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Cultivated Reef

310 gallon Coldwater System


AquaticEngineer

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AquaticEngineer
So just a concern. Will the fridge be running all of the time because there is constantly water that is over 38 degrees running through it?

Nope, the outside of the pipe will be the same temp as the fridge. The water will be moving through to fast to effect the temp inside the fridge.

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AquaticEngineer
I want to be able to dose mysis or bloodworms would this be bad for the power head?

 

The pump pushing the water through the system wont come in direct contact with the food until after it is in the tank. The thing to be concerned with when using larger food is how easily it will pass through the tubing of the paristaltic dosing pump.

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So just a concern. Will the fridge be running all of the time because there is constantly water that is over 38 degrees running through it?

Nope, the outside of the pipe will be the same temp as the fridge. The water will be moving through to fast to effect the temp inside the fridge.

Actually that's not correct. The faster the water moves, the faster it delivers heat (via convection) to the pvc pipe, and through it to the fridge (via conduction).

 

If you submerge an ice cube in a bowl of tap water, and at the same time hold another ice cube under the flowing tap (same temperature water) you'll see how much faster heat will move into the ice cube if the water is moving - convection baby. And the faster the water flows, the faster the heat flows.

 

The pvc resists the flow of heat from the water to the air inside the fridge, but not very much because it's a poor insulator, and so the outside of the pvc will only be a little cooler than the water flowing through it (WAG: 3-6 degrees cooler?). The fridge will need to run more to remove all the heat that comes through that pvc pipe, so it would save some unnecessary wear and tear on the fridge if you put some foam pipe insulation around that pipe, inside the fridge.

 

When cold molecules physically touch warmer molecules, the colder ones are warmed (conduction), and the warmer ones are cooled. This effect gets weaker as it ripples through the neighboring molecules (that's insulation). You can think of this as the warm molecules "adding heat" to the colder ones. Convection is a big deal because you are continuously removing the heat depleted, formerly warm, molecules, and replacing them with new ones that are warm, and so can add more heat on top of what was just added by the heat depleted molecule that we just removed.

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AquaticEngineer
Nope, the outside of the pipe will be the same temp as the fridge. The water will be moving through to fast to effect the temp inside the fridge.

 

Actually that's not correct. The faster the water moves, the faster it delivers heat (via convection) to the pvc pipe, and through it to the fridge (via conduction).

 

If you submerge an ice cube in a bowl of tap water, and at the same time hold another ice cube under the flowing tap (same temperature water) you'll see how much faster heat will move into the ice cube if the water is moving - convection baby. And the faster the water flows, the faster the heat flows.

 

The pvc resists the flow of heat from the water to the air inside the fridge, but not very much because it's a poor insulator, and so the outside of the pvc will only be a little cooler than the water flowing through it (WAG: 3-6 degrees cooler?). The fridge will need to run more to remove all the heat that comes through that pvc pipe, so it would save some unnecessary wear and tear on the fridge if you put some foam pipe insulation around that pipe, inside the fridge.

 

When cold molecules physically touch warmer molecules, the colder ones are warmed (conduction), and the warmer ones are cooled. This effect gets weaker as it ripples through the neighboring molecules (that's insulation). You can think of this as the warm molecules "adding heat" to the colder ones. Convection is a big deal because you are continuously removing the heat depleted, formerly warm, molecules, and replacing them with new ones that are warm, and so can add more heat on top of what was just added by the heat depleted molecule that we just removed.

 

Oh. :blush:

 

I had always assumed that less contact time resulted in less heat transfer.

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AquaticEngineer

Just waiting for the concrete to dry, then I'll have a nice level spot in the garage for the tank :D

 

Also got everthing painted and mocked up, also cleaned up the plumbing a little bit. Still gott paint a few pieces but thats it, then water.

 

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AquaticEngineer

Its all up and running, but I still gotta mess with the lighting.

 

Got it hooked into one of the 110 gallon lobster tanks. Selling the other lobster tank on sunday.

 

I was able to use almost every drop of the water from the lobster tank I am selling, so I only had to mix up 90 gallons of new water to go into the tank. Once it was all hooked up there was 220 gallons of cycled water and 90 gallons of new on the 310 gallon combined system.

