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  #51  
Old 07/12/2005, 07:28 AM
hamburglar hamburglar is offline
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yellowtruck75,

I have to rotate the tank by hand. This is only for reaching the back of the tank.

It actually takes a significant amount of force to rotate it. There is something like 250 lbs of sand and just over 100 gallons of water in it. It is pretty heavy

I think the idea of rotating the tank to aid in curculation is neat, but it would probably eat up more electricity than running water pumps.......unless you can coax a pet into running on a treadmill belt drive or something like that....hmmmmmm
  #52  
Old 07/12/2005, 07:53 AM
Randall_James Randall_James is offline
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One word:

Hamsters (Well big ones) if you could get them to eat skimmate it would be free energy
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  #53  
Old 07/12/2005, 08:09 AM
hamburglar hamburglar is offline
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Now your talk'n !!!!!

LOL
  #54  
Old 07/16/2005, 01:56 PM
hamburglar hamburglar is offline
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Week three update



Hello everyone! This week has presented a couple of changes. This is the first week that I ran a small protein skimmer, and made a surge tank modification. I am happy to report that the surge tanks are almost 100% hands-off at this point. 1 of them ran all week without hanging up, and the other one hung up only1 time.

Power usage for the week was 22.25 KWH, or an average of 3.17 KWH per day. The increased power usage is coming from the additional Maxi-Jet 1200 on the skimmer. Still, this is very acceptable power consumption for each day.

As shown in the picture, I have continued to add corals. Everything in this greenhouse is a cutting from my indoor system, so it is taking a little time to fill it up. For example, today I added 3 pom-pom xenias, 5 mushroom rocks, and 15 green leather cuttings. I can add this much stuff about 2 times per week.

Diatoms are remaining under control. I have not had to manually remove any algae's or clean any submerged surface yet. I do have about 20 Blue lag hermits, and 30 small turbo snails in the system.

Temperatures have not risen above 85 degrees. I have added a couple large RO/DI ice cubes on really hot days to accomplish this. Otherwise, evaporative cooling is doing the trick.

Here is a current event for ya............... A picture of my greenhouse was recently used at IMAC. The presenter actually downplayed the durability of my budget system. For those of you just starting to read this post, I must clarify.............This greenhouse is aluminum framed with polycarbonate panels. The tanks are "nested 2 layer" polycarbonate swimming pools. The presenter who downplayed the durability of my system had glass tanks in a plastic film greenhouse. I will just let common sense convey the point of this rant.

Next updates may be spaced further apart since new progress will be slower from this point on. However, I will continue to respond to any question that I see here.
  #55  
Old 07/16/2005, 09:15 PM
craab craab is offline
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very, very cool man
  #56  
Old 07/28/2005, 03:44 PM
billpa billpa is offline
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I forgot about this thread for a week and finally came back to it. Nice job BTW! I hope that you succeed! Any updates?

billpa
  #57  
Old 07/29/2005, 01:11 PM
hamburglar hamburglar is offline
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I have had some serious heat problem this week. Day time temperatures were in the upper 90's for about 4-5 days straight. Wednesday's high (for most of the day) was 100 degrees. This put the heat index at about 120 since we are blessed with wicked humidity on the coast.

Water temps went #$%^#@#$ !!! Thats the best way to say it! My water temperature rose to 90 degrees on Wednesday, and there was not enough ice in the world to stop it.

I lost all of my leather cuttings, all of my Acro cuttings, and probably most of my tan xenia.

This was a learning experience, and I surely learned something this week. I am going to have to install a small window AC unit to fight temperatures like that. I am good as long as air temps do not exceed 90 degrees, but I can not handle them any higher. So it looks like I will need to use some air conditioning for a few weeks each summer. Can't wait to see what happens this winter

To be fair, I must mention this.....I think my real problem is a lack of water volume. I have only a few hundred gallons in the system. I bet a system with 1000+ gallons would not have as much as a problem. So...this is the price I am going to pay for having such as small affordable system.
  #58  
Old 07/29/2005, 10:17 PM
Treeman Treeman is offline
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The water volume is not the problem. My GH system has 1100 gallons and an in ground 200 gal sump and I still fight the temps. Good luck!
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  #59  
Old 07/30/2005, 09:05 PM
sandman12 sandman12 is offline
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small a/c unit sounds good with a dual ranco controller. 1 channel for the heater in winter and the other for the a/c unit in summer. probably about $275 for the a/c and controller, much cheaper than a chiller!
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  #60  
Old 07/30/2005, 09:14 PM
Randall_James Randall_James is offline
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seems that a chiller would be more efficient at knocking the water temps down.

