PNW Temperate Tanks Using Marineland Commercial Systems

[Jamie]

next time you go to newport - the best stuff is growing on the sides of the docks - that's where you'll find plumose anemones, shrimp, tunicates, etc. Also, bring a net and you might be able to catch yourself a baby rockfish - I saw a couple little schools hanging around last time I was there.

[AquaticEngineer]

next time you go to newport - the best stuff is growing on the sides of the docks - that's where you'll find plumose anemones, shrimp, tunicates, etc. Also, bring a net and you might be able to catch yourself a baby rockfish - I saw a couple little schools hanging around last time I was there.

 

Which docks did u you go to? We tried the ones over by the Rouge Brewery but there wasn't anything we could see but algae

 

On the plus side though, I checked out a few seafood markets in portland today and found a place that has temperate water snails for $3.79 a pound, I got 15 for .70 cents. I also picked up the last live spot prawn for $1.

 

I actually spent more on the bag of ice to keep everything cool until I got home than I did on the livestock,

 

One of the places advertises that they have live rock fish. All they had today was some really large Cabezons. All three places I went today were within a mile of each other down off Powell and 82nd area.

Here's one of the places website: OM Seafood

 

Heres what the spot prawn looks like, he's about 5 inches or so. I just googled this image, since mine isn't being photogenic right now.

[AquaticEngineer]

Here's a few new tank pics:

 

 

 

 

 

Here's some shots of the last place I went collecting, only brought hom rock for the substrate though.

[Jamie]

wow, I wish I knew about that store! glad to see everyone is doing well. and is that barview in the fog? I really like the spot prawn.

[AquaticEngineer]

wow, I wish I knew about that store! glad to see everyone is doing well. and is that barview in the fog? I really like the spot prawn.

 

Everything is doing really well, the large nems are getting bigger and the strawberries are multiplying. The pics are from the south jetty in Newport. How are things going in CA?

[Jamie]

Excellent, I'm glad they are in good hands. CA is pretty awesome, I can see why so many people live here, lol. I haven't been able to get out tidepooling yet though - hopefully soon!

[AquaticEngineer]

Got the LED lights setup on the smaller tank, still need to waterproof a few connections and get them glued into place, but they work

 

Best part with the way this tank is set up, I can view everything from above with the lights on and still get into the tank no problem.

 

Also got all the plumbing I needed to finish up the auto feeder. Still gotta drill the mini fridge, glue the plombing together and get it plumbed into the system.

 

 

 

[AquaticEngineer]

Here's some FTS' of the second tank I'm setting up with the lights on over it.

 

 

 

[Jamie]

very nice!

[AquaticEngineer]

Here's a quick lay out of what I'll be doing I think with the sump for the second coldwater tank ( The 27x27 cube) The whole idea for this sump is to add some mechanical filtration with the filter sock and add biological with all of the submerged bioballs. Then the solenoid valves will allow the auto feeder to circulate the food in the system for a while without being immediately filtered out.

 

I'll be adding a loop on to the sump to plumb a skimmer into with an external pump as well.

 

Any suggestions, comments, please add

 

[AquaticEngineer]

Got the refrigerated auto feeder all done, just need to finish my sump and plumb it all together,thought I'd share some photos of what I managed to get done on my day off. I think the final cost on the auto feeder was under $60.

 

It started life as a free brown mini fridge. Threw a coat of semi gloss black on it to match the rest of the setup.

 

Here is the outside plumbing and hole where the power cord comes out for the doser. I took apart the dosing pump and unwired the power cord and ran it through the side so I didnt have to drill a hole the size of the plug and then fill it in.

 

Inside of the fridge, I kept the freezer in there since I didnt need any more room really and I can keep all the frozen mysis and plankton in here and keep the wife happy I used a piece of pipe to mount the doser on and left enough extra cord so I can pull it out and work on it or change settings easily.

 

 

 

 

And here is what I got going on for the insulated sump, still need some more bioballs though.

 

 

[fullmonti]

Looking Good

I like the ice chest for a insulated sump. Why the bio balls & not live rock or rock rubble?

[AquaticEngineer]

Looking Good

I like the ice chest for a insulated sump. Why the bio balls & not live rock or rock rubble?

 

That was what I had on hand, I'll probably be using both tropical rock and bioballs in this system the same as I am on my large tank. That is about 5 gallons of bioballs as it sits, hoping to put another couple gallons worth on top of that and then put rock rubble in the open area you see still. There will be a plate with a filter pad on top of where the rock will go. I may reverse the positions of the rock and the bioballs. Easy enough to do though, just pull the egg crate up and slide it into the next set of grooves.