 

I'll post more pictures of it once I get a chance to go collecting and stock it up a bit ;)

 

IMG_20110929_205654.jpg

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Heres a thread I put up over on Azoox.org for the first auto feeder I built.

http://www.azoox.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=199

I used the same concept on the most recent one since it is the most cost effective design I have found.

 

I noticed that some of the autofeeders people put a venturi fitting inline in the straight pipe inside the fridge, but that you just have the pipe with no venturi. They route the tube from the peristaltic pump into the venturi, so that food is sucked in by the venturi. The idea is that if the tube from the peristaltic pump breaks, air will be sucked into the pipe instead of water being pushed out of the pipe into the tank. The venturi is supposed to be a safety feature to prevent a flood in case the flexible tubing in the peristaltic pump breaks before you replace it. Are you just willing to take a chance, since the tank is in your garage, or is the venturi thing a bocus idea (maybe because the venturi can't defeat the head pressure)? I know that the flexible tubing in the pump has a limited service life, and it would be easy to forget to replace it in time and suffer a break, so a safety device makes sense.

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AquaticEngineer
I noticed that some of the autofeeders people put a venturi fitting inline in the straight pipe inside the fridge, but that you just have the pipe with no venturi.

 

I just put the autofeeders together so I could test them as is, no where locally carrys the 1/2" slip venturis for a resonable price. Found em on ebay for $12 a piece, just gotta get em. I had all the stuff laying around to build these ones so I just put unions inside of the fridge so I could pull out the internal plumbing piece and replace it later with the venturi.

 

Are you just willing to take a chance, since the tank is in your garage, or is the venturi thing a bocus idea (maybe because the venturi can't defeat the head pressure)? I know that the flexible tubing in the pump has a limited service life, and it would be easy to forget to replace it in time and suffer a break, so a safety device makes sense.

 

Venturis are a very good safety feature on these, I would recommend using them on any auto feeder for sure.

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AquaticEngineer

Got to go night collecting last night :D

 

Found some really cool shrimp, and a bunch of the usual suspects as well.

 

My buddy got a really cool saddleback gunnel, and I was able to collect some HUGE green anemones as well as a nice large piece of stalked kelp to try out. One of the anemones was bigger than both my fists when it was closed up, its gotta be at least 10" across when it opens up :D

 

One shrimp in particular is just awesome, I'll try and snap some pics of him in the tank today.

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AquaticEngineer
Sweet! It is going to look awesome!

 

Yeah I am pretty stoked on the number of green anemones I have so far, I still want more though :D

 

I just added sand into the tank this morning and it looks way better with substrate in there. Its really cool watching the sand burrowing shrimp I collected last night move around in the tank. I must have grabbed 50 or more of them at least, and they will dart around the tank and then burrow down into the sand and dissapear. B)

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AquaticEngineer

I'll get a video posted up here shortly, its hard to take photos of it right now since its dimly light in the cave/cliff portion of the tank and I still need to buff out some scratches on the outside front panel.

 

I did manage to get all the fish and inverts moved over with the exception of several fist sized barnalce clusters covered in corynactis.

 

Its amazing the stuff you find when you strip down a couple tanks, I found a 8" Rock Prickleback down in the filter :o

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AquaticEngineer

Got all the fish and inverts moved over to the 200 gallon from the 110's.

 

Did a little aquascaping, but really all there is left to do is paint the back of the tank ( I know I should have done it before I filled it, but I wanted to see what it looked like clear first, lol) and place a few more barnacles with corynactis on them that I have still in the lobster tank. I think I may add more sand to the left side.

 

Photo and a quick shotty video I took.

 

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VIDEO:

http://s246.photobucket.com/albums/gg100/S...ober4th2011.mp4

th_200gallontankoctober4th2011.jpg

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AquaticEngineer
This tank is amazing. Nice work!

 

 

My gosh that's awesome! :angry:

 

:jealous:

 

 

Awesommmmme!

 

Thanks guys :D

 

Now that this tank is up and running, I get to start working on my nano tank for inside the house hopefully. It's 18"x26"x18" tank made of 1" acrylic. I have everything to get it going but the stand, and the time to do it, :lol:

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I was able to collect some HUGE green anemones ... One of the anemones was bigger than both my fists when it was closed up, its gotta be at least 10" across when it opens up :D

What tools and/or methods do you use to get an anemone off of a rock?

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