Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)

[nineball]

Originally Posted by chingchai

Peter and Shawn,

How is the color improvement and growth rate of SPS?
Are you happy with LED?

Chingchai, I am very happy with the LED's that I am using. Not all LED's are the same. We have been continuing to evaluate a number of current products but in my opinion we have not found anything better than the Orphek. As you may remember I was very supportive of the potential of LED's when I started the build but I couldn't find any products that would compete with MH at that time. However things are changing very fast in the industry and our experience with real products has suggested that LED's are probably ready to take on tanks of 30 to 36 inches high without compromising coral health, growth or colour. In fact I believe that there is a definite advantage to the aesthetic colour in a reef tank that MH does not do as well.

The nature and type of royal blue lights alone on the reef are certainly unmatched by either MH or T5/8's. In a long tank like mine where there is a fair amount of diversity the lighting can be adjusted to accommodate the different needs of different life forms without compromising the general health of the other inhabitants.

As I said I found the Orphek lights to be unique but to be honest I don't have enough engineering knowledge to tell you why. I need Mr. Wilson to comment on how the technology works to produce the results that I like. I can tell you that I doubt that the lights I have been using would work in your application because your tank is too deep for them to work well. There may be some models either in production or in prototype form that I have not had experience with that might be suited to your tank but Mr. Wilson has much better information on the available technology than I do to answer that one.

I do like the colour on my sps and the growth is really starting to take off. I am nowhere near the richness of coral you have in your tank but for the first time I can feel that there is a strong potential to produce a strong and vibrant coral reef. The fish certainly look great under these lights which is an added bonus in my opinion.

You will just have to come over and see for yourself!!!!

Peter

[nuccadoc]

Peter, any chance we can get some of your latest photos in higher resolution?

Your tank looks fantastic and is an inspiration to us all! Keep up the good work.

[gig]

Peter, just saw the updated pics on page 299! holeeee sh****!

amazing! amazing!

[chingchai]

Peter. Thank you for the answer.
One day I will visit you for sure.

[dmb1977]

peter- is there any videos of your tank yet?

amazing btw

[rpjaws74]

And I thought I had a big tank...lol! The closest I'll ever get to having a tank this big is if I take a picture of your tank turn it into a poster with the same measurements and paste it on my wall hehe! kind of like the fatheads company does for athletes and celebrities. Maybe they should do one of your tank? Just a thought

[rpjaws74]

I take it back I dont have a wall that BIG!!!

[mr.wilson]

Originally Posted by rpjaws74

And I thought I had a big tank...lol! The closest I'll ever get to having a tank this big is if I take a picture of your tank turn it into a poster with the same measurements and paste it on my wall hehe! kind of like the fatheads company does for athletes and celebrities. Maybe they should do one of your tank? Just a thought

I agree, I would by a Fathead poster of the tank for my wall... better yet, one of those backlit pictures like the ones of Niagara Falls with magnetic fish swimming around

[nineball]

Originally Posted by nuccadoc

Peter, any chance we can get some of your latest photos in higher resolution?

Your tank looks fantastic and is an inspiration to us all! Keep up the good work.

Scott,

The short answer is yes. I have been working on a web site with Dave M's help which will have a huge library of digital photo's in full resolution for easy download if you wish. I will release it as soon as Mr. Wilson gives Dave M the updates he needs for the hard written content that has been gathered by Dave. One small observation however. The galleries are huge with what may appear to be a lot of similars. When I take digital pictures, I am hoping for one good picture in 20. There may be very subtle differences in angle, light or exposure but rather than choose one and throw the rest out....I keep them all.

I use a photo site called Phanfare as the storage is unlimited, there is no restriction on file sizes, I can save both JPEG and RAW full size and I can create albums which can be posted to the web with no bandwidth implications to me.
Add to that backup within the cloud.....for me that is an important distinction, Backup within the cloud NOT to the cloud. That means that there are two copies in two locations within the cloud. So I can have a catastrophe at home and my photo archive is never at risk. Phanfare can be destroyed and there is still a copy that I can access anywhere in the world and they support PC and MAC platforms. I think the current rate is 29.95 per year without RAW & limited video storage but its a very good deal to protect and distribute your photos. I think I am paying somewhere around two hundred a year because I wanted everything they offered and I believe it works well for me.

