I have fish also and chickens are way easier to take care of
Should I buy eggs or wait it out?
- Thread starter okallthis4eggs
- Start date
I'll tell you a little more shall I?
The display tank is 125 gallons. It's 6 ft long, 18 inches front to back and I think 24 inches tall. It's not that big compared to most of my friends' tanks. There are no heaters or thermometers and anything in it. There is a drain on the back (black box in the pic) through which water drains into the basement. Half of it drains into another 125 gallon tank and before then draining into a 75 gallon stock tank, where the other half from the display went. When it gets to the stock tank, that's where the heaters are and the protein skimmer that is used in place of the sort of filter you are used to seeing on a fish tank. Typically saltwater tanks don't use a "filter" per say. The skimmer makes foam that carries out impurities and removes them from the water. I have to empty that out every few days and it is full of some of the most putrid liquid you can think of. Gross. Then the water is pumped back upstairs via kind of a beast of a pump, it has to be to pump water 13 feet or so up. It is capable of pumping over 2000 gallons per hour when it doesn't have to cope with pumping uphill.
Evaporation is a problem. Tap water would introduce too much phosphate (think of it as fertilizer for algae) to the water and is unusable. I have a reverse osmosis water purification system that produces super pure water which runs through a line along the ceiling of my basement to a 30 gallon barrel where it is held. It takes me all day to fill that barrel with reverse osmosis water because my unit can only make about a gallon an hour of water. I'm not sure how much the new setup evaporates per day but the way I had it before it was plumbed into the basement and was only about 150 gallons evap'd about a gallon per day. I will not be surprised if this evaps 3 gallons per day. All that has to be replaced. As the water evaporates, the salinity in the system goes up. Swings in salinity are not good for the corals or the anenome. The fish are a little more tolerant but it's not good for them either. This water must be replaced by pure FRESH water because as it evaporates, only the water goes, leaving the salt behind. I have a very nice automatic top off unit that can sense even very small fluctuations in the water level and replaces small amounts of water as needed. This keeps the water level extremely stable, thus keeping the salinity stable as well.
The coral and anemone require intense lighting. I have 3 120w LED fixtures that light the tank well and use far less electricity than any other type of lighting I could be using. These are not super sophisticated. There are white bulbs and blue ones, the blue ones come on at noon and shut off at 10 pm. The whites run from 12:30 until 9:30 pm. I'd like to be able to see into the tank before noon but too much light can cause algae outbreaks. No bueno. There are some really fancy lights out there. I don't have those.
All the coral in the pictures you saw are living. They remove calcium and other minerals from the water. These have to be replaced either by water changes or by dosing them. I have 2 dosing pumps that replace calcium and alkalinity every night in several small doses to replace what the corals remove during the day.
All this is connected to that controller I mentioned before. This allows me to monitor and control most of what I have mentioned here remotely. It's saved my butt a time or two when a heater has stopped working. Heaters are stupid and they always break or their cheap internal thermostats break and stick on. My controller senses the temp of the tank and turns the heaters off and on itself. It does a zillion other things....I'm not even using it to its full potential.
There are a couple of nice wavemakers in the display to move the water and simulate a reef environment with fast moving currents and turbulant water flow. The corals need this more than the fish. Most of what I have to do is more for them than the fish. Most fish are far less fussy than some of the more sensitive corals and things that I keep.
Speaking of water changes, next to my 30 gallon top off barrel, there is a 50 gallon barrel which is where I mix my fresh salt water for water changes. Takes me 2 days to fill with my slow RO unit and then another day or so to mix properly. Then I just remove the required amount of water from the tank and pump the new water in. Easy peasy.
Whew!
Way, way way WAAAAY too much money sunk into this.
The display tank is 125 gallons. It's 6 ft long, 18 inches front to back and I think 24 inches tall. It's not that big compared to most of my friends' tanks. There are no heaters or thermometers and anything in it. There is a drain on the back (black box in the pic) through which water drains into the basement. Half of it drains into another 125 gallon tank and before then draining into a 75 gallon stock tank, where the other half from the display went. When it gets to the stock tank, that's where the heaters are and the protein skimmer that is used in place of the sort of filter you are used to seeing on a fish tank. Typically saltwater tanks don't use a "filter" per say. The skimmer makes foam that carries out impurities and removes them from the water. I have to empty that out every few days and it is full of some of the most putrid liquid you can think of. Gross. Then the water is pumped back upstairs via kind of a beast of a pump, it has to be to pump water 13 feet or so up. It is capable of pumping over 2000 gallons per hour when it doesn't have to cope with pumping uphill.
