@Wolverine - Thanks. I did a search and wasn't able to find it.
@ctenopore - The Aluminet sounds very interesting. Until now I didn't realize that things in the greenhouse radiated infrared light at night and that you could actually bounce it back down as a way of heating. Perhaps later on I'll give it a try. I want to first see what a difference my second layer of glazing does to my heating bill.
@garrettm85 - Thanks for the complement. I have had different algae issues over the years, so it's not any one particular type that causes a problem. A long time ago one of the systems turned into green water to the point that it looked like pea soup and you couldn't see 2" into the water. I got a pond sized UV sterilizer and that problem went away in 48 hours.
What is more common is a hair algae outbreak every spring. There is a really big difference in light levels going from winter to summer, so once the photoperiod extends by a couple of hours and the light intensity doubles, the extra energy starts up the algae. We combat this by using more shading and cutting back on feeding a little bit during the season change.
We have a bit of an algae issue right now, but it's from an invasive red macroalgae. It sort of looks like red cotton, and digs into everything. I'm in the process of removing it by scrubbing and siphoning it into a micron filter to collect the small bits that break off. After the micron filter, the water goes through the UV sterilizer in case any small bit made it through the filter cartridge. It is a time consuming process to do this on such large tanks, but it's gotten to the point that it is necessary to really keep it under control.
@hamburglar - Thanks! We keep making improvements on it so the break even point keeps moving further and further out. What is nice though is that it is becoming so efficient that very low sales can pay the bills to keep it running. The first winter, I think our gas bill was about $1600-$2000 per month. I would be surprised if it was $400 now with all the updates. Electricity is probably $150 a month year round and a lot of that is from the lights we use for our benefit (not to grow corals).
@nauticac4 - The three original 1000-gallon systems are full of corals (the new system is empty), but I was a bit worried about the forum policy regarding showing corals. It can't look like a commercial. I'll post just a few of the things we've grown here