You know there is another way to do this. I am not sure of all the physical aspects but you could use the earth as a heat sink.

With some research I am sure you could find how deep to dig and how much volume you would need to maintain the cooling effect. Take advantage of the 70 some degree ground. I did see a project once where the guy did this with success. I will look and see if I saved any of the report he did.
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  #61  
Old 07/30/2005, 10:05 PM
hamburglar hamburglar is offline
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I actually thought about running some geothermal plumbing in my yard while installing the greenhouse. The problem with that is 1/2 my yard, and 1/2 lazyness. I can blame part of it on my yard because I have a thin one foot layer of sand, and then nothing but wet clay for as far as I have ever dug.

I cannot imagine the trouble I would have digging a 3-5 foot deep trench in clay to lay the pipe. I DO think geothermal is a good idea. I would like to bury some pipe if I ever build a larger greenhouse on a different piece of land.

For this little greenhouse, I have looked into chillers and small window ac units. A chiller would be fantastic....for $300-$500 But, being a cheap DIY guy, I will probably just go with a $70-$80 el-cheapo window unit from Wal Mart. I bet an energy efficient 5000 BTU model would be able to take the edge off those really hot days using about 500 Watts of power.
  #62  
Old 07/30/2005, 11:39 PM
katchupoy katchupoy is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by sandman12
small a/c unit sounds good with a dual ranco controller. 1 channel for the heater in winter and the other for the a/c unit in summer. probably about $275 for the a/c and controller, much cheaper than a chiller!
You can buy the dual controller here... its cheaper...

http://diyreef.com/shop/product_info...roducts_id=212

Then you can attach your walmart aircon so it will just turn on when you need it...
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  #63  
Old 07/31/2005, 07:52 AM
hamburglar hamburglar is offline
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Thanks for the heads up on the dual ranco guys! That thing looks great!
  #64  
Old 07/31/2005, 08:37 AM
sandman12 sandman12 is offline
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yeah, thats the place i was talking about. Wasn't sure how much you where going to spend on the a/c.
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  #65  
Old 08/01/2005, 09:50 AM
BrianPlankis BrianPlankis is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by hamburglar
Thanks for the heads up on the dual ranco guys! That thing looks great!
I use the dual ranco on my tank and love it. Turns on my fans when the tank gets too hot and my heater in the winter. Once you figure out how to program it, it is great. Keeps the programmed settings for days even if there is a power loss.

B.
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  #66  
Old 08/02/2005, 11:51 AM
Randall_James Randall_James is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by hamburglar


I cannot imagine the trouble I would have digging a 3-5 foot deep trench in clay to lay the pipe. I DO think geothermal is a good idea. I would like to bury some pipe if I ever build a larger greenhouse on a different piece of land.

time to rent, borrow, or steal a trencher Oh and CALL BEFORE YOU DIG
  #67  
Old 08/25/2005, 11:38 AM
hamburglar hamburglar is offline
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Time to resurrect this thread from an early grave…..

Well, the hottest part of the summer should be ending soon. I have learned that there is no way to keep this greenhouse cool with fans alone. The fans do provide some benefit. I have consistently kept the water temperatures 5-10 degrees below air temperatures. But, with summer highs in the mid-upper 90’s, the fans can’t do it alone.

I have bit the bullet and added a chiller. It is a 1/6 HP Coralife unit that I bought new from another hobbyist. He won it as a door price, and was willing to part with it well below retail. The chiller is working out fantastic for this system, but it would not be practical for a larger system. I still feel like geothermal is the best solution for heat dissipation….at least from a reoccurring cost standpoint.

The chiller is almost tripling my power usage. I am pulling an average of 8KWA per day when the chiller runs heavy (90+ degree days), and pulling about 3KWH per day when it is not needed (less than 90 degree days). This is not too bad, but I am paying about 11 cent per KWA these days so I am looking at about $0.88 per day to run the greenhouse with the chiller on.

Coral growth has been hit or miss. I am having some “new tank issues� with ALK/CA levels, but I should be able to get these parameters fixed soon. That is holding back the SPS right now. One interesting think to note is that my colorful SPS turns brown in the greenhouse. And, my brown SPS is starting to turn colorful. There is a big difference between sunlight and PC lighting. All of the softies love the greenhouse. Xenia, Mushrooms, and Zoo’s are going nuts.

