720 Gallon Project Update part Three (Zoanthus Tank)

[blane perun]

720 Gallon Project Update part Three (Zoanthus Tank)

 

This is part of a series covering the trials and tribulations of the home coral farm.

 

My last post covered some more details of setting up my grow systems. This part of the series is dedicated just to one specific tank that is nearly completed.

 

My first goal was to get my Zoanthus / Palythoa tank running correctly prior to others primarily because of my interest in the species. I took a bit to decide on what lighting

Fixture to purchase so there was a bit of a delay.

 

 

Here is a long shot of the tank and the fixture. I have not finished the rip ties on the wiring, not the ballast mount. I ended up going with a VHO fixture with #4 140 watt

URI Bulbs. I chose Actinic White, and The Super Actinic, two of each. I have grow Zoanthus under normal fluorescents, MH (variety of bulbs) and just recently had them under PC’s. Of all I like the look of the VHO’ s and hope I made a solid investment.

I suspended the fixture with steel strand, since the last post I found a cheaper alternative. I was buying green vinyl coated steel strand at .24 cents a foot. I found a prepackaged 50 foot clothesline for 3 bucks, it is a small bit wider in O.D. than the other but in this application id did not make a difference.

 

You can see in addition to the canister filter I have retrofitted a wave pulse to create some additional current. The tank is small so this device seems to work great. I just connected

A small section of PVC on the wave pulse, and connected it directly to a Magdrive 5. I originally planned to use a 9, and the pump was a bit too powerful for the method I used to install the device. I stepped down to a 7, but it seemed too strong as well.

 

 

 

I drilled the side of the tank and mounted the Magdrive with zip ties from the

Base to the side of the tank. The holes in the base needed drilled out slightly. After about one week of operation the pump broke one of the plastic slide rails on the side of the base, and I recently pulled tow ties around the base and the pump seeming to re secure the mount. In operation the movement from the pulser rocked the pump back and forth which obviously led to the break.

 

 

I next moved onto making a stand to hold the shelves for the plugs. I made this from standard PVC. I constructed a rectangle with four legs, leaving enough height for the shelves and head room. I left one end of the stand unsealed, that way I could take it off under water and fill the tubes so the unit will rid itself of air and bubbles in the shafts. This is an important step.

 

 

Lastly I just slid the shelves into the tank on top of the stand. A word about the shelves, I don’t see too many people using them. I actually got the idea from GARF and took it a step further. GARF suggest building step shelves each one wide enough for a row of two of plugs which would step down into the tank. I think these are great for grow out tanks in fact I followed the plans to a tee for my first few grow out systems. Prior to the racks I used Egg Crate, which was quick and a bit less expensive. I was never really crazy about the egg crate because of the difficulty to clean and the numerous surface area they create.

I moved on from the step systems to filling the entire tank and creating a raceway affect for the water, similar to what Dick Perin does at the Tropicorium, on a much smaller scale.

 

 

I eventually moved on to have someone build the shelves for me, because precision required some larger equipment. A guy locally stepped in for the challenge that I met

At PMAS http://www.pmas.org/ a local Pgh Society. The guy I met (Adam) produced the shelves you see here as well as my originals I recently sold. In addition he does allot of custom work. cesnales@earthlink.net. Below is a shot of the pump running along with the Magnum with the freshly installed racks, and one with some Zoanthus ready to go.

 

 

[Inpha]

You have multiple tanks... are they all goin to be for zoos? Looking good... let us know what happens

[blane perun]

6 in all

 

this post is part three of this small scale farm being set up.

If you search around you can find the others if you are interested.

They give the breakdown of what I am doing.

[Fant]

Very nice Blane. I always look forward to your updates. And not being too far away from you (Reading) i look forward to when youll be in business.

[blane perun]

thanks

 

some day

[Dave ESPI]

Just curious as to how you were going to frag them, and provide Calcium and Alk supplementation. I would STRONGLY suggest a few reactors.

 

You are going to need a LOT of baserock for frags to grow onto. the zoos will also doo good if you use nylonmesh for them to grow onto. I had seamat growthat way and I could trim it like a blanket into squares.

[blane perun]

Actually allot of this is up in the air. I had started with a plan, and as time went on (especially at the pace this is moving) everything has deviated from what I had set out to do. After a while I decided instead of spending countless hours planning only to redo and not follow the work, I would just bring one system on line at a time.

 

I can tell you from doing this since around 92’ I have owned almost every piece of hardware you can think of. If you have the December issue of FAMA check out my article on Mult Zone Reef Systems. You can see where this all started. Now I am shooting for simplicity, rather than complexity.

 

I suppose I will learn more as I move along. As far as CA reactors I am selling a

Great 3 month old Koralinn.

[printerdown01]

If you do consider a calcium reactor... and you are as handy as you appear to be (from the pics), you might want to contact 'zumzumn' from this site. He built a pretty sweet calcium reactor (almost finished with it last time I heard -and that was a while ago). He did it for a large set-up at a LFS here in San Diego. Your set-up looks awesome! I can't wait until you start producing some zoos .

[blane perun]

have you thought of a way to tie one reactor into multiple systems?

 

they are all seperate.

[gobies]

Um, send the Ca reactor output into a holding container with multiple outputs -- or maybe something with one output and then an adjustable gang valve?