Finally, I have no personal economic interest in Phanfare but I do mention it here because I believe for us marine foto addicts this service is clearly a best practice worth recognition.

Peter

[nineball]

Originally Posted by rpjaws74

I take it back I dont have a wall that BIG!!!

Sure you do silly. It's not that big. All you need is one wall 16 ft long (everybody has at least one of those) and another connected 8 ft long to accommodate the L. Since this is two sided you just might want to do the right thing and complete the other side by using the remaining two walls for the complete view. That might even be better than what I have to do which is walk over 50 feet to go from one side to the other. Just ask SaraB she has actually done it!!!

[nineball]

To this thread community...........

Our tank has been referenced in an article on LED lighting and they have used a lot of material from Mr. Wilson. Also mentioned is reef central and Chingchai's build.

http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/cont...an-work-better

congratulations to all the Reef Central thread folks who have supported best practices through the life of this build.

Peter

[Haksar]

Nice write up...thanks for the link.

I also use 02 PR156 WUV custom made 60/40 90 optics for my 05 ft SPS dominated tank and I am very happy with the results..

[mr.wilson]

Bare with me here, I'm trying to post a slide show...



Okay, I've never been crazy about Photobucket. How the... do you make the slide show full screen?

[Jessie Gray]

great slide show Mr Wilson but I couldnt get it to work on full screen. probably just my computer.the tank is looking awsome

[mr.wilson]

Originally Posted by Jessie Gray

great slide show Mr Wilson but I couldnt get it to work on full screen. probably just my computer.the tank is looking awsome

No, it looks like Flash won't do full screen I'll upload the pics to Peter's cloud and get him to set up a proper slide show. In addition to my Photobucket subscription, also pay for storage at Mac, but it only does slide shows for Iphoto

[Jessie Gray]

it still looks great. fortunatly my screen is a 42 in

[Elliott]

very nice! beautiful mixed reef

[Padrino]

Great article in Coral. Thanks for spreading the good new. Slideshow is great too, Can I somehow make that my screensaver??

[Jessie Gray]

Originally Posted by Padrino

Great article in Coral. Thanks for spreading the good new. Slideshow is great too, Can I somehow make that my screensaver??

thats a great idea

[ziyaadb]

Originally Posted by nineball

Scott,

The short answer is yes. I have been working on a web site with Dave M's help which will have a huge library of digital photo's in full resolution for easy download if you wish. I will release it as soon as Mr. Wilson gives Dave M the updates he needs for the hard written content that has been gathered by Dave. One small observation however. The galleries are huge with what may appear to be a lot of similars. When I take digital pictures, I am hoping for one good picture in 20. There may be very subtle differences in angle, light or exposure but rather than choose one and throw the rest out....I keep them all.

I use a photo site called Phanfare as the storage is unlimited, there is no restriction on file sizes, I can save both JPEG and RAW full size and I can create albums which can be posted to the web with no bandwidth implications to me.
Add to that backup within the cloud.....for me that is an important distinction, Backup within the cloud NOT to the cloud. That means that there are two copies in two locations within the cloud. So I can have a catastrophe at home and my photo archive is never at risk. Phanfare can be destroyed and there is still a copy that I can access anywhere in the world and they support PC and MAC platforms. I think the current rate is 29.95 per year without RAW & limited video storage but its a very good deal to protect and distribute your photos. I think I am paying somewhere around two hundred a year because I wanted everything they offered and I believe it works well for me.

Finally, I have no personal economic interest in Phanfare but I do mention it here because I believe for us marine foto addicts this service is clearly a best practice worth recognition.

Peter

thank you

[snadaud]

Hi Peter and team Nineball

It's been a few months since I last posted on this thread and it has been
great to see the tank and thread continually improving during this time !

I'm interrupting my silent lurking today as I would like to submit an idea for a simple automatic rinser, involving only one solenoid and a pump:



The solenoid would be on the left side pipe and usually on the open position.

The "frozen slush" is poured in the right compartment from a machine similar to the one Mr. Wilson has posted a few pages back. It would be easy to replace the mechanical switch to pour the mixture with a switch time-controlled by the profilux. The bottom of this compartment (pink on the picture) is made of a mesh with holes smaller than the smallest food particles in the slush.... Actually it would probably work better if the bottom of this compartment was in the shape of a coffee filter but it's more complicated to do this in sketchup

RO/DI water is then pumped on top of the slush. When it reaches a certain level, the left pipe starts a syphon and sends the water to the drain. As soon as the syphon breaks, the water level goes up again before starting the syphon again. By keeping pumping in RO/Di and keeping the solenoid open, the food can be rinsed as many times as necessary.

