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Coral growth science project planning


fishfreak0114

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Hey NR!

According to my science teacher the BC curriculum has changed and it allows us to do a semester long project. So naturally I want to do something with coral for mine! :P I've already got the ok from him, so now I need your guys' help to figure out how to do it on the cheap. I might be able to mooch some money off my parents, and the school may reimburse part, but other than that, I'll be buying and asking for donations on my local reefer FB group. Because I'm buying equipment, I'll probably get stuff that I want for a future build instead of something I'll never ever use. So far this is what I've thought of:

 

Equipment

 

- 10-15 gallon aquarium

- Heater, likely a jäger trutemp 50w if I buy it

- Aquaclear filter, a 30 if I'm buying

- A small powerhead (don't care what as long as it cheap)

- Lights....that's where I'm really hung up. I want to test how different spectrums affect growth rates. If I have a 10 gallon tank divided in two, each light only needs to illuminate 5 gallons. For softies, would these lights suffice? I'm thinking not? Does anyone have other suggestions? Unfortunately, I don't have time to order anything from China.

 

http://m.ebay.ca/itm/Aquarium-Fish-Tank-WHITE-6500K-Lighting-LED-Strip-100-Lumens-Ft-Salt-Water-Reef-/270975018457?nav=SEARCH

 

http://m.ebay.ca/itm/Salt-Water-Aquarium-Reef-440-nm-Actinic-BLUE-Light-LED-Strip-250-Lumens-Ft-Moon-/280905564366?nav=SEARCH

 

I was thinking that double stacked egg crate on the bottom of the tank would work well to hold plugs upright. The divider would sit on top of the egg crate, and I could clip a bit off egg crate away from underneath to allow more flow.

 

For maintenance, I was thinking small wc's twice per week (like a cup or two each time), and running floss, carbon and phosguard in the HOB. Light feeding, enough to get nitrates and phosphates for softies though.

 

I could pick up live/base rock whenever and start cycling it in a bucket at home.

 

Does that sound like a viable setup?

 

For coral, I would only do softies that grow at a decent rate. Perhaps:

 

-GSP (from my tank)

-Zoas (sunny d's, alpha omega, radioactive dragon eyes from my tank)

-Small toadstools (I know a place that sells babies for $15, I've wanted to buy some for a while anyways)

-finger leather (there's a guy who gives it away for free not too far away)

-colt coral (can get a fairly big one for $20 and split it)

-and anything else I can get my hands on :)

 

I'll probably be posting again pretty soon because I'm sure I forgot something.

 

Thanks for the help! :)

-Olivia

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I'm pretty excited to :) My teacher seemed happy that I wanted to do something "out there".

 

I was just thinking, if those lights are weak but could sustain coral in a shallow tank, I could stack a sh*t ton of egg crate and make the tank shallow?

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Perhaps I could contact one of the sellers that ship out of China and ask for faster shipping? My ideal light would be par30's or 38's. There are some for cheap but there estimated arrival is at latest middle of November :(

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Thanks boggers. Any chance ou could give me a link to one of those US sellers? Conversion sucks, but if it gets here quicker...I have only seen bulbs shipping from China so far, I'm trying to keep the light cost under $100

 

Would the original lights I posted work if the corals were only a couple inches below the waters surface? I could make a DIY frag rack to elevate them.

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How about these two?

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/374355-par38-bulb-aquaclear-110-ati-dimmable-4x24-jbj-nano-glo/

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/376755-par36-bulb/

 

 

As for the online strip light, it is hard to say. They give 5.5 Lumes but not watts, Par, or anything useful to say how powerful they really are. Watts would be the bare min I would need to know for sure.

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I was thinking I could get half the diodes one color (420nm) and half something more like 660nm. Mount the diodes in u channel and put that across the tank. So 3 LED's per side.

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I was thinking, and I realized that I needed a control. How did I forget that?!

 

So this was my new possible design. 2 LED's/section. Probably slightly less variety with the coral, I'd need 3 of each now.

 

image_zpsi97ncpok.jpeg

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So, if I was going to do this I would want consider a few things. First, I think that it is absolutely necessary to use the same water. This may complicate your plan as it's hard to make a divider that would not allow light to pass. Second, you absolutely need to be sure that you are not allowing light to spill from one side of the tank to the other. Third, I think this would work best if you select coral that you are able to propagate yourself. If you buy two softcoral of the same type, there is no way to know if accelerated growth rate is due to the light or simply superior genetic makeup.

 

You can make up a LED array on your own fairly easily. I don't know your age or capability in electronics so it is hard to know how to advise you here. I would certainly like to help out because I think this can be a great project and that people on here would be interested in the results.

 

As a fellow Canadian I feel your pain. It can be expensive to get LEDs in a timely manner. What are your plans for the spectrum of each side?

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You want the water, flow, and light intensity to be the same too (all you want different is spectrum). Maybe use the same bulb or kit with different LEDs (like all cool white, all royal blue, ...)

 

For each spectrum, I suggest using a five gallon bucket with Uniseal gaskets for overflows and returns, going down into your 10 gallon tank as a sump. The sump will contain rock (or bioballs), a heater, and small return pumps.

 

I wouldn't use a filter. I probably wouldn't feed either (making the coral rely more on light than food for growth). But you could use water from your current tank to provide nutrients.

 

To keep cost down, you could use just two buckets. The control being the cool white LED bucket, and the test bucket being another spectrum. But it might be neat to use additional spectrums (buckets).

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pappadumplingz

Thought of doing something like this for my SRP, but I wouldn't have had the time to see noticeable affects on the coral. A semester should give you enough time. What are you planning on doing as a research question?

