Ats

[Mark]

I'm with you man. Simplicity is best. I guess I should clarify that my fondness of gadgets has not led me to the high-tech tank. I believe in the "less technology, more biology approach." Slowly, I've been undergoing some changes in my approach. The ATS tank is meant to be as simple as possible. No sump, reactors, anything. If it goes well, I'll attack the larger system. Right now, I'm working on replacing the calcium reactor on the larger system for a nilsen reactor. For some reason, kalk just seems less technical. No CO2 cylinders to deal with. Once I figure out a way to get an affordable ATS for the 75, I'll probably yank the skimmer on it as well. I was thinking since my tank is reef-ready, I could just plug the bulkheads and make the overflow chamber a place for my float switch and heater. I can also put the powerhead that powers the ATS in there, to help process the proteins that would develop on the surface. Think of all the room I'd have in the stand underneath! I think such a tank would be a little less prone to failures, and thus more vacation friendly. At last, I could go on my dive trips without constantly worrying about my tank!

[Flatlander]

Same line of thinking as myself, . My overflow will do the same.

I to, would like to use kalk, but what about evaporation. If yours is set-up like mine, and covered, the rate will be to low to sustain enough kalk drip to keep up with the heavy demand of my tank.

Part will need to be covered to keep the salt creep from the dump limited. Esp. from reading DT,s posts, when he was using yours.

[Mark]

I'm not experiencing the same salt creep problem. With the ATS, I've noticed my evap rate has increased significantly, even with the tank completely covered by glass lids. This might help with the kalk situation. Fwiw, I've never had a problem keeping my calcium levels up with kalk. Granted, it's hard for kalk to keep alkalinity at the same high levels that reactors do, but I can live with a dkh of 7 instead of 10. I think nilsen reactors help make kalk dosing more efficient. I also no longer keep a zillion sps anymore which has reduced the calcium demand.

I guess the whole calcium demand thing hints at another area where I'm beginning to keep things simple. And that's stocking densities. As you can tell from the outdated pics on my site, my reef was heavily stocked with corals for a while. I've had a few mishaps along the way, and now my tank is less densily stocked. The more I read and read, I'm starting to realize how unnatural densely stocked reef tanks are. Everyone worries about overstocking fish, but yet few think of corals along the same lines. I attribute a lot of the mishaps that occured to my tank due to the stress from overcrowding. The remaining corals have a lot more breathing room now. I'm going to try to keep it that way.

Kinda like how you got rid of a lot of softies, I'm trying to make my tank a less stressfull place for corals. I've always enjoyed seeing pics of your tank, since it's a good example how good a reef can look if one doesn't stuff it to the brim with rock and coral. Your tank is very open, and the corals appear to have a lot of breathing room. That's what I'm striving for now.


So hopefully I can go without the reactor. I intend to hold onto it, in case the kalk doesn't cut it.

[LiquidShaneo]

FWIW, here's how I got around having to deal with a Nilsen reactor: http://www.liquidreef.com/kalkwasser.htm

Shane
(aka 'liquid')

[Mark]

Hey Liquid, that's a great idea. Especially the styrofoam thing. I think Capn at Augsburg has something like that setup as well, with great results. Have you noticed any deterioration with the styrofoam? I'm just wondering if the caustic nature of kalk(12 pH) is affecting it in any way.

[LiquidShaneo]

Heh, Capman was the one I got the idea from originally. Nope, I haven't seen any deterioration in the styrofoam at all and I've been using that same piece for over 6 months now. Styrofoam is amazingly inert. I go thru that 18 gal tub of kalkwasser about every 2 weeks or so and it's worked amazingly well for me. I think total I spent *maybe* $100 ($90 being the dosing pump off ebay) to set this thing up. I haven't had to deal with topoff since other than maybe making minor tweaks to the topoff rate every couple weeks. I add an excess of pickling lime and have a powerhead stir the mixture 2x per day for 15 minutes. Ca=450, alk=10 dKH, pH=8.3-8.6 pretty consistently. If you have a dosing pump, it's an easy DIY project.

