Tesla Green Lab Tank - Enzyme powered

[Harry H]

Dear friends,  I have been keeping a marine tank for more than 3 years. I started the reefing journey asking a start-up company to set up a nano tank before I discovered SGReef Community. I replaced it with the Fluval Edge 46 Liters after a year. It was too much work as the tank had a small opening and reaching down to arrange the corals was a pain. Then I got an Innovative Marine Nuvo 10G from FNM and the fun began. This is part hobby and part experiment as I used the tank to test nanoparticles to see if the nanoparticles kill bacteria (part of my work). Besides, the tank looked good in the SOHO. I know the canister is a potential nitrate factory but I cleaned it once a week. Not to mention that like any newbie, I overstocked a bit and made all the usual mistakes. The IM tank had to be replaced because the bubble corals grew too large thanks to the introduction on our experimental enzyme (no, I am not marketing it here - it is used as an industrial waste management bio-solution that consumes ammonia, nitrate, and strangely eats styrofoam as well as eliminate vectors (i.e. insects). I told the scientist why don't we try it on my lab tank and the corals grew and grew. The IM tank was badly scratched due to sand particles on my Tunze scrapper (check for sand!!!!) and some corals hitting the glass tank when i was doing my weekly play-with-the-coral/live rocks arrangement. So I had to "upgrade" the tank due to the following reasons: a) the bubble corals grew too big, b ) the IM tank was badly scratched and the most important reason, c) the Ikea Nordli bedset table which was repurposed as a fish tank looks unsteady after the saltwater getting into the wood panels. Then I read that the max load for that table is perhaps 10 kg. So 10 gallon of saltwater is 10*3.89 kg=38kg. Plus the tank and accessories, 10kg, plus the huge live rock, say 2kg, that is a total of 50kg!!!

Finally after much research, I have the following parameters - 13G to 20G tank, a new Ikea metal stand or reinforced wood stand, stocking light, max 4 fishes, do something about the canister. Over the years, I have never achieved zero nitrate and zero phosphate so lets try it this time. I wanted the Innovative Marine 20G tank badly but it is darn too big and I thought of the Fluval 13.5G but it has a transparent AIO chamber. Finally I found the best compromise. An acrylic tank by Aqua Excel about 13G. The back chamber is bigger and you can easily use the Tunze 9001 with some space to spare, and you can dump your filter media- the Marine Pure balls, Poly filter, filter floss, bags of activated carbon etc in the AIO chambers. And I bit my tongue and bought the AI Prime HD as it is much lighter than my Jebao AK60 which was linked to a smart plug controlled by my Alexa and Google Home.

Because I use a canister filter (Fluval 206) I was able to transfer all the fishes to the new tank. The mistake I made was to get rid of the old sand which was stinky with tons of detritus accumulated over 2 years. There was a minor ammonia spike and two creatures died (fish and a shrimp). Fault is entirely mine as I was overconfident; assuming that the canister would have enough bacteria to handle the ammonia build up in a brand new tank. I did a water change, introduced Zeolites, 3 packets of activated carbon, ATM Outbreak bacteria and the small ammonia spike was gone the next day. I added Sechem Phosguard later.

Today is a happy day for me. Here are my test results - Ammonia 0, Nitrate 0, Phosphate 0. For many of you seniors in this community, this is no big deal for you but this is the first time I could get this result. I am starting to remove the filter floss, pre-filter foam from Fluval Canister and replacing it with activated carbon, zeolites i.e. I am transforming the canister into a BIG Multi-chamber Reactor. I am tempted to remove all the floss and foam at one goal but let's do it incrementally.

So here are the Specs:

Light - AI Prime HD, Tank: Aqua Excel Acrylic 40cm by 40cm by 38 cm, Stand: Ikea metal table: NYBODA, Filter: AIO and Fluval 206, Artica 1/15 chiller, Tank circulation pump: Tunze 1073.008, Wavemaker: Tunze 6040, RODI - self assembled

Filter media and membrane: Fluval C3 activated carbon (4 packs), Seachem: Zeolites, Seachem: Phosguard, Chemipure,  Polyfilter, Redsea Filter Socks Micron 100 and 225, Tesla Green Agri-zymes

Fish, corals, critters: 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 benny, 1 blue damsel, 1 yellow watchman goby, 2 fire shrimps, 1 cleaner shrimp, 3 cleaner snails, bubble coral, plate coral, red mushroom coral 

What can I do next: 1. Using the old Innovative Marine Media Basket or Innovative Marine Desktop Reactor, convert it to an algae reactor. Buying a small 20 cm submersible LED strip light is HARD!!!! Will it heat up the water too much? 2. Replace Fluval pre-filter foam in canister with Marine Pure block. 3. Dose the tank with 1 ml of Enzyme per week. 4. Try SPS.. gasp! 5. Build a Raspberry Pi thermometer probe with warning to the cellphone.