Almost time to buy a heater. I will keep this thread alive through major equipment changes and seasonal changes. We still have cold winter nights to learn about.
  #68  
Old 08/25/2005, 12:37 PM
blide blide is offline
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Thanks for the update... I keep checking in to see how things are going from time to time.
  #69  
Old 08/28/2005, 02:09 AM
Reefvet Reefvet is offline
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Quote:
Almost time to buy a heater. I will keep this thread alive through major equipment changes and seasonal changes. We still have cold winter nights to learn about. [/B]
What kind of winter temps do you have in New Bern ?


I also thought I'd point out this thread if you haven't seen it.
  #70  
Old 08/28/2005, 01:12 PM
hamburglar hamburglar is offline
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I would say our average night-time temps are in the 40's. We will generally have a cold week or two right in the middle of winter where we get down into the upper 20's to lower 30's.

Snow acumulation over 3 inches only happens every 3 years or so because we are fairly close to the ocean.

I still plan on dropping in two 500 watt titanium heaters, with the possibility of a third. I will just have to play it by ear and see what happens. There are several passive things I can do to help, such as sealing up the greenhouse better (The panels are already siliconed in), adding some sort of insulation around the top tank, and possible covering the tanks with something clear. I may also remove the %30 shade cloth to boost the sunlight.

I don't expect any heating trouble in the daylight with the greenhouse sealed up. It might actually get overheated. if I'm not careful.
  #71  
Old 09/06/2005, 12:28 PM
Reefing'n'Rio Reefing'n'Rio is offline
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Just registered myself to tag along this great thread. congratulations for your creativity !
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  #72  
Old 09/10/2005, 02:39 AM
CoralNutz CoralNutz is offline
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I met a guy around here that had a crawl space under his stairs that was dirt. He dug a pretty deep hole and coiled up some tubing and then covered it back up. I don't know how deep it was cause it was already covered but I am guessing about 3 feet. The ground that deep would bee fairly cool even when it's hot out. if you put lots of coils spaced 6 or more inches apart I bet you could rig up some sort of geothermal cooling system that might work good and save you some money.

BTW, I love the system. Can't wait to see some more pics. Good luck with the cooling.



EDIT ---- Sorry guess I should have read the thread better.
  #73  
Old 09/10/2005, 04:28 PM
hamburglar hamburglar is offline
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CoralNutz,

Thats about the plan for geothermal. As much as you can, and as deep as you can
  #74  
Old 09/10/2005, 07:26 PM
CoralNutz CoralNutz is offline
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Another option to think about is evaporative cooling using "cool cells" My grandparents own commercial greenhouses in iowa and they keep their greenhouses around 75-80 year round with no air conditioning. They have been using the same method for years. I believe you still have to dig a big hole for the resovoir of water to sit in. If you want I can ask them for some information on it. My uncle runs them now and he built most of them.
  #75  
Old 09/11/2005, 06:09 AM
scubadude scubadude is offline
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Hey Chris

Quote:
Originally posted by hamburglar
A picture of my greenhouse was recently used at IMAC. The presenter actually downplayed the durability of my budget system.............. The presenter who downplayed the durability of my system had glass tanks in a plastic film greenhouse. I will just let common sense convey the point of this rant.
Uhhhh....the presenter would be me

Let me clarify now

Chris, I gave you a copy of my slideshow, and my notes for presentation, which I didnt follow word for word. My notes stated that you are limited with this kind of setup for its durability and exposure to harsh weather which is very true especially when you are speaking to people from all over the globe. Most of the people that I know that are setting up greenhouses for this type of operation are in florida and one of the major concerns is the durability of extreme weather conditions (hurricanes, tornadoes etc) while you are a very small part of the picture I was trying to portray, your setup definately deserves merit. It just cannot be applied to all locales, was the point I was trying to get across. Greenhouses can sustain winds from 70mph - 140mph+ depending on the design structure, and anchoring systems. Building codes are different for each city, state, or governing officials in the area. I truely hope your greenhouse sustains weather conditions in its areas for your lifetime+ but I also think it wouldnt stand a chance where I live....Just think even if you had one of the toughest greenhouse's on the market and you where in Gulfport Miss. right before hurricane katrina? I think you get my point. I dont think I downplayed your setup, I just stated that I thought it was not for every region. Hope that helps you understand a little bit more.
 

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