Shane
(aka 'liquid')

[Mark]

If you have a dosing pump, it's an easy DIY project.

Working on the dosing pump thing now. I have one of the medical ones, but the silicon tubing tends to leak after a month or two of kalk dosing. I don't think it can take the caustic nature of the kalk. I figure with a nilsen, it only has to dose fw into the reactor, so no damage to the tubing. I'm looking to getting a better pump, however, which would nullify this problem. :-)

[Flatlander]

Looks good Shane, I just book marked it.

First, thank-you for the comments on my tank Mark. Those are mutual. Even though I added many different sps frags, I tried to give them all lots of room to grow. For sure height, as they have at least 18 inches to the surface. I just hope they dont over grow the tank,

They will be fragged lots, as many were given to me free by different lfs, to grow and frag for them also.

If the evaporation increases with the use of my ATS, then perhaps I could keep up. A gallon per day, plus 40ml/day of a 2-part, does not even come close. Besides my reactor, I now does a gallon/day, which is my current evaporation rate.

[LiquidShaneo]

Well folks, I just visited Inland Aquatics this weekend for the first time and they were gracious enough to allow me to take some behind the scenes pictures of their place. Thus, I decided to resurrect this thread. At any rate, here's the pictures that I took:

http://www.liquidreef.com/stores.htm

There's pictures of their freshwater setup, their fish aquaculturing rooms, and the store including the back warehouse that they were gracious enough to allow me to wander thru. The tour was *awesome*!

FWIW, I also took a couple short video clips of their various ATS' dumping:

http://www.liquidreef.com/stores/inl...50ats-dump.mpg

http://www.liquidreef.com/stores/inl...l/ats-dump.mpg

http://www.liquidreef.com/stores/inl...e-ats-dump.mpg


After visiting their place, I still think an ATS is a viable option for people to investigate. I think the key is to size the ATS screen appropriately for the application at hand and to use high intensity lighting which Adey goes over in detail in his Dynamic Aquaria publication.

Did the water have a yellow color? Yes, in some tanks it did. However, other tanks on the *exact* same system using the exact same water did not show this "yellow" coloration so I believe that it was their lighting source that was turning the water this "yellow" color and not necessarily the ATS (however I could see how an ATS could discolor the water after a while). I saw all sorts of different bulbs: Iwasaki's and Venture / HPS bulbs over tanks. Here's a good pic to illustrate the point: http://www.liquidreef.com/stores/inl...ta/lights.html . Considering there's at least 3 Iwasaki 6500 K bulbs currently on the market all with a slightly different color "look" to them, I can easily see how someone might think that an ATS turns the tank yellow. BTW...they use a TON of lighting in that store!

One thing that I found strange was their use of ATS' on freshwater planted aquaria. Why would a person use an ATS to export nutrients on a planted tank? As long as the proper nutrients are in balance, no nuisance algae should grow and nutrient export should be acheived by simply pruning the plants. I didn't ask about this at the time, but I still can't figure out why a person would run an ATS on a FW planted tank...

Also, I checked out their in-tank refugiums and they do kick some serious butt. It looks like a nice option if you don't want to spend the $$$ on a CPR hang-on refugium. Heck, you could easily make an in-tank refugium from some cheap pieces of acrylic or even egg-crate material (which is something I did for frag growout -- I'll take some pics of it today at lunch).

A neat option that they also had on their above the tank ATS units was that before the water spilled into the ATS dump bucket, it was first pumped into an acrylic refugium which then dumped into the ATS dump bucket section. The pics of the refugium are in the "general" index under the pic names "ats-fuge1.jpg" and "ats-fuge2.jpg". It was definitely a neat option but it would really need to be on a longer tank because of the length of the ATS unit itself.

After seeing it all first hand, would I investigate further and see what installing an ATS would do for me? You bet I would.

At any rate, review the pictures and start asking questions if you have any.

Enjoy!

Shane (aka 'liquid')

[Mark]

Great Pics! Thanks for sharing them with us!

