720 Gallon Project Update Part Four

[blane perun]

720 Gallon Project Update Part Four

This is part of a series covering the trials and tribulations of the home coral farm.

Not many things happened over the Holidays, time constraints, bills J

This is an update of changes that had to be made to the Zoanthus System that

I covered last time. Some of the changes are minor but provide some new

Ideas.

On of the first problems I encountered was with the way I mounted the lights. I

Did use standard PVC to extend the cable outward to suspend the fixture more

Towards the middle of the tank. Pressure held the PVC section against the wall.

On a few occasions it fell and the PVC tubs fell in the tank hitting the fixture

On the way down. I purchased PVC end caps and screwed them into the wall,

And mounted the PVC tube into the end cap.

Next area of concern was the lighting itself. Above you can see I had to lower

The lights considerably from the first post. Originally since I have incorporated

Natural light I felt any artificial light needed would be minimum. After attempting

A power quad above the Zoanthus I was still not able to get the colors I obtained

Under MH’s with no natural light.

I moved to a VHO hood with four 4 foot bulbs.

Two actinic, and two daylight. I had started the fixture about 14 inches above the

Tank with a photo period of 8 hours, the change made a very minimal impact in the

Coloration. I then (pictured above) lowered the fixture to 7 inches above the water

Surface, raised the shelf two inches and increased the photo period to 12 hours.

While I am seeing a positive progression of more intense colors the fixture is

Now so low it has really become cumbersome to work around and I have decided

To sell it and purchase two PFO 250 watt pendants

Another area of concern is current. I have seen a few farms operate on air lifts

Constructed of PVC and air pumps to generate current and on my visit the corals

Seemed healthy so it appeared to be enough. Originally I connected a 360 Ocean

Current rotating head to a Mag 7 via PVC and connected that right to the side of

The tank.

With the density of the zoos and heavy feeding I am coming up with

Problematic algae. I’m sure I will have to increase the current in the tank

Considerably. I think if the vessel were smaller the Ocean Currents Head would

Be fine, but it is undersized for this installation, and adding more will interfere

With working around the corals.

The last modification is the shelving. I had the shelves for the zoos drilled

With holes at O.D. about 2 inches apart. This turned out to be a large mistake

Because I was just not able to get enough in the tank. I had previously grown

In small 40 gallon break out systems and was getting more with the old

Rack which were one inch apart. I had some new shelves made and hope to

Use the ones I have no elsewhere. In addition to the spacing another area I

Changed was the rack itself. From the original post and the photo below

You can see I made a rack to keep the two shelves next to each other at

An equal height. I did the exact same thing in my previous tanks and it

Worked fine. With this round tub however, since there is no turn over

It seemed to add to poor circulation so I rebuilt the rack to make the

Shelves at two different heights.

[Achilles Tang]

Hi everyone,

May I have the privilege to introduce Blane Perun... from www.thesea.org in the USA.

He visited our site and I believe this is his first post here!

On behalf of the Singapore Reef Club, WELCOME!!!!

[BarraCudaTM]

Welcome to SRC!

[Tanzy]

Nice to have Blane here!

Grow zoo grow! They are like weeds!

[Dinosaur]

Hi everyone,

May I have the privilege to introduce Blane Perun... from www.thesea.org in the USA.

He visited our site and I believe this is his first post here!

On behalf of the Singapore Reef Club, WELCOME!!!!

Hello

[lona]

Hi Blane,

Nice of you to visit this site..

[Phang]

Heh heh heh....

You ship SPS frags across.....

Seen those SPS at your site..... real COOL....

[Achilles Tang]

Oh gosh, Phang,

Get a grip of yourself man!!

This Strange Phang Sickness thingy is too much!

[Phang]

Mua hahahahahaaaaaaa......

Think I'm going crazy....

Hand over all your SPS.....!!!!!

[spade]

may i suggest a 2 wks underwater world water change with a teaspoon. this will help calm the mind and souls

juz drop by to say hello to Blane Perun!

[wolfie]

that's even worse den using a 'kong' to change water!

u evil spade... BUT

I like!

[Sinn]

welcome blane...

its always great to have experianced reefers in the forum....

[blane perun]

Thanks for all of the Welcomes.

I have visited the site for a while and decided to post this update the other

Day.

I always look at traffic to my site from other countries, I find it interesting to meet people from across the world that have the same interest. I saw some referrals from this site and checked it out a while back.

I post a series on my farm project on about 7 or so boards. I have not done much since

Before Christmas (too many bills). Now that I am starting work back up again I thought

I would also join this community and post the series here.

I hope my experiences and documentation can help someone save some time, money and

The life of a coral or two J

I hope no one minds but I decided to post parts one, two, and three as well. In case anyone would like to read them over and sort of get up to date on the project.

Prior I grew corals from my main 450 gallon system which was a multizone reef. I slowly converted sections of the display to grow out tanks. After working with that for about 1.5 years I decided to add a small room on to my home to concentrate my efforts and dedicate tanks to specific kinds of coral.

You can catch it all in the post. J

To anyone further interested I have documented the beginning phases on my site as well.

Here is a link, you will have to register though L

http://www.thesea.org/captivesystems/coral...arm/default.asp

follow the farm project menu to the left.

blane

[Creetin]

Most impressive!

Welcome to SRC Blane, hope u like it here. I must say your home coral farm is really interesting! too bad we dun have space like tat here in SG...

but nice, very nice!