One more thing... thanks to all the good advice in SGreef and the LFS owners who recommended great solutions over the years

 

 

 

 

 

 

[daveyy]

You got to tell us more about the product. I’m hooked! 

[ramvenga85]

Interesting.. i am curious, is that the enzyme, in the last pic?

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[Harry H]

Interesting.. i am curious, is that the enzyme, in the last pic?

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It is a natural enzyme that took 10 years to develop. I had no choice as the bubble just grew. Enzyme is mere protein. It is used to feed animal as a farm feed!! But I tried it on the tank (since it is LD50 ie food grade, edible to human beings) and the corals went nuts. So have to buy a bigger tank. Will be passing to two local fish shops to let them try

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[ramvenga85]

Not for sale yet?

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[Jeebusai]

17 minutes ago, Harry H said:

It is a natural enzyme that took 10 years to develop. I had no choice as the bubble just grew. Enzyme is mere protein. It is used to feed animal as a farm feed!! But I tried it on the tank (since it is LD50 ie food grade, edible to human beings) and the corals went nuts. So have to buy a bigger tank. Will be passing to two local fish shops to let them try

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It’s very interesting indeed. Can be fed to fishes too? Looks like liquid. Can’t tell the texture. Is it available commercially for hobbyist? 

[Harry H]

It is an industrial product for waste management and farm feed and fertilizer. Enzyme is no magic. It just targets certain pathogens, Hydro carbon and chemicals like ammonia and nitrate. I recently dumped the enzyme into an ex Parliamentary Secretary fish pond and prayed that the freshwater kois survived. They did and thrived. The joke is if they die I would have to run to batam (joke). Yes it can be fed to fishes and they eat it like crazy. I think it is like gym builder taking protein powder but this is natural. No GMO and 100% environmentally friendly. I have even over dosaged it and nothing happened to the lifeforms. And in the exhibition I ate it in front of the vip to show it is safe.

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[Harry H]

It is not for sale to retail. I would like more aquarists to try it incrementally lol I hate the idea of hurting any tank.

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[daveyy]

This could revolutionize the hobby! 

[daveyy]

I would like to try on my qurantine tank thou. Any adverse effect if mix with cupramine / copper?

[daveyy]

I tried to search for this company and find out it is only registered since Mar 2018. But you mention that this enzyme took 10 years to develop? Able to share more about it? 

1 hour ago, Harry H said:

It is a natural enzyme that took 10 years to develop. I had no choice as the bubble just grew. Enzyme is mere protein. It is used to feed animal as a farm feed!! But I tried it on the tank (since it is LD50 ie food grade, edible to human beings) and the corals went nuts. So have to buy a bigger tank. Will be passing to two local fish shops to let them try

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[Harry H]

Thanks for all the kind remarks. I am hopeful but gotta be skeptical and data driven. One tank cannot justify the results. One kind Bro even did research on the co. It is newly invested by an Asian venture capital firm and even the website is not up. The inventor was happy to use it for local farming but we encouraged him to commercialize it. There are millions of enzymes composition out there but to deliver a consistent batch requires painstaking research and trials and errors. I will be passing the test samples for a few LFS to try out. This is not a sure thing as all refeers know the complexity of biochemistry. It is very promising. We also do not know if it is a viable niche market but as a lab experiment it is indeed exciting. The science is Google able it is the search for the right enzyme that is the tough bit. There is also a need to test the optimal dosage. I am in venture building business and we do not want to make unsubstantiated announcements (like this is a game changer and disruptive... Groan groan) and fail to deliver later. As Carl Sagan says baby steps... Baby steps...

