Planning a coral propagation system - Page 3

skeeter-doc · #51 07/27/2006, 08:26 AM

Quote:

I have plans to move this system in the next several months and will replace the boards with plywood. I also plan to seal the new plywood with a few coats of polyurethane to make it much more water resistant.

Great Idea! This is an awesome thread and what a setup, I would like to see more pics of the entire thing, and each separate tank as well, ...

sammy33 · #52 08/07/2006, 11:05 PM

I have finally gotten some lighting over all 3 tanks in the prop system and have added more corals.

The first tank (left) has the two - 24w T5 HO setup with the Midday 6K and the Pure actinic lamps. The center tank has a 70w 13k metal halide and 2 - 40w Dual actinics. The last tank (right) actually has the normal output T5's (two fixtures) with 1-14w 10k and 1- Actinic 03 each. The T5 lights still amaze me at how bright they are!

I have added all of the corals, live rock and cleaners from both of my nano reef tanks. I took down my 10g nano and also a 15g nano. The 10g had mostly softies and the 15g was all SPS. All of the corals and my one fish (yellow watchman goby that I have had for about 5 years) are all in these 3 tanks now. I am actually trying to make room for a 125g tank that will be on the other side of this room in our den in the basement.

I have gotten a bit off track with the original plan because I have been planning the large 125g reef tank. No worries though as I should have the lighting re-arranged in the coming weeks and will also re-distribute the corals when I set up the larger tank.

The growth so far on some of the corals is pretty amazing. I have been feeding quite heavily with Phyto-feast Live and also the Roti-feast. I feed the 1st tank (softies) with the phyto about 3 times a week and then feed the 2nd tank (sps) on alternating days about twice a week. This is a total of about 5 days a week of feeding this system and the growth is accelerating.

This heavy feeding requires close attention to the water parameters and careful control of the skimmer. I have tried to turn the skimmer off during feedings but have forgotten to turn it back on (more than once). I have thought of using some sort of reverse timer to automatically time the skimmer to be off for about 30 minutes while the phyto and roti-feast circulates through the system? Any ideas on this?

Rekonn · #53 08/08/2006, 09:36 AM

For the "off timer" there's a couple ideas discussed in this thread. The simplest being a regular timer with a bunch of ON tabs.

CaptainPicard · #54 08/10/2006, 02:58 PM

Does a prop tank with no LR and no substrate need to cycle?

sammy33 · #55 08/10/2006, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rekonn
For the "off timer" there's a couple ideas discussed in this thread. The simplest being a regular timer with a bunch of ON tabs.

Rekonn -
Many thanks for the link. That is just about exactly what I was looking for.

I have one of those timers with the tabs sitting in the "fish box" and will give it a try. I think leaving the skimmer off for an hour or so will help with the feeding. I have been getting big nasty cups of skimmate on the days I am feeding so my hunch is that I am skimming the phtyo-feast out prematurely.

sammy33 · #56 08/10/2006, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CaptainPicard
Does a prop tank with no LR and no substrate need to cycle?

I don't think it would go through the Ammonia - Nitrite - Nitrate cylce. This process usually occurs when some sort of bio active media is present including LR or LS.

My system did go through a cycle period as I added a deep sand bed to the refugium and some live rock in the prop tanks. I am sort of an "old salt" so I couldn't see the system without some sort of denitrification mechanisn. In my case it is the LR and deep sand.

Problem with a prop system completely devoid of sand and rock is that there is less ability to process ammonia - nitrite. You could rely on a skimmer and heavy flow to keep matter in suspension and process waste. Combine good flow and a skimmer with a remote DSB and some live rock and you increase your ability to process the extra food that a propagation system will require.

Shawnts106 · #57 09/04/2006, 01:05 PM

Quote:

My first try was a Seaclone 100 I have. Now this is an "OK" skimmer but it was just not enough for this system and always seems to be quirky with the air adjustment.

haha, seaclone, haha, your funny....

Seaclones should be BANNED! and BURNED!

sammy33 · #58 09/29/2006, 10:08 PM

I have been quite distracted from my propagation tanks by several things. The main thing that has distracted me is I have been working on taking down two nano reef tanks and then setting up a new 125g reef tank. My apologies to anyone I have disappointed with the lack of updates to this thread.

I did add some new lighting to the middle tank. The middle tank of the three ended up being the holding tank for a good number of SPS frags from my 15g and 10g nano reefs. So I added my 150w Aqualight Hang-on fixture to this tank. I also changed the lamp from the 14K Coralife to an XM 20K. The 14k lamp that came with the fixture seemed more like a 6700K lamp with a more yellow appearance. This lamp did nothing as far as color was concerned but did promote the growth of the corals as well as hair algae. The 20K lamp seems to sustain coral growth, promotes better coral color and does not accelerate algae growth as the stock lamp seemed to do. The SPS are recovering from a browning.