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So, if I was going to do this I would want consider a few things. First, I think that it is absolutely necessary to use the same water. This may complicate your plan as it's hard to make a divider that would not allow light to pass. Second, you absolutely need to be sure that you are not allowing light to spill from one side of the tank to the other. Third, I think this would work best if you select coral that you are able to propagate yourself. If you buy two softcoral of the same type, there is no way to know if accelerated growth rate is due to the light or simply superior genetic makeup.

 

You can make up a LED array on your own fairly easily. I don't know your age or capability in electronics so it is hard to know how to advise you here. I would certainly like to help out because I think this can be a great project and that people on here would be interested in the results.

 

As a fellow Canadian I feel your pain. It can be expensive to get LEDs in a timely manner. What are your plans for the spectrum of each side?

I totally agree with needing the same water, my mom said she thinks she knows how we can make an opaque divider. I think we could also glue epoxy to a not opaque divider too if her idea doesn't work.

 

For coral, I was planning on doing most from my tank, and the place that sells little toadstools frags them all from their giant toadstool so they are genetically the same The place that sells colt coral sells such huge chunks that I could make three decent sized frags from one piece.

 

I'm 15, and I'm not iI great with electrical stuff. It took me most of the day to install a nanobox retro kit (I just had to strip the hood and screw in the new lights). I think the rapidled solder less non dimmable 6 LED kit could work, I could get two 440nm, two 660nm and two white. What white would be the best for the control? It doesn't look impossible to put together either. I'm going to email rapidled today with a couple questions.

You want the water, flow, and light intensity to be the same too (all you want different is spectrum). Maybe use the same bulb or kit with different LEDs (like all cool white, all royal blue, ...)

 

For each spectrum, I suggest using a five gallon bucket with Uniseal gaskets for overflows and returns, going down into your 10 gallon tank as a sump. The sump will contain rock (or bioballs), a heater, and small return pumps.

 

I wouldn't use a filter. I probably wouldn't feed either (making the coral rely more on light than food for growth). But you could use water from your current tank to provide nutrients.

 

To keep cost down, you could use just two buckets. The control being the cool white LED bucket, and the test bucket being another spectrum. But it might be neat to use additional spectrums (buckets).

When I told my mom your design plan, she gave me that "no way" look :( so it seems I'm stuck with the 10 gallon tank idea. I should also mention that I'm setting this up in a mostly chemistry classroom, so I feel that carbon is important. But I could just put a passive bag in, and not use a filter. What if I put two powerheads in, one on each end of the tank facing each other? And I realized that I have a heater I can use. That's a good idea using my tanks water, I'll do that then and not feed.

Thought of doing something like this for my SRP, but I wouldn't have had the time to see noticeable affects on the coral. A semester should give you enough time. What are you planning on doing as a research question?

I'm still working on exactly what I would like that to be. We pose all our questions as if/then statements, so it could be something like "If the corals are grown under 420nm light, then they will grow more than coral under 660nm light."

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You can get par38's from rapid led which are available with 2 different spectrums.

Reefsupplies in Cda sells them. They ship very quickly too.

 

There is also another par38 available at fragtank.

 

Other than that you have Coral Compulsion but thats US and you're looking at customs and brokerage fees.

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The light divider will block flow, so you'll end up needing a powerhead in each section to get similar flow. I would also paint the tank so that you are limiting outside light from affecting the spectrum and results.

 

When I told my mom your design plan, she gave me that "no way" look :( so it seems I'm stuck with the 10 gallon tank idea.

What bothered her, the idea of a sump? You could do it without the sump by using large Uniseal bulkheads to allow water to pass between the buckets. Each bucket would use a small powerhead (like a MJ400) for flow.

 

post-3692-0-12799600-1474561743_thumb.jpg

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You can get par38's from rapid led which are available with 2 different spectrums.

Reefsupplies in Cda sells them. They ship very quickly too.

 

There is also another par38 available at fragtank.

 

Other than that you have Coral Compulsion but thats US and you're looking at customs and brokerage fees.

Thank for the suggestion, I'll check them out. I think I'm going to go with the rapidled kit I've been looking at.

The light divider will block flow, so you'll end up needing a powerhead in each section to get similar flow. I would also paint the tank so that you are limiting outside light from affecting the spectrum and results.

 

What bothered her, the idea of a sump? You could do it without the sump by using large Uniseal bulkheads to allow water to pass between the buckets. Each bucket would use a small powerhead (like a MJ400) for flow.

 

I think it was the sump part she didn't like. I'll propose this one to her. Thanks for the image also, it should make explaining it easier :) How do you drill a bucket? I could probably link two or three.
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You would still need to provide a complete spectrum to sustain the coral. I don't think coral would do especially well just under a red light vs blue light though I might be misunderstanding you.

 

Also, I was thinking about this on my way to work today. What if you were to look at two complete spectrum designs - one designed for making coral look the best verses one designed for growth specifically.

 

I think if you use black buckets connected to the same water supply like Seabass said, you can make this fairly inexpensively. There will be some money out for sure since you will need some cheap pumps, some plumbing parts and the LEDs. Plastic buckets are simple to drill and it could be done with a regular hole saw in a regular drill. You could get something like a black five gallon bucket easily for under ten dollars.You may also be able to use thick walled Rubbermaid bins.

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Yeah, a standard hole saw that connects to a drill works fine.
holesaw%20(Custom).JPG
Here are the Uniseal bulkheads.

  • The 1" bulkhead uses 1" PVC pipe and requires a 1 ¾” or 44mm holesaw
  • The 1½” bulkhead uses a 1½” PVC pipe and requires a 2½” or 64mm holesaw

In theory, you could connect as many buckets as you can afford, or have room for.

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All blue light works, all white works, but all red will be bad IMO. As red does not penetrate the water very far.

 

The flow will be the hardest to keep constant without placing each in own area without own powerhead.

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