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Originally Posted by ClintY
Now that I look at your post a few more times, I do recall seeing your 180g... and was always amazed at how dense and complete the coral heads grew. What is also really impressive is your dedication to meeting and working with the forefathers in the science and hobby of reef husbandry.
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Clint, thanks again for chiming in and for the kind words. Coral heads should be grown that way! So many nowadays chop their corals as soon as they start taking off, so their energy then gets put into repair again rather than growing... and what I call the "blue revolution" has been incredible... so many blast their tank with blue lights, that you cannot tell what they'd look like in nature. I can shoot the sock on my foot with enough crazy LEDs to make my sock look like it's a rainbow from another planet... as a nature lover and diver though what I appreciate is growing incredible corals as they're seen in the wild, large enough to appreciate they're differences in growth forms.
In regards to our forefathers we as reefers are living in an amazing time! Most of the forefathers of our hobby are still alive, and most all of them are just great people to hang out with, with great knowledge. There is an unlimited amount of knowledge to learn from them... you can only learn so much from reading... hanging out with these greats is just about the greatest thing there is. And while we hold them up on a pedestal, they are all just people like us... people with a passion for this wonderful hobby.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClintY
I had a 60 gallon running a DIY skimmer with a DIY needle wheel, DIY aragonite reactor and dosing kalkwasser with DIY MH lights then. Heck I was messing with the seaclone and amongst others was encouraged by Larry Maras to write more articles about various projects to boost RC's content back in the day. I went as far as researching with our local lighting manufacturers to prototype MH fixtures using 70 watt par lamps and cree LED etc but could not compete with the real companies who can mass produce the goods.
The hobby was becoming more and more complex and expensive with members dosing chemicals, feeding live foods and using all sorts of new equipment claiming to be the only way to achieve your results. Then I tore the system down in 2007 to build a new home but have not set up another reef since.
Interestingly, you mentioned kalkwasser and MH lighting in your system. So the technology race may be turning full circle back to simpler equipment. Mind you the modern digital ballast is a whole lot more efficient and dimmable than the magnetic ones we were using...
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Yup... complex and expensive... we all have dealt with trying to explain our hobby to a friend that is not involved in it... sometimes it's like we're speaking a foreign language! The truth is though that all we have to do is what Mother Nature does effortlessly... you look at setups like the one at the Waikiki Aquarium... so much of the complex nature of our hobby is getting our aquarium water back to the freshly made up bucket of saltwater that we fill it with. After water, all we need is a something that replicates the equatorial sun, and a source of flow... that's it! Kalkwasser is great, as it adds back to the water what our corals take out, while RAISING pH... the opposite of what a calcium reactor does. Raising pH allows for more calcification and more growth in our corals. The downsides of kalk can be avoided... DO NOT hook up your kalk to your topoff... one... our topoff amount changes according to the climate... on rainy days we evaporate less when the air is more humid, but the corals still grow the same. Also, if your topoff ever stays on you quickly nuke your tank... your corals are literally better off out of the water than in a kalked tank.
Again I love LED lights as supplemental lights... to wake up the fish and tune in the Kelvin color you'd like your tank. But as a primary source of lighting there is no beating halides. People talk about them drawing electricity... the amount of light and coverage I get from one 400 watt halide is worth MORE than 400 watts of LED to me. I have very good friends that I respect greatly that have switched to LED from halide, and the amount of LED they need to replicate their halides for SPS is much more than many people state... and the growth they get on many SPS is not the same.
People also talk about the cost of replacing a halide... ok... for me that's what... $50 or $60 a bulb once a year? People talk about LED fixtures like they're going to run forever. You don't replace the bulbs, but if one component fails the whole thing goes down, and good luck taking that apart... So, even if you get TEN years from a fixture, which is more than I'd expect, you need to replace that... for how many hundreds of dollars? Also, if a ballast or bulb goes I swap it cheaply and easily... if a component goes in my $700 LED fixture how the heck do I replace it? So, to replace my six 400 watt halides lighting my 1300 I'd need how many LEDs... and if they ran for six years and started failing I'd have to spend how much to replace them? Also, the single point origin of LEDs is just not there... the spread I get on a 400 watt halide is amazing... yes I have 2400 watts of halide, but that's over 1300 gallons... less than two watts per gallon, run just seven hours a day... I'll stick with my halides.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClintY
Bremerton! A fellow electronics wiz who moderates the Oplug forum for my other hobby, http://www.linkwitzlab.com/, lives there. yes, the west coast does have some interesting sea life, mostly anemones, which took me on a search for tidepools to collect specimen for a cold water reef, then I thought maybe if I lived by the water I could pump water in, etc etc and ended up purchasing a lot in Sooke BC. I currently have a simple 5 bedroom rancher with a 4 car garage/shop (another obsession) designed as my retirement - summer / long weekend home... but looks like I will need to add a fish room now that I am inspired by your efforts.
Hopefully you will list out your systems in more detail and perhaps a maintenance checklist/routine so a novice like myself can see what is really needed to achieve your results.
Cheers,
Clinton |
Yup Clinton... I'm very fortunate to only travel for work to places right on the ocean... in all corners of the US. I can list my maintenance checklist in more detail later... but you need to have one... both in maintenance for removing detritus from your system and general husbandry, to preventative maintenance for all of your points of failure on your system.
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Originally Posted by ReefBum
Simply wow. You have taken things to a whole new stratosphere!
Question....and perhaps I missed this, but did you use just dry rock to start this system or did you seed it with some live rock from your old tank? Interested to see if you ran into any algae problems (dinos?) others, myself included, have experienced starting dry rock only tanks or had trouble at first growing SPS due to lack of biodiversity.
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Yup... there was no way I was going to be able to start with all live rock in this tank... It took me weeks to get the aquascape in the tank right, and with the way I designed it, it had to be done dry. Starting with dry rock also allows you to limit the amount of nuisance algaes and other things bad you bring in on live rock. With dry rock though it takes patience... yes my tank bloomed with many nuisance algaes... but that's normal... and with proper nutrient cycling, grazers, and time, it bounces back... I seeded my new system with a few pieces of live rock from my old system... after a year or so you couldn't tell the dry rock from live rock. Nothing good in this hobby happens quickly.
More to come...
Copps