the 1700g stingray reef

[fishman805]

Originally posted by BradL.
Good choice LB.

I agree... Marc is one of the "main stays" here at RC and a very trusted person for advice and has a great deal of experience when it comes to SW..... His website is a "must see" for everyone here..... I can't wait for the video(s)


Bob

[Travis]

Alright, finally got some vids uploaded. There were 2 to start with. One was over 2:30 so I had to split it in 2. The first vid uploaded just fine. The second part of the second vid uploaded fine. I couldn't get the first part uploaded and ended up splitting it again. Then I was able to get the second part of that split up but still can't get the first part up. So there are now 3 vids total for you to see. I have spent hours on the other part, which is my favorite, but I am giving up because it just doesn't want to upload properly to the website.

BTW, thanks melev for letting my use your site.

Here are the vids:
http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com/travis/1700-1.wmv
http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com...s/1700-2.2.wmv
http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com/travis/1700-3.wmv

[El_Chico]

Absolutely amazing.

I love the size of that black tang!

[Large Polyp Dave]

thumbs up. thanks

[Large Polyp Dave]

i don't get how has he so little circulation in that tank.

it certainly isn't 40X+ like we see in many other large sps dominated tanks...
whats the trick/secret here? his sps seem to be growing very well

[trmiv]

Wow, awesome! That tank would look even better with a school of chromis or a school of anthias.

[asnatlas]

Originally posted by trmiv
Wow, awesome! That tank would look even better with a school of chromis or a school of anthias.

Or a school of both

Love the videos... Is it just me or... I didn't seem to see the ray in any of the vids...

Thanks Travis and Marc...

Shawn

[Heinz]

thanx guys for the videos, really like em

[NewMariner]

Do we know how much liverock was used in the system? It seems to me that if he used more racks, he could get away with using less rock...

How long has the owner been in the hobby? He certainly has had some experience....

[Lunchbucket]

wonder i myself or melev is supposed to post the links to my vids??

Lunchbucket

[massman]

Good stuff lads

[asnatlas]

Originally posted by Lunchbucket
wonder i myself or melev is supposed to post the links to my vids??

Lunchbucket

I found them...

5 Videos

Shawn

[johnvu713]

how come i see only infrared when i click on the video link..helppppp

[crab0000]

I can't get Lunchbucket's vids to load. Anybody else having a problem?

[got2lb]

I can't get his to work either

[chainsaw5vent]

doeshthe owner know how much the setup adds to his electric bill???

[Travis]

Originally posted by asnatlas
Or a school of both

Love the videos... Is it just me or... I didn't seem to see the ray in any of the vids...

Thanks Travis and Marc...

Shawn

]

Hi Shawn, I'm not sure how often the ray makes appearances. He was out right when we got there for just a few short minutes. Then I didn't see him for quite a while. Then he came out for a minute or so and that is the last time I saw it. I did get one picture of the ray with my camera but it is really blurry so I chose not to post it.

[Travis]

Originally posted by NewMariner
Do we know how much liverock was used in the system? It seems to me that if he used more racks, he could get away with using less rock...

How long has the owner been in the hobby? He certainly has had some experience....

Not sure how much rock but a lot less than you would think. It isn't until you see the tank from behind that you realize how much space there is behind the rocks. There really is almost as much space in behind the rocks as there is in front of them.

I'm not sure how old the owner is now, but he said he has been in the hobby since he was 10.

[Travis]

Originally posted by chainsaw5vent
doeshthe owner know how much the setup adds to his electric bill???

Never asked that as it is a personal question to some. But I really don't think it would be that much as he has set the system up to be very energy efficient. It is also chiller-less so that makes a huge difference on the electric bill. This is just a guess, but I would say around $150-$200 per month tops.

[Energy]

I'm the owner of the stingray reef and I would like to say thank you to everyone for all the interest shown (Good or Bad) towards the system. Today is a very special day at our house. At 5:11 am our son "Colton" was born so it has been very busy for all of us. With the birth of our first son and the height of my busy work season ( we do excavating) time is very short. I will apologize to everyone in advance because I will not even be able to attempt to answer all the questions I will likely get. I will explain the system as thoroughly as possible here in hopes that it answers many common questions that this thread has posed.

Personal History and Experience: I'm 34 years old and have had aquariums since I was about 8-10 years old. I have a freshwater alligator Gar that is over 21 years old right now that I acquired back in 1984. Replicating ecosystems or biomes has always been an interest to me so the perfect mini system is the reef biotope. Other than years of amatuer studying along with trial and failure I have no formal training in animal husbandry and make no claims to. One of the most important lessons I have learned is to always keep your animals best interest at heart when setting up a captive system.