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[Harry H]

Thanks for all the kind remarks. I am hopeful but gotta be skeptical and data driven. One tank cannot justify the results. One kind Bro even did research on the co. It is newly invested by an Asian venture capital firm and even the website is not up. The inventor was happy to use it for local farming but we encouraged him to commercialize it. There are millions of enzymes composition out there but to deliver a consistent batch requires painstaking research and trials and errors. I will be passing the test samples for a few LFS to try out. This is not a sure thing as all refeers know the complexity of biochemistry. It is very promising. We also do not know if it is a viable niche market but as a lab experiment it is indeed exciting. The science is Google able it is the search for the right enzyme that is the tough bit. There is also a need to test the optimal dosage. I am in venture building business and we do not want to make unsubstantiated announcements (like this is a game changer and disruptive... Groan groan) and fail to deliver later. As Carl Sagan says baby steps... Baby steps...

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And this is a forum about tank specs and I hope I did not breach any forum rule although the enzyme is part of the specs in this tank. So apologies

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[ramvenga85]

And this is a forum about tank specs and I hope I did not breach any forum rule although the enzyme is part of the specs in this tank. So apologies

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Sounds like it has the potential but nevertheless will wait and see if it really works for the masses.. 1 of the fun factors in this hobby is that there is always something new to try out, in the pursuit to better our reef system.. thanks for sharing bro!

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[Harry H]

Sounds like it has the potential but nevertheless will wait and see if it really works for the masses.. 1 of the fun factors in this hobby is that there is always something new to try out, in the pursuit to better our reef system.. thanks for sharing bro!

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I can't agree more sir. Almost obsessive hobby lol. Last night I dosed 0.5ml to the 12.5 us gallon (that's like 47 liters) and the plate and bubble corals went nuts again. The red coral fell onto the sand bed so I can't test it. Caveat: still I can't isolate it to just the enzyme solely, maybe the AI prime light is awesome or the corals finally got used to the new tank parameters. Again the results has been spectacular.

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[Harry H]

added blue sponge, leather coral and two types of zoas

[Kris]

Interesting and will definitely follow on this. May become a game changer.

I read that you plan to build a Raspberry Pi thermometer probe with warning to the cellphone. I am using node MCU for the same use. Cheaper alternative, unless you are adding more monitoring and controls which node MCU can't handle. Cheers.

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[Harry H]

Interesting and will definitely follow on this. May become a game changer.

I read that you plan to build a Raspberry Pi thermometer probe with warning to the cellphone. I am using node MCU for the same use. Cheaper alternative, unless you are adding more monitoring and controls which node MCU can't handle. Cheers.

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Thanks. I bought the Pi and needed an excuse to thinker with it. I found out china Caperplus has a temp AND PH monitor for usd50 on Ali Express. I think locally it is about SGD100. It is nowhere near Apex but for a nano tank it may be sufficient. S$100 VS s$1400 I think. I want to build from scratch and learn some Pi programming then I think about the saltwater splashing. Safety first..

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[Harry H]

I bought a used Nest Cam and tried to integrate into Aqua Illumination Prime HD mobile interface. It has a Drop Cam feature but just wont work. Nest is a successor to Drop.

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[Harry H]

Another cool thing is I added the tunze circulation pump to Kaza smart plug which is controlled by Google Home. So when I need to feed the fish, it is "Hey Google, turn off Aquarium Pump" and in case I forget to turn it on I can use my mobile to turn it back on even when I am outside. Voice integrated smart tank is possibly the way to go.

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[Kris]

Good to note Bro.

I am also searching on orange pi. Itchy to explore what I can do more with it compared to node MCU.

Nano and Pico tanks more monitoring and control compared to big tanks.

I will follow this to learn more. Cheers.



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[Harry H]

Added IM Chaetomax Led light in the backchamber. Using the IM media basket from my previous tank to store the chaeto. A friend is so nice to provide some strands of free chaeto. Now I need another media basket so that both baskets can grow chaeto.

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[Harry H]

The back chamber.

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[sherman]

Interesting. 

[Harry H]

The mysterious case of the missing Cardinal Fish (written with a pinch of salt...)

The cardinal fish has been with me for one year and it disappeared. I know this happens to every reefer at some point but this case is baffling. Floor checked. Fish stand checked. Canister checked. It has happened before the fish jumped into the AIO chamber, got sucked into the canister and came back alive. Not this time. Tubes checked. AIO chamber checked but will do it with a torchlight today. Rock work disassembled and checked. Tank has net guard. Water entry to AIO chamber is via 3 super thin slits. One of those mysteries in life.

Of course a few months later in some house cleaning the mummified creature would appear....

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