other time I pluged it in it flew off. I will keep you posted.



Philip

[aqua5]

"A.) A veiwing box. Wich is a glass that floats on the top of
the tank to look down in to."


1.)can you elaborate?i dont see how this would help see in.

2.)by shutting the valves off totally isnt there pressure constantly building which will enentually burst?

3.)is you store a "walk-in"?do you shut off the pumps for the people to see in?

[NuclearReefs]

Originally posted by aqua5
"A.) A veiwing box. Wich is a glass that floats on the top of
the tank to look down in to."


1.)can you elaborate?i dont see how this would help see in.

2.)by shutting the valves off totally isnt there pressure constantly building which will enentually burst?

3.)is you store a "walk-in"?do you shut off the pumps for the people to see in?

1> Viewing boxes go under the water surface so you dont have the waves refracting your view of the corals. Great way to take pics to...

2> his system is branched off into multiple tanks so restricint flow on one or two isnt going to hurt him , just increase flow in other areas.

3> I dunno about that one,,,,,LOL

[jathan_innerarity]

Man I can se how that would bum you out. keep me posted Id like to know if it is worth the headache.

[aqua5]

Originally posted by NuclearReefs
1> Viewing boxes go under the water surface so you dont have the waves refracting your view of the corals.

how would the coral get flow?sorry for all the questions

[majesticangelfish]

This may help answer your Q's mate, The box doesn't change water flow at all.

http://www.melevsreef.com/topdown.html

Josh

[NuclearReefs]

thanks josh..

[aqua5]

1.)is the box removed when not in use?

2.)and also why do some tubs have a hole drilled in the side to bring water to the sump and other have a pipe partially sticking out of the water to bring water to the sump?

3.)when you shut off the ball valve to one tank and then a few minutes later turn it back on, does the water level change from where it was at first?

[Philip Root]

1.) Yes

2.)All the drains are in the side, The water coming in is the pcv sticking out of the water.

3.)Yes a little, about 1/2"

[aqua5]

ok so the pvc stickcing out of the water is that from the return pump?

and it looks like that pvc is partially under water so wouldnt it bring water back to the overflow?

[majesticangelfish]

YES!

NO, it would add a small amount of head pressure against the return pump, but that pump is very powerful.

[K_one]

Very nice indeed.

Just one question, i hope, is a bit more intelligent than the misconception of the viewing box

What are you using for filtration? I saw you were using a Euroreef 12-3, and in another picture i saw some tubs with sand (dunno if they are dsb or not) in them, so im guessing that would be your biological. Any thoughts of using a large refugium? Are you using any LR, or just LS?

Are you using NSW, or what salt mix?

In your tubs, do you find that you get a lot of algal growth? and if you do, how do you combat it?

I read somewhere that the colorations on coral are like a sunblock, like when you were a kid and you put that bright colored zink stuff on youre face, exactly the same. What people here do when aqua culturing (South Africa, a VERY small industry for corals), and i dont know if they do this throughout the world, but what they do is they grow the corals, frag them however many times, and grow both the frags and mother colony under light that doesnt color them that much (the thinking is that without the sunblock, they can grow faster) and then when it comes time to sell, once the frags are big enough, they put them under good quality lights that color them up to their original color that is in their genes.

Aparently it is a faster way of growing them, and you dont loose the colors, so says a things i've read on the net and from local growers.

I hope im making sense

Alright, enough blabber.

I really admire youre set up, keep it up, and please, MORE PICTURES! We are all envious

Thanks
K

[NuclearReefs]

K_one,, most people that keep their mothercolonies under 6500K bulbs do this on purpose.. this way the growth can keep up with them whacking pieces off to then be placed on mounts. At that point,, while its growing over the glue or epoxy it is also coloring up ....Ive done this for a few years on a small scale.... big scale soon........

[Philip Root]

What are you using for filtration?
The Skimmer, Sponges, Carbon, Phosgard, and Sand.

Any thoughts of using a large refugium?
After a few test of my own, I think refugiums help the system greatly but, I also belive the slow down the growing of the coral. I do not see adding a refugium at this time.


"The color on coral is like sun screen"

This is what thought till I went to MACNA this year.
Now I belive that the color is a waste product of the coral. I am still sorting this out for myself but that is what I think at this point in time. There is alot of thing this dose not answer but Daina Ridder gave a good speech and still is doing alot of reasearch on this.

[NuclearReefs]

Dana is a old friend of mine,, I met him in atlanta when we were both living their and I managed a all salt store in buckhead.Im just using my refugium as filtration and getting really good growth .

At Aquatic Wildlife where Dana worked for awhile they were using large scale scubbers and getting some incredible growth. no skimmers or carbon. the water has s tinge to it but man at the colors the SPS stuff had. We played with carbon and small downdraft skimmers to polish the water up some and started noticing some values to having large scale systems utilizing the pros and cons of each...

Dana will always be doing very detailed indepth research.. and you can allways count on getting a good solid theory....

Nathan

[cryb99]

hey, where did you manage to find those 50 gallon tubs at such a cheap price? the cheapest i can find it for is 89 dollars.
also, what did you use to drill those tubs?

[K_one]

Hey, thanks guys.

I've been thinking about doing prop work for ages, but only next year i can begin! Gotta finish school first, two more months to go!

I think that there could be huge benefits gained from having a large refugium based prop system, with a decent sized skimmer, but i could be wrong! I guess i will only find out once i've started mine.

My only worry with setting up this system, is that i wont have a large enough refugium, but not a too large skimmer. I do want nutrient export, but i dont want to skim the hell out of my water to the extent that it is bad for coral growth.

My system will mainly be softies, so my knowledge may be a bit bias towards that species of propagation.

So, when are you getting youre 1000's? You know they light airport runways with those things! Im very curious to see the coloration under those monsters!

Keep us posted.

Kyle

[Philip Root]

Originally posted by cryb99
hey, where did you manage to find those 50 gallon tubs at such a cheap price? the cheapest i can find it for is 89 dollars.
also, what did you use to drill those tubs?

I got the tubs at a local feed store. I went in and told him what I was doing with them and he gave me a good deal 43.50 a pice. But normal retail is 1 dollar per gallon so 50 bucks is what a feed should charge.



I used a hole saw for wood to drill them.


Philip

[Philip Root]

double post

[Philip Root]

I got the pendents and the bulbs from sunlight supply. So far I like them alot. I will post some pictures later.


Philip