Pic of the middle tank

I also experienced excessive algae growth in the first tank with the T5 lighting. One of the lamps was a 6K Midday lamp that had about the same symptoms with poor coral color, fair growth and accelerated algae. I swapped to a Aquablue + (11K) lamp and have had much better results, fair growth, much better color and less algae.

The other thing I waited far too long for was adding cleanup critters. I think that adding cleanup critters to a prop tank is just as important as it is for a display aquarium. I added several turbo snails and a few scarlet reef hermits to each tank. This was a major step forward in algae control.

Feeding
I have from the beginning fed these tanks heavily. I have been using phyto-feast and roti-feast (Reef Nutrition) about 3-4 times a week alternating. This basically equates to daily feedings for the system. I have been adding less than the recommended amount but still feeding often. I use the ball valve on the return plumbing to take each of the tanks offline for a period of about 15 minutes while I am adding the foods. I then turn the ball valves back so the skimmer and refugium can filter out what’s left.

I have noticed that the main benefit from the phyto is really the increase in copepods. I feel that the phyto is feeding the micro crustaceans which in turn may be feeding the corals. I do notice a stronger feeding response from the roti-feast especially from the LPS corals. The Caulastrea and the Acanthastrea seem to be growing faster from the steady feedings.

This extra food may also be accelerating the algae growth. I did back down a bit on the feedings after I changed the lamps in the hopes that a more natural correction would happen.

Flow
I have settled on some power heads for additional flow. The small Mini-jet 606 pumps use only 6 watts of power and produce a fair 153 GPH. This is a good amount of water movement for a 24g aquarium (with the flow from the returns). I did add two power heads to the center tank with the mostly SPS corals. I would like to use some sort of a wave timer to run all of these power heads.

The other thing I was looking into was battery back ups. I did see a thread where someone had mentioned that the UPS DC power supplies had a different wave pattern (sine wave?) than AC pumps and could damage AC pumps. Any ideas on power back up?

RobinsonFam1 · #59 10/02/2006, 07:26 AM

looks good bud! sooner or later i will have to set up my thread here too!

sammy33 · #60 07/22/2007, 10:42 PM

It has been about ten months since I updated this thread and I have had lots of things happen in my prop tanks.

Some upgrades
I got new lighting for the center tank. This tank was planned to be the higher light tank for SPS, Clams, etc. The original fixture on this tank was my old 10g nano reef hood with 70w HQI and 2x40 PC actinics. This fixture was fair light for this tank but not enough as the SPS corals in this tank lost color. I then upgraded to a Coralife 150 HQI hang on with an XM 20K lamp. Nicer colors with this setup but the PAR on this setup was about the same as the 70w setup! (I got a PAR meter too..btw!)

So I decided to go back to a 10k lamp but wanted to keep the nice blue I was getting from the 10K lamp. I knew the PAR would be higher with the 10K. I also wanted to be able to move the fixture to get into the tank. My solution was a Sundial:

This is a 150w DE (electronic ballast) with 2x32w PC. The bulbs are a Ushio 14K HQI and 2 x 32 w dual actinic (420nm/460nm). This setup gives me the higher PAR that I was looking for and after several weeks with the animals in this tank really started to thrive. This tank actually started to look more like a nano reef than a frag tank!

Calcium
After adding several SPS frags, a few clams and the new lighting I started to notice the calcium going down. I decided to add a DIY kalk doser to the system. My calcium and alkalinity before the doser was always a bit low around 360ppm ca and 7dKH for Alk. Now the test are always around 400ppm ca and 9dKH for Alk.

Here is a short video tour of the kalk doser:
DIY Kalk Doser Video (10.3MB .wmv 1:40)

I have more stories about this setup but will save them for another post.

sammy33 · #61 07/23/2007, 10:20 PM

These are all frags and mini colonies that I have taken from my display or bought. I have been able to frag a few of these to create 2 frags in some cases.

I have most all of these frags propped on another peice of live rock rubble. In most cases the corals have grown onto the rubble making it easy to create a frag. This takes longer but works well for corals I am not fond of handling like zoanthids and palythoa.

Flatworm Muncher! This six line has been sorely missed. He jumped out of the tank.

Right behind him is larger colony of zoanthids that most likely were wild harvested. This rock just had too much life on it with fan worms, feather dusters and sponges. I am pretty sure that the rock also hid this guy as a hitch-hiker:

This Tuxedo Urchin is about the coolest hitch-hiker I think I have had. He must have been in the tank for about 6 months before I found him as I added nothing else to this tank in that time.

Should I keep the Urchin? They like to carry things arround including frags, hermit crabs, rubble etc. They also eat coraline algae as part of their diet. This tank is bare bottom and covered with coraline.