Evaporation is a problem. Tap water would introduce too much phosphate (think of it as fertilizer for algae) to the water and is unusable. I have a reverse osmosis water purification system that produces super pure water which runs through a line along the ceiling of my basement to a 30 gallon barrel where it is held. It takes me all day to fill that barrel with reverse osmosis water because my unit can only make about a gallon an hour of water. I'm not sure how much the new setup evaporates per day but the way I had it before it was plumbed into the basement and was only about 150 gallons evap'd about a gallon per day. I will not be surprised if this evaps 3 gallons per day. All that has to be replaced. As the water evaporates, the salinity in the system goes up. Swings in salinity are not good for the corals or the anenome. The fish are a little more tolerant but it's not good for them either. This water must be replaced by pure FRESH water because as it evaporates, only the water goes, leaving the salt behind. I have a very nice automatic top off unit that can sense even very small fluctuations in the water level and replaces small amounts of water as needed. This keeps the water level extremely stable, thus keeping the salinity stable as well.
The coral and anemone require intense lighting. I have 3 120w LED fixtures that light the tank well and use far less electricity than any other type of lighting I could be using. These are not super sophisticated. There are white bulbs and blue ones, the blue ones come on at noon and shut off at 10 pm. The whites run from 12:30 until 9:30 pm. I'd like to be able to see into the tank before noon but too much light can cause algae outbreaks. No bueno. There are some really fancy lights out there. I don't have those.
All the coral in the pictures you saw are living. They remove calcium and other minerals from the water. These have to be replaced either by water changes or by dosing them. I have 2 dosing pumps that replace calcium and alkalinity every night in several small doses to replace what the corals remove during the day.
All this is connected to that controller I mentioned before. This allows me to monitor and control most of what I have mentioned here remotely. It's saved my butt a time or two when a heater has stopped working. Heaters are stupid and they always break or their cheap internal thermostats break and stick on. My controller senses the temp of the tank and turns the heaters off and on itself. It does a zillion other things....I'm not even using it to its full potential.
There are a couple of nice wavemakers in the display to move the water and simulate a reef environment with fast moving currents and turbulant water flow. The corals need this more than the fish. Most of what I have to do is more for them than the fish. Most fish are far less fussy than some of the more sensitive corals and things that I keep.
Speaking of water changes, next to my 30 gallon top off barrel, there is a 50 gallon barrel which is where I mix my fresh salt water for water changes. Takes me 2 days to fill with my slow RO unit and then another day or so to mix properly. Then I just remove the required amount of water from the tank and pump the new water in. Easy peasy.
Whew!
Way, way way WAAAAY too much money sunk into this.
Lol that was long. I will be shocked if anyone reads that.
- May 10, 2014
- 246
- 32
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Mortie, about your fish habitat: Wow. That is amazing! Waaay too complicated for me. I am proud that I have keep all my chickens alive from chickhood in early May until today. I used to have fish and I still have bad dreams that I go up to my bedroom in my parents house and I am confronted with tank that only has 3 inches of water, so much alge that you can't see through the glass, and I have to clean it. Noooooo! That never happened in real life by the way. And I did read it all. I like a challenge. 
Here are some pics I took. Pardon my dust. I am still working on it.
Here is a picture of the back of the display. It's not a good one. The pipe you can see is where the water is getting pumped in. Right below the edge of the picture would be the drain where it's coming out. Basically, the display is in a constant process of overflowing but the drain whisks the water down to the basement. Before the basement setup was done, I had a smaller tank inside the stand which is where the water would go.
This is the setup in the basement. You can see the white pipes coming from above. The two on the right are the drains, one going into the big glass tank and one going into the black tank on the floor. The one at the back is the water being pumped back upstairs. The big glass tank is meant to house live plants which will absorb nutrients. Purposely growing plants down here is supposed to prevent plants (algae) from growing in the display. It is lit opposite the upstairs tank to keep the ph stable. The light is not in place yet. You can see in the front corner of the tank there is a blob. That's the plants. Notice the two barrels. The white one is the saltwater holding tank and the blue one is for fresh water for top off. When the tank tops itself off, it comes from there. When I do a water change, it comes from the white one.
Here is the inside of the stock tank. That pump is good sized. The drains go into the bucket because as they drain into the tank, there are little bubbles and when they go into the bucket they're forced to the surface as it overflows. Otherwise there would be teeny bubbles that would get pumped back into the main tank and that looks icky. The heaters are in there and the skimmer will be in there when I set it back up.
This is a close up of the automatic top off sensor. There is an electric eye that is difficult to see which senses the water level and tells it when to add water. The white thing is a float switch. If the tank has too much water the float switch goes up and sets off an audible alarm and cuts power to the pump that adds the fresh water. This black tank is the only place in the whole setup where you would ever see a fluctuation in the water level. The water level in the main tank and the glass tank above this one will never change unless the pump gets shut off, then they will drain to the level of the outgoing drains and that is it. As long as the main pump is on, they will always be full.
Here you can see the long stripey arms of my zebra brittle star. He's in the big glass tank in the basement right now. You can also make out the ball of live plant in there.