 

I finally figured out how I am going to run my auto feeder and have the sump hooked up in a way that I wont constantly filter out all the food I put into the tank. Instead of running both of the returns that are plumbed into the tank from a single source, I am going to use the existing drain and one of the returns like a closed loop to just the auto feeder and modify the drain that was designed for waterchanges into a over flow stand pipe that runs to the waters surface. That will drain down to the "cooler" sump and will be set on a timer to shut off that coincides with when the auto feeder is coming on. I'll have to run 2 pumps on this system, but hey, it'll work Another cool feature is the sump will be hooked into an existing feature of the tank that allows me at the push of a button to kill the pump that's plugged into this socket and it will turn on automatically up to 2 minutes later. Perfect for spot feeding

[AquaticEngineer]

I really got to get cracking on the new setup, I'm taking a 3 day trip to the coast in a few weeks. I'll be staying a couple hundred feet from the nearest tide pools and there will be fairly low tides. Luckily I'm due for a water change on the big tank and I'll just use the water I remove to start the smaller system.

 

Hopefully I will be getting the spaflex tubing I need tomorrow, the skimmer on tuesday, and getting it all together and filled up on wednesday. Wish me luck guys, this will be an ambitious schedule I imagine

[AquaticEngineer]

Well the plumbing issue ended up being such an easy fix that I'm going to make it more complicated

 

Since now there will be a central overflow in the middle of the tank, I'm going to try and clean up the rest of the viewable plumbing. I'm going to cut the 2 stand pipe returns down close to the viewable tank bottom and put some small dual loc line returns in.

 

Only thing I will have to add in is some solenoid valves ( which I was planning on adding anyways) on the drain and return that goes to the sump. That way when when the power to sump return pump is on. the valves will be open. When the power cuts, the valves will close preventing any sump overflows.

 

I know I should follow the K.I.S.S. rule, but where is the fun in that?

[C-Rad]

Everything is doing really well, the large nems are getting bigger and the strawberries are multiplying.

 

I've kept strawberry anemones for about 18 months, but they aren't getting bigger, and they aren't multiplying. What are you feeding them? How much? How often? How many strawberry anemones are sharing that amount of food?

 

I only feed frozen cyclopeez, twice per day, about one teaspoon (5 ml) per time. I turn off the return pump for an hour while the food is circulating in the tank.

[AquaticEngineer]

I've been feeding them a cube of mysis and a cube of plankton every other day or so. They spend 98% of the time in complete darkness so I dont know if that is helping them or not.

 

Update on the second tank:

 

Picked up a skimmer for $40, got a used little giant 4-mdqx-sc for $20 that needed some parts, got a

parts pump off Reef Central for another $20 shipped. Picked up most of the fittings to finish plumbing it all and got the overflow stand pipe figured out. Got some more bioballs for free from the guy I got the pump from. Hoping to finish it by this weekend and get cycled water in it from the other tank.

 

Still haven't decide if I'm going to chop both returns down to the tank bottom and use a solenoid valve on the one that comes from the sump to stop back siphon, or go with a flap valve or ball float valve.

[C-Rad]

I've been feeding them a cube of mysis and a cube of plankton every other day or so.

Thanks for the info. Can you estimate about how many stawberry anemone are sharing that amount of food? I have about 300 - 400 of them, so maybe the 8-10 ml/day that I'm feeding them is not very much per nem.

[C-Rad]

Still haven't decide if I'm going to chop both returns down to the tank bottom and use a solenoid valve on the one that comes from the sump to stop back siphon, or go with a flap valve or ball float valve.

 

Are you considering chopping down an overflow tube that takes water from the tank to the sump? If so, don't do it. A sump only works when the water that returns to the sump literally overflows from the tank. It is imparative that the rate of flow from the tank to the sump exactly match the rate of flow from the sump back to the tank. The only way to do that is to pump water up, and let it overflow and drain back to the sump, so that as the pump speeds up, slows down, stops, or whatever, the overflow rate neccessarily speeds up, slows down, stops, and necessarily matches.

 

You can cut down the pipe that returns water to the tank, from the sump, but then you have the back-siphon issues you are aware of. It's your rug, but I think it's risky to count on any type of valve to prevent back siphon. Some ways to reduce the risk are:

1) Design in redundancy so that two valves need to both fail at the same time to cause a flood. That way, for example, if the odds of a single valve failing in a given month are 1 in 100, the odds of both valves failing during the same month are 1 in 10,000.

2) Set things up so that the cost of a failure is low. For example, if your sump overflows onto a concrete garage floor, or into a water proof catch basin (kiddie pool?) the cost will be low, but if it leaves an inch of stinky water on your carpet, and then leaks through the floor and ruins your downstairs neighbor's ceiling, 50" TV, and grand piano, the cost could be many thousands of dollars.

3) Pick valves that have a low frequency of failure under your conditions. Rubber can get stiff when cold, and I suspect that a solenoid valve that is energized and open for too long (days or weeks) might be more likely to stick open when the power goes off, instead of springing closed (just guessing).