[EricHugo]

Shane:

Glad you made it and was impressed with their facility - great folks, aren't they? Morgan always find the time for hobbyists who visit, and its not just that, or the care and knowledge given and available there, but the whole package that has made me such an ardent supporter of Inland all these years. You just don't see this many places. You can also appreciate the cost difference - no they aren't cheap, but nor do most places treat their animals with the same or better care and facilities than they get in a home tank.

As to the yellow water, there is nothing in the Adey pardigm or in the paradigm at Inland that prevents them from simply using some carbon. Its Morgan's experience that makes it yellow - that is, he has found nothing deleterious from the yellow water in some tanks, so he doesn't spend the money to make it clear, since the health of the organisms isn't being affected and the tanks are working tanks, not display tanks.

The yellow, as you note, is twofold - partly the lights, partly the scrubbers. Think about it - you spend a few years without doing water changes and doing the equivalent of taking a handful of algae every week and squeezing it (scraping the screen) into the water. You wind up with a high chlorophyll count and this is the same as an inshore or lagoonal reef in the wild. As Morgan says, if the scrubbers didn't work, they'd have to be idiots to maintain tank volumes that high run of scrubbers - not only in terms of oragnism health, but in terms of maintenance, and he gives part credit to the ability to maintain such large systems to the fact that water changes aren;t done and don;t need to be. Pretty cool.

[Flatlander]

Greta pics Shane. Thanks. Love those clips also. Gonna go watch them some more.

Man, look at the sandbed in the 150.

[Fredfish]

Nice pics Shane!

I am rethinking the way I set up a scrubber for my tank. I would like to put in the dump tray instead of using a surge bucket for water flow across the algae screen.

The only issue I have is the constant noise of water splashing as it enters the dump tray (livingroom tank). How much noise did the water inlet to the scrubber make?

Fred.

[Martyn]

Originally posted by EricHugo
Mark:Shane:

Turf algaes are far far far more efficient than macroalgae. Its hard to say what outcompete means, though. They will outstrip nutrients, but they are also tasty and well grazed and macroalgae are well defended via calcium or chemicals...so macroalgae probably wouldn't outcompete them spatially, but would in terms of nutrient limitation. Macroalgae are not really that good at nutrient assimilation - I mean, they are good - better than a mangrove or seagrass, but less than turfs, and probably less than a lot of corals and sponges. I'm sure thats a case by case basis, but the point is that macroalgae outcompete corals in nutrient rich environments, but corals outcompete macroalgae in nutrient low waters....you see? So, are corals then more efficient? Furthermore, if one assumes the ridiculously low nutrient levels in ATS systems, you would be dealing with those same nutrient low conditions. Also, grazing is a huge giant factor in it all.

Hi Eric.
Very thought provoking thread.
Nobody I know of in the UK supplys or works with this type of system if they do they don't deal with the public which means a DIY job for me.
What I am interested in is what are the types of turf you are talking about and how to aquire them.
I presume as you say intertidal turfs they are not these type of turfs that I get in some of my tanks.
I attach the type of turfs I get.

This one was not named.



Cladophora prolifera



This red turf Gelidium pulsillum which is like some green turfs I have once attached too rock very hard to remove.



Thanks for any advice.

Martyn

[caevan]

Fred,
My scrubber is a dump tray design, in terms of how noisy it is, I do not think I would be the best judge, as I have had it for so long now, that I only notice it when it isn't working.
Though the tank and scrubber are in the same room as the Television and it does not interfere with that. The part of the tank that creates the most noise is the fan in my light hood.
The loudest noise the scrubber makes is the noise it makes when it swings back in place after emptying. At that point it hits a piece of plastic to stop it over swinging. The noise of the dump tray hitting that piece of plastic is quite loud ( a bit like one of those Japanese deer scarers).
I had thought about using a suitable material to dampen the sound, though it has to be durable enough to take the constant hammering. I am sure somebody who is better at DIY can figure a better way.

[EricHugo]

My dump tray has a piece of neoprene that prevents the tray from contacting hard plastic. In terms of the nise, it wasn;t silent, but not very noisy either. In fact, I found this particular aquarium noise to be a very soothing one -

Martyn:

Those are definitely turfs. The Gelidium is not so much because of its habitat in the wild, but certainly would work as one.
Best answer I can give you is to contact Inland and ask them the species they have identified, or look in the Littler texts or guides to marine plants of the Caribbean to see what are common intertidal turf species - there are many.

