Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank) - split

[dave.m]

Originally Posted by mr.wilson

Peter and his videographer have finished two more videos that will be published shortly.

That's great to hear. One hates to nag, but it has been a while ...

Dave.M

[mr.wilson]

We used the good looking guys on the next video

[dave.m]

Hmmm, there must have been a hidden camera ...

Dave.M

[mr.wilson]

Originally Posted by danfeig

Peter:

At one point you were looking at a Dialyseas unit for your system. What did you decide? If you ended up purchasing one, can you please tell me your experience with it.

I was just about to pick one up for my new 1,400 gallon build and I am looking for as much information about the units as possible.

Thank you.

Dan

I was/am against the idea of the Dialyseas device. We have a water change system in place and use other cheaper methods of reducing excess nutrients.

Having to rely on the accuracy of a salinity probe is a position neither Peter nor myself want to get into. Furthermore, salinity shifts and ionic imbalances is a chemistry lesson/exercise we want to avoid.

Ken Feldman did a thorough review. He bought one for water changes, not water quality, due to limitations with the landlord.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-04/pr/index.php

[ballenreef]

Truely inspirational and absolutely beautiful!!!

[Elliott]

Originally Posted by mr.wilson

I was/am against the idea of the Dialyseas device. We have a water change system in place and use other cheaper methods of reducing excess nutrients.

Having to rely on the accuracy of a salinity probe is a position neither Peter nor myself want to get into. Furthermore, salinity shifts and ionic imbalances is a chemistry lesson/exercise we want to avoid.

Ken Feldman did a thorough review. He bought one for water changes, not water quality, due to limitations with the landlord.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-04/pr/index.php

I agree, in my experience electrical conductivity salinity probes are useful to show trends but often inaccurate with spot readings, I have used them for many years and commonly see fluctuations of 10% without any appreciable salinity change when measured with a refractometer

[curlykid]

Peter, your work is outstanding, this aquarium is a huge inspiration to everyone.

[Aragornus]

Hey Peter,
Right now I am working on 1250Gal. reef tank. 4m long, 1,4m wide and 0,85m tall. So I realy enjoy reading of this thread. Thank you for all good ideas and inspirations. :-)

Keep moving forward.

George

[Ketchup]

Couldn't say it better..!

Originally Posted by JasonBJones

First, your performance as the CEO of this project has been astounding. When I began reading the thread I had my doubts about the outcome. You had the foresight to know what you did not know and to outsource much of the work, but you still lacked the knowledge of whom to hire to assemble the best team. I was concerned you were unwittingly setting yourself up for failure. But your continued insistence on gaining knowledge and creating best practices led to the assembly of a truly world class team, which in turn led the creation of a world class tank. Well done! To me, this thread has been as much about building an aquarium as about how to be an effective leader. Thank you.

Second, your insistence on best practices and not current trends is worthy of applause. I have been in this hobby a long time and watched a number of individuals (myself included) chase the latest and greatest trend. Often times those trends are created by marketing hype that belies the lack of scientific foundation for the claims. Your insistence on the scientific principles behind every piece of equipment and maintenance philosophy is something we could all benefit by adopting. It is easy to believe that money and the most expensive equipment will create a flourishing tank, but hard to remember that a properly designed and maintained system can be much more effective.

[budisetiawan]

amazing

[dodgerblew]

Bravo!! Truly amazing

[mr.wilson]

Originally Posted by Aragornus

Hey Peter,
Right now I am working on 1250Gal. reef tank. 4m long, 1,4m wide and 0,85m tall. So I realy enjoy reading of this thread. Thank you for all good ideas and inspirations. :-)

Keep moving forward.

George

Hi George, you should go visit Andy Tripa in Romania and see his reef tank.

[mr.wilson]

Originally Posted by Ketchup

Couldn't say it better..!

I had my doubts on the outcome when I first started reading this thread as well... actually, I had a pretty clear view of the outcome to be honest To my pleasant surprise, everything has gone swimmingly well.

As you all know, you can't build a successful reef on money and skill alone, however they do help; persistence is the key to success, and throughout the process Peter has been right there encouraging the team. It's easy to get side tracked with other aspects of life, but Peter has stuck with it every day. I'm sure Peter's wife Judy would have a few comments about his time spent on the aquarium, but let's keep this discussion positive

One of the lifestyle aspects that we don't discuss often in the thread is Peter's retirement just before he started researching the reef project. Maybe he can say a few words to share his rapid, yet smooth transition from corporate to "beach bum"

[mr.wilson]

One of the crowning achievements of the reef build has been the large population of very healthy and quite plump fish. The extended quarantine period and, at times, excessive feeding has got us to a point that is often hard to reach with a reef tank.

We want to thank the QT tanks for their service and would like to replace them with coral grow-out tanks at this point in the project. The coral is starting to really fill in the display and we would like some space to do some fragging. We will save one of the three MARS systems for fish emergencies, and we still have a 130 gallon tank for utilitarian purposes. We will also decommission our chiller, canister filter, and undersized refugium. We will update the changes as soon as we have an active plan of attack.

[dave.m]

Peter and his videographer have been busy, and have several new offerings for you to view:

First of all, Episode 2: Tank Maintenance is now available.