4) It might make sense to pay extra for the flapper check valves made of clear plastic, so that you can inspect them and see if anything is growing on or lodged in the flapper that might cause an obstruction (I sometimes get little outbreaks of tiny snails, limpets, etc)

 

If your goal is to get more flow near the bottom of your tank, you could safely make the short pipes part of a closed loop.

 

Just some thoughts, it case they haven't already occurred to you.

[AquaticEngineer]

Are you considering chopping down an overflow tube that takes water from the tank to the sump? If so, don't do it.

Oh boy no, lol.

 

You can cut down the pipe that returns water to the tank, from the sump, but then you have the back-siphon issues you are aware of. It's your rug, but I think it's risky to count on any type of valve to prevent back siphon.

Yeah this is what I'm talking about Its all out in my garage so flooding is no big deal besides costing my a lot of salt

 

1) Design in redundancy so that two valves need to both fail at the same time to cause a flood. That way, for example, if the odds of a single valve failing in a given month are 1 in 100, the odds of both valves failing during the same month are 1 in 10,000.

This is a great idea. I was planning on incorporating a ball valve above the anti siphon devices so I can shut off the back flow and clean them regularly as well.

 

2) Set things up so that the cost of a failure is low. For example, if your sump overflows onto a concrete garage floor....

 

BINGO

 

3) Pick valves that have a low frequency of failure under your conditions. Rubber can get stiff when cold, and I suspect that a solenoid valve that is energized and open for too long (days or weeks) might be more likely to stick open when the power goes off, instead of springing closed (just guessing).

Any recommendations? I was thinking of going with the the ones that have a floating ball in them that is suspended when the water moves through and closes with back pressure. Or 2 of the flapper valves, or maybe one of each???

 

4) It might make sense to pay extra for the flapper check valves made of clear plastic, so that you can inspect them and see if anything is growing on or lodged in the flapper that might cause an obstruction (I sometimes get little outbreaks of tiny snails, limpets, etc)

Oh yeah, definitely going with clear ones.

 

If your goal is to get more flow near the bottom of your tank, you could safely make the short pipes part of a closed loop.

One of the returns will be on a closed loop that runs to the auto feeder only. The other return will be a return from the sump. I wanted to cut both returns down to the bottom just to make it look cleaner but I could eliminate all the possible flooding/back siphon problems and leave the one return from the sump tall like it is already. Maybe I'll just start that way and see how it looks with one short and one tall, I guess I can always cut it down later and plumb in the anti-siphon valves.

 

Just some thoughts, it case they haven't already occurred to you.

Thanks, you gave me a lot of ideas to work with, I appreciate it Gonna be a busy weekend, hopefully

[AquaticEngineer]

Well I have everything plumbed up and ready except the main return pump. Still waiting on a parts pump I bought off of reef central for that.

 

I managed to plumb in a 3/8 acrylic tank to use as an experimental DSB/ Sea grass bed. Its not super large only about 15 gallons or so, but I left plenty of room to upgrade to a large tank there later

 

I'll try and get pics of everything up today or tomorrow.

[AquaticEngineer]

Yay!!! My parts pump was in the mail yesterday so I managed to get my Little Giant 4-mdqx-sc all together. One more trip to home depot and we should be leak testing the system by later today Hopefully its not to freaking loud, but not a big deal since its in the garage.

[AquaticEngineer]

Day one of leak and plumbing tests completed on the second coldwater system. Addressed all the issues I could without taking another trip to Home Depot. Gotta pick up a few more ball valves and unions to make sure I can do maintenance on the pumps in the future.

 

Also found out the used skimmer I bought for this system leaks and is utter junk, meh, $40 down the drain on that purchase. Got a lead on a much nicer ATB skimmer for a killer price though.

 

Gotta swap out a drainage bulkhead on the seagrass fuge tank but otherwise looks like I should have it up and running full force by this wednesday.

 

Then, there will definitely be a mega picture update before and after my collecting trip this coming weekend, stay tuned

[AquaticEngineer]

Well the second system is running with freshwater right now with no leaks and everything but a skimmer plumbed in. Refrigerated auto feeder works, sump made from cooler doesn't leak and holds enough volume when the pumps are off to not flood, chiller fully functional, waterproof LED's are working like a charm.

 

I have friday off so hopefully I can get water moved from the big system then.

[C-Rad]

Well the second system is running with freshwater right now with no leaks and everything but a skimmer plumbed in. Refrigerated auto feeder works, sump made from cooler doesn't leak and holds enough volume when the pumps are off to not flood, chiller fully functional, waterproof LED's are working like a charm.

 

I have friday off so hopefully I can get water moved from the big system then.

You are driven! Great job. I've been meaning to get around to setting up an automatic feeder for a year, and you're making me feel lazy.