[Pomme]

Dream Tank

Hiya guys,

I am just thinking about the plans for my 'dream tank' which i plan to do in summer 2005.

The tank will be 5 x 5 x 2, so around 1500l/350 gal.

The sump will be 6x7x3 so 3250l/750 gal.

the prop tank will be 3x2x1 so 150 l/30 gal

the above sump which will hold caulerpa/xenia or just extra water, will be 3.5x4x3 so 1000l/ 250 gal.

The tank will 99% sps with maybe a few lps. It will be a live rock filtration, and the lighting will be on a pulley mechanism so can be highered and lowered. I hope to have the lighting like this:



The 2 central actinics will be on 24/7 and i will try and think of a way so that it has an effect of the moon moving over the tank, eg have one of the actinics on for longer then the other. The other four avtinics will be deltec t5 dimmables, so i will get them too come on i sequence, so theback right first then back left, then front right (maybe at same time as back left), then front left. then the four 250 watt halides will follow the same pattern and then for the midday sun the two 400 watters come on in sequence. And then for the lights going off it will follow the same sequnce. I plan to have the actincs on for 12 hours, the 250 watters on for 10 hours and the 400s on for 8 hours.

I plan to have two closed loops and one carlson surge device on the tank:



The tank will have two 50 gal tanks either side of the tank which go most of the full depth of the tank, which will be fed by a deltec hlp 4040 pump (4500l/h). the closed loops will then be run back into the tank by piping which will feed into the tank at the surface and down to under the rockwork. The carlson surge device will be again run by a deltec hlp 4040, and will againbe around a 50 gal tank which will then feed into the closed loop tank which will then feed into the tank through the piping.

The sumps etc:



The tank will have a weir which runs the full back length of the tank, and will have four sockmans, 3 of wich will feed into the upper sump, which will hold caulerpa, or xenia?,or just extra water. and the other one will feed into the prop tank which will have the frags on egg crate and the piping will feed into the tank under the egg crate and have a spray bar going either side so keeping detrious in suspension and having some random water movement for the acros. From the upper sump the water will normaly flow into the sump. But i will have a t piece and some ball valves so i will be able to direct the water into the water change tank where i will be able to get rid of the water and make up new water. and this will keep water changes to the exact amounts. from the water change tank the water will be able to flow down the drainor into the sump again with some t pieces and ball valves.

On the stand the equipment will be:



Oh yeah frag tank lit by arcadia series 3 250 watt 14k. The skimmer i will use will be either a deltec ap 1004 http://www.deltecaquariumsolutions.com/skimmers_10.php
or a deltec ap 1006 http://www.deltecaquariumsolutions.com/skimmers_11.php

then i will have a deltec pf 1000 calcium reactor http://www.deltecaquariumsolutions.c...reactors_5.php, the effluent of which will run into a second ca reactor, a deltec pf 509 http://www.deltecaquariumsolutions.c...reactors_1.php(as i alrady have it). Which will run for 8 hours in the middle of the light regime.

The kalk stirrer will be a deltec km 500 http://www.deltecaquariumsolutions.com/kalkstir_1.php, under rated for the tank i will have but i think as llong as i clean and top up the kalk in it, it should run okay. This will run using a aqua medic sp 3000 (50ml a minute) and will be run at night and done using a float switch.

I will have two deltec fr 509 fluidosed reactors, one will have rowaphos and the other carbon. both underrated but shouldnt be needed ifi run the caulerpa.

Just wondering what you guys think of this set-up, and what you would do differently if you were deseigning it?

Andrew

[Pomme]

ohh forgot the 4 tunze streams with rated output of 10,000litres each and controlled using the multicontroller.

and also my 24/7 feeding regime of a kent bucket ro water, food eg pellets and flake, and aairpump and some peri pumps!

[Ninong]

I believe it would be a mistake to have the two T5 actinics on 24/7. That would be much too much light over the tank at night. Natural moonlight is much, much less intense than that even during the few days before and after a full moon.