This is the water purification setup. This is on the other side of the basement. The water from this flows through a tube that goes across the basement to the other side where it can fill the fresh water holding tank and the saltwater mixing tank.
Here is a picture of the back of the display. It's not a good one. The pipe you can see is where the water is getting pumped in. Right below the edge of the picture would be the drain where it's coming out. Basically, the display is in a constant process of overflowing but the drain whisks the water down to the basement. Before the basement setup was done, I had a smaller tank inside the stand which is where the water would go.
This is the setup in the basement. You can see the white pipes coming from above. The two on the right are the drains, one going into the big glass tank and one going into the black tank on the floor. The one at the back is the water being pumped back upstairs. The big glass tank is meant to house live plants which will absorb nutrients. Purposely growing plants down here is supposed to prevent plants (algae) from growing in the display. It is lit opposite the upstairs tank to keep the ph stable. The light is not in place yet. You can see in the front corner of the tank there is a blob. That's the plants. Notice the two barrels. The white one is the saltwater holding tank and the blue one is for fresh water for top off. When the tank tops itself off, it comes from there. When I do a water change, it comes from the white one.
Here is the inside of the stock tank. That pump is good sized. The drains go into the bucket because as they drain into the tank, there are little bubbles and when they go into the bucket they're forced to the surface as it overflows. Otherwise there would be teeny bubbles that would get pumped back into the main tank and that looks icky. The heaters are in there and the skimmer will be in there when I set it back up.
This is a close up of the automatic top off sensor. There is an electric eye that is difficult to see which senses the water level and tells it when to add water. The white thing is a float switch. If the tank has too much water the float switch goes up and sets off an audible alarm and cuts power to the pump that adds the fresh water. This black tank is the only place in the whole setup where you would ever see a fluctuation in the water level. The water level in the main tank and the glass tank above this one will never change unless the pump gets shut off, then they will drain to the level of the outgoing drains and that is it. As long as the main pump is on, they will always be full.
Here you can see the long stripey arms of my zebra brittle star. He's in the big glass tank in the basement right now. You can also make out the ball of live plant in there.
This is the water purification setup. This is on the other side of the basement. The water from this flows through a tube that goes across the basement to the other side where it can fill the fresh water holding tank and the saltwater mixing tank.
Oh and someone asked me about the show Tanked. I've seen the show, and I've met some of the guys on it at a big conference this summer. I can't say I am a fan. I think the show makes it look like you can just fill a tank with water and then (over)stock it with fish right away and everything will be fine. I'm sure there's a lot that goes into their stuff that they don't show. In reality you can't put fish into a new tank like they always appear to do. I would hate for that to lead to a lot of expense, frustration, and loss of marine life for actual people. Who knows what people do I guess. I like some of their tank designs but a lot of them just look terribly difficult to maintain to me. This set up I have is pretty easy, it just looks complicated.
mortie, that's amazing. I knew marine set ups are fragile and fussy, but had no concept of how complex it is. I could teach some chemistry and physics and a bit of marine bio just using your set up! Students would get a lot more out of it than from a book too. I like the idea of the pumps in the basement. Not so noisy upstairs. It's quite a commitment, though, I think. Needs its own babysitter! Conferences and support groups must be really helpful. The fish are cute, especially the white clownfish. I know mostly the Hawaiian reef fish, so it's cool to see other types. Do you go to big aquariums? The one in Monterrey is fantastic, but not for tropical. They have sea otters! We also spend a lot of time at the aquarium on Maui when we're there. Not much else to enjoy in the afternoon when the wind kicks up. Got so the boys were getting to know individual fish in some of the tanks. Steve was a particular favorite. I like the honu (green sea turtles). Liquid eyes. Thanks for sharing.
I would say the sound level is only a little less with the pump down stairs. I can hear it from upstairs as a soft almost buzzing sort of hum when there is nothing going on. From upstairs it's like if you've ever heard a fluorescent light that buzzes a little...it's kinda like that. There are quieter pumps I could get that I wouldn't be able to hear at all from upstairs but when there is activity in the house you can't hear it. i DO wish I couldn't hear the downstairs pump at all. While it's not loud (no one in the house notices but me) I just have this mental block that says "I should not be hearing this it's in the basement for heavens sake!". It's not a big deal though. It's not loud just audible, especially if perfectionist me is listening for it lol.
We love the Monterey Bay aquarium. When we went there last, I did one of the behind the scenes tours which was nice. There is another top ranked aquarium in Chicago but we don't go down there too often.
We love the Monterey Bay aquarium. When we went there last, I did one of the behind the scenes tours which was nice. There is another top ranked aquarium in Chicago but we don't go down there too often.
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Monterrey is my home town. Wow Mortie. That looks like a ton of work. Good job!
We stayed at a horrible motel there last time we went. Horrible.
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