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#1
03-07-2011, 03:24 AM
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Quote:
SPS in the top zone for sure. I'm working on getting the sand bed set so that it can be as friendly as possible for a functioning DSB. I've learned that there are some animals in the sandbed that do not like living by large objects, like our aquarium walls or rocks. I can't do anything about the walls of the aquarium, but what I can do is suspend the rock structure above the sand floor. How I'm going to do that is still undecided. I could drill out some pieces of large PVC or I could drill some acrylic legs into the bottom rocks. On top of those bottom rocks I'll drill and peg or epoxy the rest of the rock. I'm also kind of interested in what will happen with all the crud that the live rock sheds, like when you "cook" a tub of live rock. I'm interested in what will happen to that detritus as it falls to the sandbed. I'm going to be ordering some detrivore kits from Indiana and Hawaii once the weather warms up in a few months. Before then I don't think they would survive the shipping process. By then the sand bed will have matured so that those organisms can survive when I get them. Once I have the rock in place, I'll try to determine where food in the water column is going to accumulate and I'll start placing larger polyp corals in those areas. I'm going to try various plankton and live brine shrimp. I'm interested to see what happens when I get that bidirectional flow going. Maybe build some caverns that will channel the water somehow. If I can find some locally, i'm going to be starting the tank on ProdiBio this coming week.
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Mitch 
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#2
03-12-2011, 02:30 PM
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In the Summer 2010 issue of the magazine Invertebrate Biology, there is an article - Effect of a fluctuating thermal regime on adult and larval reef corals, where the authors study the effects of a daily temperature fluctuation between 21 and 28 degrees celsius (70 - 82 fahrenheit).
They set up a number of 10g tanks where they controlled the temperature using a Neptune controller, heaters and chillers. The temperatures were forced up or down according to the natural temperature fluctuations at Nanwan Bay, Taiwan. They found that the varying temperature environment made for corals that were stronger and more likely to survive incidences of high heat situations. I wonder if that isn't the next step in advancing our keeping of corals; trying to even more closely replicate the environment where they originate? How may years ago was it that SPS were deemed impossible to keep? I think we've got the "survivable" parameters down pat, I would like to see a lot more incidences of coral spawning reported and a lot less reports of "mysterious" coral deaths. My analogy of how we keep corals now with rock solid steady parameters is like growing a tree in a nice, climate controlled greenhouse. The tree does fine while all parameters are steady and even, but bring along the slightest breeze or other environmental fluctuation and the tree can't take the stress. Meanwhile, the same species of tree growing outdoors in the wind, rain, heat and cold does just fine. I'm trying to come up with a way to incorporate this into my system. The article is from my paid subscription, so I don't think I should post it here, but if someone would like me to shoot them a PDF, let me know.
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Mitch Last edited by MitchM; 03-12-2011 at 09:17 PM. Reason: initially put down wrong magazine edition
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#3
03-12-2011, 03:13 PM
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Hi Mitch
Interesting posts! - I've been working through some of the same challenges. There are some notes on how I suspended my rock for my new tank in my build thread (post 31). For my 90G I used the large PVC idea and it worked well enough. I have some good pictures of the setup process if you would like to see them. Quote:
"Sorry, we do not ship outside the mainland USA or to any international destination." Inland Aquatics has shipped to Canada in the past, but it might be a question of what day of the week you call? I think it's far from a sure thing. Who is in Indiana? - Brad
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#4
03-12-2011, 03:24 PM
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Hi Brad,
Neither Inland Aquatics nor Indo-Pacific will ship to Canada, but they will ship to an address in Sweetgrass, Montana. I can drive down there to pick up the shipment and an LFS here has offered to help me through the permit process. I'm not expecting many of the actual worms to survive the trip (although I'm told they do) but I am looking to get a fair bit of larvae and eggs in the "mud" I receive. It's a 4 hour drive from my place, so I'm holding off until the weather is a bit warmer.
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Mitch
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#6
04-20-2011, 12:38 AM
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The tank is in a bit of an extended cycle and maturing period.
We came up against some unexpected vet bills for one of our dogs, so the funds got depleted a bit. In the meantime I have taken some of the live rock I already have (about 250 lbs) and placed it in the tank with a couple of large LPS corals, a favia and a few euphyllias. I haven't suspended this rock above the sandbed, I am waiting to purchase some larger dry flat ecorocks so I can drill them, give them some legs and use them for the base pieces. I have the bidirectional tidal flow working with the Profilux controlling 2 separate Dart pumps. It's working well and I'm able to play around with the rock placement and watch how it changes the water flow. I've been able to create areas where the water flow will shoot through a channel quite fast and areas where the water will swirl and food particles can accumulate. Those swirling areas are where I will probably place some larger polyp corals. The only drawback with the 2 separate pumps is the gurgling when about 40 or 50 gallons of water drain back into the sump. Oceans Motions is close to finalizing a 4 way set up for me and I am expecting the drain back to be much slower and less volume. Other than that the whole system is really quiet and the herbie drain setup is working well. I had bought 2 new 300w titanium heaters that turned out to be defective, one of them the top came right off, flipping a breaker in the night and exposing the copper wires inside to the tank water. The favia is not doing too bad from the brief electric shock plus copper exposure but the euphyllias are still recovering. They're bleached and retracted. I guess I'm lucky it didn't fry one of the $250 Profilux powerbars. I've replaced those heaters with a couple of 500w Jalli titanium heaters. With the tank covers on, and the sump covered except for a 2' x 2' open top portion, the tank is only evaporating about 2 - 3 cups/day. Pretty happy with that. The tank's not looking too clean these days, going through the startup diatom and algae blooms. I've gone through 2 Prodibio dosing cycles, not sure if it's making much of a difference yet. The sandbed is really looking scarce for any life migrating down from the live rock, but this rock did come from basically a FOWLR (with some corals) bare bottom setup, so I didn't really expect a lot of sandbed animals. I'm looking forward to getting some mud from some suppliers.
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Mitch
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#7
04-20-2011, 04:16 AM
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Would be interested in seeing videos of the flow if you can somehow arrange for that ? I realize video of water moving is probably not the easiest thing to capture since water is all transparentish and stuff.
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-- Tony My next hobby will be flooding my basement while repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall and tearing up $100 bills. Whee!
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#9
04-20-2011, 09:09 AM
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Quote:
When the cycle comes out of it's rest period, there are a lot of air bubbles that get pushed around, but other than that I can only spot the odd few particles and follow their path. Maybe once I start feeding the tank more I can capture the action in a few specific areas.
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Mitch
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Hybrid Mode