After a suitable time, the solenoid is closed while water keeps being pumped in. When the water levels reaches a higher level, the right hand pipe starts a syphon and sends the food to the sump. As the level of the water on the left side goes down, it comes up through the mesh and pushes the food to the pipe. By repeating this process a few times all the food should be cleared from the rinser.

It is possible to imagine that all the top-off water would be sent through the rinser and feed the tank while maintaining salinity.

The slush dispenser, top off pump, and solenoid could be plugged in the profilux to ensure that they always stay synchronized.

Since only pure water goes through the solenoid it should not get clogged over time, but by simply adding a second draining syphon pipe next to the first one with a solenoid on the same timer there should hopefully never be any problem.

[kinlayan]

the slideshow looks great , Mr Wilson, i would like your opinion on whitespot(cryptocaryon irritans), i am of the opinion that it is often latent in the majority of large Reef aquariums ,waiting for a chance to strike even in spite of quarantine which is essential but not 100% sure proof way of preventing it being introduced given a complicated lifecycle with some stages being resistant to most treatments.

Do you agree or do you think that a reef with large quantities of fish and corals can indeed be totally free of whitespot for the life time of that Aquarium , given that new fish /coral/rock introduced in spite of quarantine may in fact still allow just one parasite to sneak in?And once in it becomes a question of managing water quality and keeping stress out to keep it from becoming a problem.

Of course Uv and ozone would also help keep parasite numbers low as would strong immune systems.

[nineball]

Originally Posted by snadaud

Hi Peter and team Nineball

It's been a few months since I last posted on this thread and it has been
great to see the tank and thread continually improving during this time !

I'm interrupting my silent lurking today as I would like to submit an idea for a simple automatic rinser, involving only one solenoid and a pump:



The solenoid would be on the left side pipe and usually on the open position.

The "frozen slush" is poured in the right compartment from a machine similar to the one Mr. Wilson has posted a few pages back. It would be easy to replace the mechanical switch to pour the mixture with a switch time-controlled by the profilux. The bottom of this compartment (pink on the picture) is made of a mesh with holes smaller than the smallest food particles in the slush.... Actually it would probably work better if the bottom of this compartment was in the shape of a coffee filter but it's more complicated to do this in sketchup

RO/DI water is then pumped on top of the slush. When it reaches a certain level, the left pipe starts a syphon and sends the water to the drain. As soon as the syphon breaks, the water level goes up again before starting the syphon again. By keeping pumping in RO/Di and keeping the solenoid open, the food can be rinsed as many times as necessary.

After a suitable time, the solenoid is closed while water keeps being pumped in. When the water levels reaches a higher level, the right hand pipe starts a syphon and sends the food to the sump. As the level of the water on the left side goes down, it comes up through the mesh and pushes the food to the pipe. By repeating this process a few times all the food should be cleared from the rinser.

It is possible to imagine that all the top-off water would be sent through the rinser and feed the tank while maintaining salinity.

The slush dispenser, top off pump, and solenoid could be plugged in the profilux to ensure that they always stay synchronized.

Since only pure water goes through the solenoid it should not get clogged over time, but by simply adding a second draining syphon pipe next to the first one with a solenoid on the same timer there should hopefully never be any problem.

I'm going to let Mr. Wilson discuss the design elements with you but I want to take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time and initiative to put this together for us. This is what makes this community so powerful and rewarding to be a part of.

I think it is great and makes a lot of sense by the way.

Thank you,

Peter

[dave.m]

Originally Posted by nineball

Ok either Mon or Thursday......I'll let you know tomorrow after I check with Mr. Wilson.

I take it Monday's off then? Mr. Wilson's presence is not absolutely required, as I can get much of the remaining info in person.

Thx,

Dave.M

[nineball]

Originally Posted by dave.m

I take it Monday's off then? Mr. Wilson's presence is not absolutely required, as I can get much of the remaining info in person.

Thx,

Dave.M

Mondays good if you still are...........saaaaay around 11:00 and lunch is on me!!!

Peter