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7.2g Cold Water Reef Build


Tamberav

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Micro-Reefs Aquariums

HEADS UP!

 

MOVING FORWARD ALL 7.2 TEMPERATE SYSTEMS ARE SPORTING OUT THE LOCLINE SLIP TO THREAD BULKHEAD WITH THREADED ADAPTER AND NOZZLE RETURN, FOR FREE!

 

SUPERIOR TO CHEAP IMITATIONS!

 

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Micro-Reefs Aquariums

With each order you can ask for 1/2 OD or 3/4 OD for your chiller hoses. I drill them for you and send you the correct elbows. All you do is plug and reef! :)

 

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  • 1 month later...

Hey everyone! I have been really busy and not posting too much. All of my threads need an update, doh! I promise I'll get to it after the holidays.

 

The tank is still running smooth. I found a baby chitin hitchhiker that comes out at night, pretty cool. The shrimp has grown and is as big as the sculpin now.

 

I want to purchase some more livestock but spent my funds on my husband for xmas this year. I always spend $ on aquarium stuff and he doesn't ever buy himself anything so I decided to get him some spendy presents this year. He is very understanding about this hobby and I feel lucky so it was time to treat him :)

 

Hope you all are having a great holiday!

  • Like 2
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Micro-Reefs Aquariums

Great to know your cold water system is still evolving.

 

I spent Xmas on the Queen Mary and and did a double tour whale watching and Aquarijm of the Pacific.

 

We were welcomed by a pod of transient Orcas that came right up to our ship.

 

I have the video in HD and I will post it soon.

 

Also got some incredible video of cold water critters in the Aquarium.

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Micro-Reefs Aquariums

I cant wait for the updates on all your tanks Tamb =)

 

You should definitely post that video Mike, orcas are my favorite animals

 

I will,,,, just that I have been finishing up some builds that need to go out this week...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey all! Everything is going good here, just really busy with school and family stuff.

 

Just wanted to pop in to say I ordered a new fish for this tank! I absolutely love fang blennys and my eyes almost popped out of my head when I found out this one was appropriate for a temperate tank. It is a ORA captive bred Kamohara Blenny!

 

Here is a google image for anyone who hasn't heard of this fish... its pretty new here in the US!

 

"The Kamohara Fang Blenny is temperate species, naturally experiencing temperature fluctuations from 60-80 degrees each year. We have successfully spawned and raised this fish in tropical temperatures that exceed 80 degrees. Their tolerance for a wide variety of temperature ranges makes them suitable for both the typical marine aquarium and temperate tanks that are growing in popularity."

 

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  • Like 9
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Hey all! Everything is going good here, just really busy with school and family stuff.

 

Just wanted to pop in to say I ordered a new fish for this tank! I absolutely love fang blennys and my eyes almost popped out of my head when I found out this one was appropriate for a temperate tank. It is a ORA captive bred Kamohara Blenny!

 

Here is a google image for anyone who hasn't heard of this fish... its pretty new here in the US!

 

"The Kamohara Fang Blenny is temperate species, naturally experiencing temperature fluctuations from 60-80 degrees each year. We have successfully spawned and raised this fish in tropical temperatures that exceed 80 degrees. Their tolerance for a wide variety of temperature ranges makes them suitable for both the typical marine aquarium and temperate tanks that are growing in popularity."

 

11450325175_103fa6215f_z.jpg

 

Oh, Tam! That's such a stunning fish! :D

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Fish came today! He/she is tiny! Just over an inch. Right now I have the blenny in a 5g QT tank that I am keeping unheated in order to get it used to cooler temps. Meanwhile I am going to slowly raise the temp on my 7g temperate to 60-65ish. Acclimate the fish, and over a period of a week or two, slowly drop the temp back down and see how the fish does.

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Tank is 65 atm, slowly dropping it. Here is a video of the new blenny.... forgive the water spots and rocket ship thermometer.... Will remove it once I get the temp back to 55.

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Tank is now dropped to around 58 and the blenny is doing fine. He is still a bit skittish/shy and prefers to hide in his barnacle when he sees me coming.

 

 

You should get one of their Japanese white spotted filefish also ;)

 

Time to do some research :)

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Belac, what is average temperature and humidity inside the room you'd keep a coldwater tank? Also, whats the highest the temp/humidity get in that room?

 

Once you have those numbers you can accurately predict when and if you will ever develop condensation on your tank using this website: www.dpcalc.org

 

1/2" acrylic is as thin as I would ever go on a coldwater system, anything thinner and you run into condensation issues on moderately humid days and your chiller will be running a lot. You can count on the 1/2" acrylic giving you about a 5 degree thermal barrier between the temperate on the outside of of the acrylic versus what you run the water temperature at. So if you plan on running the tank at like 57F then the temperature of the outside surface of your acrylic would be about 63F.

 

So at that temp you would need to have the following environmental conditions to develop condensation on your tank:

 

AIR TEMP...........HUMIDITY

70F.......................78%

80F.......................54%

90F.......................41%

100F.....................29%

 

These numbers will change a bit if you run your tank colder or warmer. I figured these all off of my own 7.2gallon tank using an infrared thermometer to measure the temp of the outside acrylic versus the inside water while measuring the air temp and humidity then plugging them all into the dew point calculator.