The Tank: The actual tank is made from acrylic. Chris from Midwest Custom Aquarium did a great job putting the tank together and I would highly recomend his work to anyone. The close dimensions are 15'5" x 5' by 33".

The support room: I learned long ago it was much easier and efficient to have a well thought out support room behind the tank than a space below the tank. Prior to this support room I had two other large systems with filtration rooms behind them so this was my third attempt at designing a fish room. I eliminated many of the mistakes that I had learned from the prior two fish rooms. In my opinion the most important elements are as follows:

1.Windows to vent humidity and control temperature.
2.Floor drains for water changes etc.
3.Sink and a toilet.

I designed this room to be a climate controlled environment seperately from the house. That means the support room and tank have their own heating and cooling controls independently of the main house. Their is a full basement adjacent but not underneath the fish room. I excavated the soil down 8 feet and backfilled and compacted with a sand based material to reinforce the sub grade. The foundation walls are poured concrete with 8 foot frost footing. The slab in the fish room is concrete poured to a depth of 6" and hydronically heated. Cooling for the room is done with a 1.5 ton system indepedent of the main house central airconditioning. This is one aspect that I will need to modify since it cannot keep up with the heat produced by the room. The main air ducts for the house run through the room in the ceiling and I get extra cooling from the homes central airconditiong which is able to keep up. The average year round Temperature in Minnesota is 45 degrees F. 3- 4 months of the year it gets hot and Humid with highs averaging 85-95 F. These are the months that my cooling capacity is a problem. Since I have two operational windows I simply open up a window or two to cool things down the other parts of the year. ( To be Continued)

[johnvu713]

Man i was looking forward to a 2-3 pages essay...but he just had a newborn so i guess we all will have to wait. BTW Great job!!!

[Travis]

Welcome out Energy. And congrats on the new one. Now I will sit back with my notebook and pen and paper ready to take notes. I'm sure we can all learn a lot from what you have to say about your system,

[asnatlas]

Energy, I would just like to say your system is awesome... I am looking forward to reading more...

Shawn

[asnatlas]

Originally posted by Travis
Welcome out Energy.

LOL, I could say something, but I won't

Shawn

[Energy]

Heating and Cooling Cont: I have two "bathrooms" fans in located in the ceiling of the room. One is ducted to the inside of the house so I can flip a switch and re-use the warm air produced by the acquarium and it's accesories. The other fan is ducted to the outside so I can further vent any excess heat and humidity during the warm months.

The House and the room design:

For 2 years I worked on the design of the home and the fish room prior to commencing construction. I built the home myself to save as much money as possible and be able to put it towards the different components of the house. I built the original house back in 2000 and installed a 220 gallon and 150 gallon reef into the basement with frags tanks etc. Total system volume was around 700 gallons. Well after about two years this wasn't big enough, but I had no room to expand due to the size of the house. So I planned an addition that would include this large reef tank and bring it up out of the basement into the main living room. The entire house is made out of logs and the room this tank is in is about 40' by 24' with a vaulted ceiling. I expanded our main living room and made the entire addition along with our curent living room the new living room. I wanted as much space as possible to help elimanate and dissapate any excess humidity which might escape from the sealed fish room. This worked almost to well. Without the interior fans recirculating the heat and humidity from the fish room the rest of the house gets very dry. The humidity helps keep the logs from checking and cracking and the vaulted ceilings distribute the moisture through the room without concentrating it in any small area. My first fish room was in a small house and I had the same problems that Mister 4000 had. Eliminating this potential threat was a very large issue which I think is under control.

Components: Greg and Bob from ReefMania built my Caclium reactors and my skimmer. They are both great guys to work with and I would highly reccomend Reefmania to everyone. One calcium reactor is a reverse flow with a ph monitor incorpated into the design. I personally don't see any benefit to the reverse flow over a regular reactor but I love the ph montor. At any time I can tune or tweak the reactor to optimize the ph in the main chamber. The nicest thing about the skimmer is the wet neck. I feel that this little design change doubled the productivity of my skimmer. I am currently working with Spazz on some skimmer modifications to see if we can further increase productivity. I have seen some of his skimmers and he has a very unique cone design to his skimmer which I could see having an advantage. I will keep everyone posted. Further more I was impressed with the research he has been putting in towards maximizing the potential output of the skimmer and I look forward to working with him.

Lighting: The tank has 6 - 400 watt halides along the front and sides to cover the reef slopes. The back or top of the reef is lit by 3 - 250 watt halides. All the halides are in Luminarc Reflectors. The original canopy had 11 400 watt halides and 1 250 watt halide prior to the luminarcs. I tested out two of these reflectors and was sold instantly. I was able to eliminate about 1550 watts per hour of lighting due to these reflectors. I also have 12 vho bulbs in the spaces not covered by the reflectors.