Garage Refugium update

rayray · Jul 1, 2011

Its halfway setup...

thanks to everyone's great suggestions! this is going to make it easier to maintain, which is good because I neglect the tank for weeks...

Floor epoxy dry, 2x 20amp lines installed, sink plumbed, walls insulated...

IM KICKING THE BUCKET !!! No more buckets or trash cans for water changes. Just turn a few valves, flip some switches (on my reefkeeper) and water changes are done. No more hearing... "OMG, you're cleaning that next to my dishes !!!"

90 gallon low maintenance fuge, 6 inch deep sandbed... cycling. Im going to use a horticulture triband LED grow light for my macro, on revserse daylight cycle. Controlled by my old reefkeeper 2.

Fuge has its own chiller closed loop.

1.5 inch thick styrofoam keeps it 77'F when the rest of the garage is 98'F

two 65 gallon drums for salt mixing, little giant mixing pumps also controlled by the RK2

mixing tank monitor: pH, temp, conductivity

filtration moved out too... 12 inch diameter skimmer with autocleaning head, ozone system, 57w UV...

still lots to be done...

MARLANDO · Jul 1, 2011

Looking Good !

Tangwich · Jul 1, 2011

wow, very nice...talk about making things a lot easier for maintenance..
just curious, why 2 chillers? 1 for the dt and 1 for the fuge?

lurking · Jul 1, 2011

Very nice. I am also curious why the 2 chillers as well. How long untill you think you will be up and running?

rayray · Jul 1, 2011

everything is plumbed together but can also be isolated. the fuge is being run closed off from the main system so it needs its own chiller. when i open it to the main system I might turn off the 2nd chiller, but if I decide to use it to QT stuff, Ill need it isolated again.

The salt water mixing tank can also be isolated or opened up to circulate with everything else.

also, the way the electrical is done, the fuge subsystem and water mixing station is on its own line.

the big chiller and filtration are controled by the main neptune apex. a lot of disasters have happened because someone connected everything to 1 controller and it failed.

rayray · Jul 1, 2011

L.L. Cool Reefs said:

yep, IMO if you want to be in the reef game for more than a few years, maintenance has to be pain-free.

Ive had so many friends spend $10k+ on awesome tanks that were a nightmare to maintain... it just takes a difficult-to-remove skimmer cup, undersized filter sock or rockwork that prevented glass cleaning... then when their favorite coral or fish died... full tank setup on craigslist for sale.

aznpg · Jul 2, 2011

very nice setup man can't wait to see it finished

TypicalWhiteAZN · Jul 2, 2011

sweet jesus this is awesome

wickedfish · Jul 2, 2011

I love it! If I had a sink I would be the happiest man on earth. Auto WC that's my wet dream in my life right now, yes sad, but true.

Totally genius to separate the two if need be for quarantine.

rayray · Jul 2, 2011

guess whats in that freezer next to the sink ????

wickedfish · Jul 2, 2011

Your Ex Boss in sections???

Tangwich · Jul 2, 2011

rayray said:

soooooooo true...you sir are a genius...:first:
I set up my current tank using everything I have learned from the previous 5 tanks and easy maintenance was the number 1 thing that I factored in. This tank has practically run itself with the exception of water changes. Makes life and this hobby so much easier when you do things right the first time.

rayray · Jul 2, 2011

wickedfish said:

I finished feeding him to my FOWLR Dec 21, 2009. Talk about a varied diet...

LOL j/k im my own boss, but really whats inside....

taadaaaa:congrats:
what the fishies like best & what big daddy likes best,
your guess as to which likes which best hehe

aint life swell !!! :man_in_love:

rayray · Jul 2, 2011

BTW, I dont own an LFS or have ties to one...

I just buy lotsa stuff when its on sale and nothing I have (except livestock) is all that exotic...

lowbudget · Jul 3, 2011

those coronas look cold

rayray · Jul 9, 2011

just ordered lights for the macroalgea fuge...went with these triband growlights.

I hope to grow different species of macro so fast i wont need the monster skimmer. because I'm a HEAVY feeder of the fishes and coral .

120W x2 maybe overkill, but saltwater dissipates red light so quickly im concerned it wont reach the 24 inch bottom of the fuge tank. heat from the light will not be an issue.

Im also dribbling in my calcium reactor efflent through the fuge. The CO2 will be used there so it doesnt drop the DT pH, but also it should grow lotsa phytoplankton with these lights!

now I just have to convince my neighbors im not growing anything else in the garage...

gumbii · Jul 9, 2011

saltwater doesn't dissipate the red light, it just becomes invisible... but it's there... or else, why would there be red corals...? red just reflects the light back into our eyes... everything in our reef tank needs red light...

good choice on that triband... although, not sure if the orange would work as well as just red with some blue... they don't use orange LED's for horticulture... but it couldn't hurt it IMO...

good stuff kid...

rayray · Jul 9, 2011

gumbii said:

that makes no sense at all...

or did I cheat my way through General Physics 7A,7B at UC Berkeley with those Nobel Prize laureates?

1. you are confusing snell's law, or scattering of white light with absorption and penetration of different wavelenghts.
2. red light becomes fully absorbed by water and salt molecules and turns into heat energy.
3. corals that are found above 10 meters have evolved to use red, and all the other colors in white light because it is available. Below 10 meters there is no red light in the ocean, so the coral have evolved to use the only available light, which is blue light.
4. that is why when LED manufacturers say that all you need is blue to grow most deeper water coral, they are CORRECT.
5. corals can look almost any color we want depending on the light we are seeing them in or photographing them in. We tend to see coral on the surface of the earth, with is bathed in white light or via flash photography which uses white light. again white light has a lot of red wavelength in it.
6. why your eyes and brain see red light... is another smarty pants lecture way beyond the scope of this website...

visit the website below, take the test at the end, then stop spreading this non-sense on socalireefs.

http://www.punaridge.org/doc/factoids/Light/Default.htm

gumbii · Jul 9, 2011

rayray said:

you're talking about 24" of water... not the depths of the ocean... aquatic horticulturist use seeds submerged in a foot of water with nothing but red LED's to start germination... unless you're trying to make your own ocean of inhabitants and planet or something... who the hell cares about any laws and physics... HAHAHAHAHA... it's a freaken refugium... i said it will work, and it is... because everyone that grows hydro and does deep water cloning knows that red light will pass through water... saltwater, freshwater, RO/DI whatever...

you're trying to grow plants in a tank... you're not reinventing the wheel here... you're doing just a small part of what other real hobbyist do...

HAHAHAHHAHA...

rayray · Jul 9, 2011

kid, this thread is about my setup, not about what little you actually know.

your posts over and over show the limitation of what an internet connection can do. it cannot makie up for inexperience, lack of formal education or immaturity.

what you read about, I am actually doing. like with all the other people you badmouth, there are bigger and better DTs, setups or refugiums or anything, but yours isnt one of them.

in this case, you may have read about using red LEDs to grow aquatic plants, but you didnt understand what you read. the laws of physics still apply even if you dont/cant understand them.

if you have a physics question, PM me. Do not overpost on my thread, PLEASE.

Garage Refugium update

Member

2

2

2

Member

Member

2

Member

New member

Member

New member

2

Member

Member

Premium Member

Member

2

Member

2

Member