720 Gallon Project Update part Two

[blane perun]

720 Gallon Project Update part Two

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

My last post talking about a few of the details of the climate control system, and the Polyboard wall covering. I wrapped up with speaking about the individual grow tanks, and the species I planned to cultivate in each of the tubs.

Some new gear came in today and I wanted to post and update prior to the work ahead of me. Since the last post all of the tubs are full. Below list my breakdown of the individual
Systems.

Quarantine
SPS
Leather
Gorg & sponge
Disco & LPS
Palythoa & Zoanthus

This is a shot of the left side of the room when you walk in the door. I just snapped the shot just 20 minutes ago. My lighting cycle will run with the day, but for the purpose of illuminating the room I switched two of the light I have installed on.



And here is a shot of those same four tanks from the opposite side of the room.



This is the opposite side of the room from the same side, these two tubs you are looking at are the sponge, and quarantine systems.



The light is currently hanging above Zoanthus, but this will be a tank dedicated for Discosoma and LPS. The tank has a 8 in deep sand bed, and I am currently having
Shelves built to hold the plugs I grow on. Once the tank was up and running I
Chose my Purple Tang to help break things in. Much of the live sand from a previous display was ported to this tank, so things were not so rocky. Zoanthus being a favorite
I started making road trips about a month ago looking for some new color morphs. Here are some recent additions.



Many of the polyps were closed when I switched the lights on but I’ll be sure to post some updated photos in weeks to come.



Each system contains a 350 watt heater, as a back up to the gas heat already keeping the room at a constant temp of 78. In addition I have purchases a Hot Magnum for each tank to run the water through carbon, or hold any type of absorbing material for problems that may arise down the road. I chose the magnum because it seemed to offer the most bang for the buck and occupied the least space.

The powerquad PC came with some great mounting hardware. Vinyl coated steel strand adjustable sleeves, and eye hooks. After mounting the fixture I really liked the look. I went to Home Depot and purchased some coated steel strand (I was only able to find green though) and some adjustable catches. I took apart a dual strip light and drilled the fixture for the steel strand and mounted it as best I could to match the PC fixture. If anyone out there knows where I can get black steel strand please email me.



I chose recessed lighting throughout the area for a less obtrusive look, and to also serve as a place to mount ballast out of the way of water, and eyes. This recessed shelf serves
That funstion.

[scubadude]

Starting to come along nicely there blane! Im curious...are you feeding that reactor as one for all the tanks? does it go through a main sump? how do you have the reactor fed? and how many gallons is it plumbed to? How much media/co2 are you going through? are you dripping any other additives like calcium hydroxide? Did you make your own aragocrete sheets there for your button polyps? please share some ideas with us :-)

[blane perun]

Actually the reactor is not functioning at all yet. It was pulled off my display that I covered in the 450 multi zone system post. My plans are too feed my new display and SPS tank with the reactor if that is possible, but from everything I have read it will not be likely. Currently each of these systems is alone by themselves, I will probably cover them one by one once they are set up, and post to any problems or success storied I might encounter.

Previously in my display I fed the reactor from the pressure of one of my return lines, and the output went directly to a sump. In that system I had two small grow out tanks in which I was raising SPS. That worked nicely but would not be practical for this. I am anxious about have 6 separate systems, in which I can treat all differently.

On the previous system I was dripping Kalk in addition to the reactor, but the kalk mixture came from a dosing pump. There was no lid on the makeup water tank which was the vessel for the Kalk. Because of this I’m sure I never really had the optimum potency. During the days where I ran the system the calcium demands were extremely high and it was all I could do to keep the system around 400ppm.

I had an article published in FAMA this past Dec Issue on the Multi Reef Zone system which explains in detail a bit more of what I was doing and actually what led me to this point.

As far as growing the props, I use GARF plugs. I have made my own in the past but GARF sells them for such a reasonable rate I just purchased them instead.