[Pomme]

humm i was wondering that would you say that if i ran say 3 2ft t8 actinics tubes down the centre of the tank and then over the month alternate which ones come on from moving from left to right, so at the begining onlyhave the left and at the end only the right but in the midd lehave a combination.

would that work, so that i am able to see the tank at night and also not effect the corals?

[Poseidon]

I think Ninong is absolutley right here. Even at Full moon the amount of visible light 20 feet down, is almost nothing. Maybe a 1 2 3 led setup would work for what you want. 1 on then 3 on then 1 on to simulate "moon Shine"

[Ninong]

In order to simulate natural moonlight you need a computer program that matches moonrise and moonset as well as intensity. Just remember that irradiance from the full moon (which is only once every 29.5 days) is 0.01 micro-Einsteins per square meter per second compared to normal noontime solar irradiance of 2,000 micro-Einsteins per square meter per second. Also, keep in mind that for two-thirds of the month the irradiance from the moon is less than half its full moon intensity.

You cannot see much in the tank even on full-moon nights. The intensity of moonlight is only above 70% of full-moon intensity for the two days before and two days after the full moon -- a five day period. And don't forget that a lot of the time the moonlight will be on during the daytime when the metal halides are on and it won't even be noticed at all. If you want to view the tank at night, you should use a red flashlight. Red light is not "seen" by most marine animals since it is filtered out early in the water column in nature and is not part of their environment.

P.S. -- To emphasize my point on moonlight intensity a bit more: For 9 days of the month the intensity is less than 0.0008 micro-Einsteins per square meter per second -- that would be the period closest to new moon when the intensity is less than 1/12 of full-moon intensity for the four days before and the four days after the new moon.

[Poseidon]

Well there you go Pomme... Sounds like lights out is the way to go!!!

[Pomme]

yeah i am just thinking about my current 100 gal, do you thinkone of these leds, over the tank would be okay?

Maplins

i know you get 5 in the set but i was just thinking of using one? would it be too much light?

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Pomme

yeah i am just thinking about my current 100 gal, do you thinkone of these leds, over the tank would be okay?

Maplins

i know you get 5 in the set but i was just thinking of using one? would it be too much light?

I don't know anything about those L.E.D.'s. I have no idea what the intensity of light striking the corals would be. There are a few different brands of moonlights available on the market in the U.S. Some are better than others. Some put out more light than a full-moon, others less.

The most common choice over here has been to use a 25w blue incandescent light and run it on a dimmer switch of some sort. One 25w blue incandescent lamp would be sufficient for a 100-gal tank, two would be needed for a 180-gal tank, etc. One 25w blue incandescent lamp over a 100-gal tank would provide about the same intensity of lighting as the full moon. That means that in order to mimic natural conditions you would need some way to dim it. Fortunately, incandescent lamps can be dimmed, either with a controller (such as Neptune Systems or IKS) or a simple dimmer switch. The controller is automatic, the dimmer switch would have to be manually adjusted every day.

Just remember that you cannot really see much in your tank at night with a properly sized moonlight. If you can, then the light is too intense. The tanks that I am aware of that have moonlight-induced spawning are all run with controllers, such as my Neptune Systems AquaController II. Mass spawning on the Great Barrier Reef is keyed to the full moon. It naturally occurs a few days after the November full moon -- that would spring in Australia. Leonard Ho has a 120-gal tank run with a Neptune Systems AquaController and a chiller (I need a chiller bad) and his tank experiences mass spawning events every September. I wouldn't attach any importance to the month of September because I have no idea what he has his AquaController program set at as far as which part of the world he is trying to duplicate or even if he is running a seasonal variation in his water temperature. Even if you run a relatively constant water temperature, you can usually still get mass spawning events in your tank provided you use a programmed moonlight that duplicates natural conditions. There is really no way to do that without a controller of some sort because of the varying intensity and the varying times of the day that the moonlight has to be on.