 

Right now my chiller which is a 1/13HP (200 watts)compressor chiller runs for about 5 minutes every 45-60 minutes, so about 60hrs of use in a month costs me $1.32 a month in electricty. So about $16 a year in chilling on average. Then compare the cost of a 200 watt powerhead pump running 24 hrs a day for a month (720 hrs) which ends up costing you the same per month to run that powerhead as it does to run a small chiller for the entire year :)

 

The more you spend on acrylic when purchasing your tank, the less you spend on chilling in the end, albeit a very little amount in savings when running a nano. If I was to go with a 1" thick tank the same size as my existing one it would only save me about .65 cents a month in chilling (not worth it IMO) but it would decrease my chances of condensation issues by 50%.

 

But to come full circle in my thought (lol) 1/2" acrylic was the thickness that was found to be the most cost effective while still providing enough thermal barrier to be effective. Thicker is always better, but always more expensive initially..

I was in the process of moving and getting settled into an apartment I am back from my hiatus. Yeah I know the thicker I go the better the insulation and 1/2 is a min honestly would probably go thicker.

I probably will just end up buying it one pane at a time as I can afford it.

 

Hey everyone! I have been really busy and not posting too much. All of my threads need an update, doh! I promise I'll get to it after the holidays.

 

The tank is still running smooth. I found a baby chitin hitchhiker that comes out at night, pretty cool. The shrimp has grown and is as big as the sculpin now.

 

I want to purchase some more livestock but spent my funds on my husband for xmas this year. I always spend $ on aquarium stuff and he doesn't ever buy himself anything so I decided to get him some spendy presents this year. He is very understanding about this hobby and I feel lucky so it was time to treat him :)

 

Hope you all are having a great holiday!

I don't know how longer I will be at my current petshop job. But if there is ever any thing odd you need cold water hit me up I may be able to find it. Our whole seller gets some of the strangest things on occasion. (As an example we even ordered in some electric catfish the other week, would have got an electric eel but its against the law in Oklahoma.)

 

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Your new blenny is adorable. Such a pretty fish! I am very glad to see video footage of it; I haven't heard much about Meiacanthus kamoharai yet, even though ORA has been selling them for several weeks, now.

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  • 2 months later...

Love the setup even though my info on cold water tanks is lacking, hopefully this question won't sound stupid. Has anyone ever done a zero edge coldwater tank? It would get rid of the condensation problem I would think. But these do seem to run a top on them yes so would prob lose too much cold with an open top I am guessing? Was just a random idea I had...

  • Like 2
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Love the setup even though my info on cold water tanks is lacking, hopefully this question won't sound stupid. Has anyone ever done a zero edge coldwater tank? It would get rid of the condensation problem I would think. But these do seem to run a top on them yes so would prob lose too much cold with an open top I am guessing? Was just a random idea I had...

 

I think you would need a bigger chiller but it would work if you could keep it cold.

 

I'm pretty sure Stu tried one a few years back.

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Everything arrived in great shape! I ordered 1 jewel nem but I got way more! More like a small colony! Stu rocks :D

 

I will get pics once everything is settled, these nem's have an insane glow. So much, I am going to buy some actinic moonlights for evening. They put my rainbow BTA to shame!!!

 

I gave everything a good cleaning and I guess I got the pump/chiller running too good because the tank got down to 48 today... had to bump it up a notch. Hard to believe a chiller the size of my hand can keep it so cold.

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My wallet will likely be empty soon either way.

 

I just got lots of motivation from my fiance's dad to move to an apt finally. He's gonna give me his big tank when we move. That sucker is somewhere between 90 and 120 gallon class. Thinking of making it into a super frag tank.

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AquaticEngineer

Hey Tana! Glad everything is looking well. Thought you might like a few bonus jewels ;) You always take such nice macro photos of your tank I couldn't resist sending you the extras :)

 

Looking forward to the pic updates! Share em on our FB page and group as well, I'm sure people would love to see them!

 

 

Love the setup even though my info on cold water tanks is lacking, hopefully this question won't sound stupid. Has anyone ever done a zero edge coldwater tank? It would get rid of the condensation problem I would think. But these do seem to run a top on them yes so would prob lose too much cold with an open top I am guessing? Was just a random idea I had...

It would actually be a very awesome coldwater tank idea :) Chiller may work a bit little bit harder with that much air contact, but 100% no worry on condensation, and evap would be 1000 times less than running a tropical zero edge tank since the water temp would be below room temp.

 

I tried to build a small one, but failed with my acrylic skills :( Couldn't get the top edges correct to flow evenly. Only thing keeping me from doing one is the cost :)

 

 

Also these are cool! http://teespring.com/stores/coldwater-marine-aquatics

 

I grabbed a T and a Hoodie!

 

Thanks for supporting the coldwater swag :) I just made up a new variant today and added womens tank tops in light blue to the available options :) If you look close you can see I managed to sneak an anemone into the aquarium on this one, lol.

http://teespring.com/Coldwater6#pid=338&cid=6336&sid=front

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  • Tamberav changed the title to 7.2g Cold Water Reef Build

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