Secondly, for those who crave eye candy, a Full Tank Shot end-to-end has been prepared. Due to the large file size this has been broken down into five smaller subsections.

Episode 3.1 - Eye Candy


Episode 3.2 - Eye Candy


Episode 3.3 - Eye Candy


Episode 3.4 - Eye Candy


Episode 3.5 - Eye Candy


As usual, you can choose your screen resolution in Phanfare or you can download the entire file to watch on your computer at your leisure.

Enjoy!

Dave.M

[Padrino]

Very well done gentlemen! very well done!!

The feeding part was amazing, and it seems like you feed like crazy, some of it looked like flake food but do you feed your own mix as well.
great job.
Cheers
Rob

[nineball]

Originally Posted by Padrino

Very well done gentlemen! very well done!!

The feeding part was amazing, and it seems like you feed like crazy, some of it looked like flake food but do you feed your own mix as well.
great job.
Cheers
Rob

We are going to do an episode on food and nutrition for both fish and corals soon

In answer to your question the flakes are spirolina and nori. The meaty mix is Brine and Mysis sometimes mixed with some cyclopeeze.

Peter

[nineball]

Thanks Dave.....Thanks very much for the help.

Peter

[nineball]

The Maintenance Episode is meant to be a quick overview of some of the activities that take place two days a week done by the Brothers Grimm. Mr. Wilson comes by two other days a week for a range of other activities related to maintenance. Its 6 minutes long (not too tiring and there is some fun fish feeding shots at the end). Some of the fish feeding shots were taken underwater with the GoPro. The fish food generally never lasts more than a minute at most and is all consumed by the critters in the tank. We filmed the fish feeding frenzy with three cameras and edited it all in one sequence so you are watching the same fish eating the same food from three different angles......

I decided to have at least one (Eye Candy) episode which would be an incredibly slow pan of the whole tank. Because its available in HD the file sizes would have been too big without breaking them up into 5 parts. The result is about an hour of video which may not be the material for anyone suffering with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. There were a number of things happening in the tank during the time we were shooting that a patient observer might enjoy. The one thing that I didn't do that I wanted was to do both sides of the aquarium but this pass took an hour and I figured it would be diminishing returns to try and put out a two hour walk through. What you are getting in this Eye Candy episode is roughly 24ft or 8 meters of seascape showing normal behaviour for the fish on the reef. We decided that the ocean surf sounds with a hint of music was the best soundtrack for prolonged exposure for those that didn't fall asleep. I have to admit even I have seen some 'stuff' in this presentation that I hadn't noticed before or even while we were shooting. The sailfin near the beginning who is on his side at the shrimp cleaning station is kind of neat. The maroon clown chasing the perc ten feet from her nest is interesting when you realize that she is protecting a sizeable layer of eggs under the anemone. Near the end the flasher wrasse is putting on a display for the green wrasse which surprised me as I hadn't notice any interaction between those fish before. The last part which looks through the arch towards the inside backside of the tank shows just how active the whole tank is at any given time as you can see the schooling fish way in the background. The tangs clearly benefit from the full tank but many species generally don't stray too far from home...........

Hope you all enjoy these as much as we did making it.....


Peter

Ps. For those who are counting there are at least 30 Bangaii Cardinals in the display tank with at least six active breeding pairs you can spot. I now have 40 more juveniles in the fish room which eventually will go back in the display tank in a few months.

[nuccadoc]

Fantastic as always Peter!

[nineball]

Originally Posted by nuccadoc

Fantastic as always Peter!

Thank you Scott.....

Peter

[DNA]

I used to have a pair of Maroon clowns and a huge long tentacle anemone just like you.
The anemone stayed for a long time in it's intended spot and then started to move about picking various places, stinging and killing corals and then moving to another spot to do it all over again. Eventually it got in a pump and ended it's life there. It was sad, but in a way I was relieved.
This was not the worst part since the larger maroon female was really into interior renovation, fragging chunks off corals, rolling and moving quite large rocks or corals that of course landed on top of another one causing damage to both.
The whole tank was it's playground and the size of targets that needed to be moved was not an issue.
Frequent bruises on it's head gave a hint that something big had happened that day. When I was witness to the mayhem it was done either with a dart straight into the target or by putting it's head onto it and then put on full steam ahead for a few seconds. On top of this it was digging all day long in the sand.

I still have that female after 10 years of reefing, but living in the sump.
I highly recommend against this in a reef tank, but if you insist, now you know what can happen.

[silentscream]

I thoroughly enjoyed the maintenance episode, I cannot wait to watch the eye candy episodes later this evening. I will be hooking up the laptop to our big screen! Peter, thanks so much for committing such a large amount of your time sharing your reefing experience with the rest of the community. This is without a doubt the most inspiring and education thread on our forums.

[dainiusiva]

Peter and Team,

I am at the loss of words...

The videos were well worth the wait as always.

Now we just need the promised recap of the equipment and the auxilary tanks as your tank has stepped in to the next level of its existence (I mean the abandonment of fish quarantine systems in favor of coral propagation ones...)

[msr224]

Just threw out my laptop and am ordering a new one with widescreen and HD capabilities.

Those videos are amazing and it's great to watch it in real-time and to be able to see the subtleties of the tank.