my Mother Colony Grow Out Tank 72"x30"x15"H.
Pics taken of this tank where by Carl Glasser with his dig cam thanks Carl.
I will add the other 13 tanks when people come to visit me if they take pics for me or untill i get my own Dig Cam.
The system was set up in May 2000.
Its been very hard for me in many respects the building up of the SPS
coral propagation system.
I had no support as in financial or free help (SimonH has always been helpful over the years) I had no commercial base so no chance of getting corals at trade prices (no Pet licence only keeping corals which are invertabrates) no donations of corals except a few frags I exchanged to increase my species level.
Not owning a shop I am not known or have a customer base or advertise and not being in bussiness there are many disadvantages.
But My plan was to propagate SPS corals I had problems with the system which took time and money to correct which set me back on the time scale of buying corals so a lot of frags where grown out to stock corals and exchanged frags are kept and grown out as stock corals also the aim is to collect 150 to 200 species of SPS corals.
The propagation system now consists of a 3 tier wooden rack support holding 14 tanks plus a sump tank 36"x30"x30"H which feeds the whole system.
The Top tier has three tanks that measure 72"x30"x15"H two 400w 19"x19" hydroponic reflectors over ( Pro-Ultralite Lighting System ) each tank 6 system in total.
one 48"x30"x15"H one 36"x30"x15"H two 150w twin units over these two tank I may upgrade to 250w over these two tanks sometime in the future.
The first top tank which is 72"x30"x15"H feeds into the first bottom tank which is 72"x30"x18"H which has eggcrate sitting on lengths of 1" dia pipe running from front to back then 4" of crushed coral grain sizes of 2mm to 4mm that sits on top of the eggcrate which has a fine mesh between eggcrate and crushed coral.
The remaining top tanks feed directly back to the sump.
The middle tier has three tanks that measure 72"x30"x15"H one tank has a 3 250w unit over it the other two tanks each have 3 150w over them
one 48"x30"x15"H one 36"x30"x15"H they have 2 150w over each of them.
The first middle tank which is 72"x30"x15"H also feeds into the first bottom tank which is the 72"x30"x18"H plenum.
The remaining middle tanks feed directly back to the sump.
The first bottom tank 72"x30"x18"H (triple 150w unit) plenum feeds into a 48"X30"x18"H (double 150w unit) plenum tank that then feeds into a 72"x30"x18"H (triple 150w unit) plenum tank then that feeds into a 36"x30"x18"H (double 150w unit) plenum tank which then feeds into the sump sump has no lighting.
The top and middle rows of Tanks are fed from the sump by a ITT Marlow JEC series Argonaut 1 speed
J75ec 1 phase pump 0.37kw This pump delivers 8.5 cubm/hr of water against a 10m head, shut off head is 15m and self priming head is 2.6m. This is a very reliable high performance unit suitable for continuous operation in freshwater, marine systems and even some corrosive chemical applications.
A 3 phase 6kw Inline
titanium heater is fitted to the pipework output of the pump.
Lighting over the tanks are all Metal Halides ranging between 400w 250w 150w all the plenum tanks have 150w over them.
The first inline 72"x30"x18"H plenum tank (not mentioned) broke several months ago I will not replace it as it gives me extra space in this cramped garage hopefully it will not have any adverse effects once I have every tank full of sps frags and mother colonys.
The sump holds an deltec AP 703 deltec skimmer that is rated for For Aquariums up to:
Heavy Stocking 2000 Ltrs (uk444 gals)
Normal Stocking 3000 Ltrs (uk667 gals)
This is not in use but there as a back up and used for 24 hours when doing a fragging sesion of a 100+ frags in one go but I only run 2 of the pumps on the skimmer in that situation then after 24 hours its turned off.
Also all the top and middle tanks have an inch depth of very fine sand not all yet as not all tanks have corals in them yet but slowly adding to the rest cost is the reason. plus all these tanks have some rock work at the back and sides that have sand in them.
I find that when I need to start using more tanks I turn the bank of lighting on over those tanks they go through an algae phase and the sand and rocks seem to help give a balance to each tank even though they are on a cetralised system once the infauna and fauna is diverse enough.
Extra pumps are added to tanks once I bring the lights on when I have filled up existing tanks that are lighted ready to stock with more frags.
A large 3 speed industral fan is fitted into the wall that is on a timer (I tried temperture control and humidity controlers but found they did not do a very good job of controling humidity levels)
I have settings for the timer for summer and winter to regulate air temp and humidity levels to my liking also in the summer the fan is set at its lowest setting in winter it is set at the middle level setting.
I have no insulation in the garage and in my situation I think that insulation would have caused more problems.
I upgrade all my electrics (my electrician name of sparky on this board
did a great job)
Very important to have weather proof switches, connections, junction boxes, distribution board covers etc etc.
LOL I am lucky to be alive from when my electrics where not weatherproof.
Just pulling out or pushing in a plug into or out of a socket with damp hands I got electric shocks at times.
And all the water you can splash about when working in the tanks and fragging does not mix with unprotected electrics.
I likely have forgot to mention many things will add later
Martyn
CONGRATS!!!!! THAT IS Awsome
Oh well, It was worth a try, Nice stuff!