Some of them will grow on their own, but I found that having them pre-seeded is a sure thing whereas hoping you have the species present and able to colonize a new screen is sort of hit and miss, especially if the tank has been up and running for awhile or withwell-cured and/or long term rock.

[Mark]

My ATS sounds like one of those ocean sound machines that people use as white noise. The tank is in my living room, and it is very soothing. Sometimes when I'm lounging on the couch, it lulls me to sleep! My ATS also has a sponge to soften the thump when the bucket pivots back. I actually added an additional sponge, and now I hear no thump at all. So far, the ats has been doing a phenominal job. I love it. If I ever get my hands on a larger model, I can tell you right now that the bigger tank will be converted as well.

[LiquidShaneo]

In regards to the sound the dump bucket makes when it surges: all I heard was a very gentle swish when it dumped and then a gentle squishy sound when the bucket went back into place. They were very quiet from what I saw. Now the tanks out in the back shop were LOUD, but they weren't made to be silent like the ones that are sold for on a display tank. Those bad boys were there for one purpose: to scrub and when they surged they banged. Don't let that deter you tho as the display tank scrubbers were almost silent.

Shane (aka 'liquid')

[LiquidShaneo]

Any notes so far on your tank Mark? How's it running now with Dendro's old ATS100?

Shane (aka 'liquid')

[Flatlander]

My 250, also has foam stop pads. A medium size at the front and a huge one on the rear, for the return.

Alas, still awaiting claim info for the outside shell.

Agreed with hard to remove red Martyn. Man thats terrible stuff. My urchins finally cleaned it up.

[Mark]

Originally posted by LiquidShaneo
Any notes so far on your tank Mark? How's it running now with Dendro's old ATS100?

Shane (aka 'liquid')

Tanks doing great. Evaporation has gone up considerably, but that's not a bad thing. The corals seem very pleased, and I rarely have to scrape the glass. The only area where I'm debating is flow. I didn't think the surge by itself was enough flow, so I have two additional powerheads in there. But then, I believe Eric ran his 40 gallon without additional powerheads. So I'm tempted to be experimental and turn off the two additional powerheads. My gut says it wouldn't be enough flow, but I'd like to see firsthand if it actually is/isn't. Eric, any thoughts on this?

[LiquidShaneo]

Mark,

I was suprised how low flow Inland's tanks were too when I saw them. However, I did see that they used impellor pumps in a couple of their display tanks to increase flow. FWIW, here's a pic of one of their 55 gal tanks w/ the ATS 100 unit on top:



They were only running one powerhead in there (similar to a MJ 1200 for flow) and the corals were looking great. Here's what I believe to be M.capricornis in the above tank along w/ a couple shrooms:



Their tanks definitely looked good.

What specifically have you noted between your skimmed tank that you didn't see when running the ATS on your tank?

Shane

[Fredfish]

caevan;

Would you happen to have design drawings for your dump bucket? It would save me a lot of fiddling to find the right balance point etc.

Fred.

[piercho]

I would like to ask those of you who are doing this how much of a problem pods grazing the turf is. I am contemplating putting an ATS in a closet behind my tank and the water level would be common with the tank. A Borneman-style surge would dump into the ATS via 2" pipe and then the ATS would flow to the main tank via 1" pipe.

My main concern is a herd of pods coming back through the 1" pipe and chomping up the turf faster than the turf can grow. Is this concern realistic? When I was culturing grammarus I never could grow Ulva faster than the pods could multiply and consume it. Reading earlier posts in this thread it seems that they (pods in general) consume turfs, as well.

[caevan]

Fred,
I will try to put something together tonight (just so you knwow, right now it is 9:20am in Sydney Australia).
I know what you mean about the balance point, it is hard. When I asked Dr Adey about it he did not think it was critical and could be adjusted for by the counter weight, he uses lead shot. I found it easier and more reliable to use water as my counter weight.