Mailing List: freeside-aquaria (google groups)
We're putting some saltwater tanks in the chill space. Goals:- Build out several salt/live coral tanks in the chill space.
- Automate to the extent possible. Eventual goal: 2-weeks between necessary visits.
- Utilize technology and creativity to push the bounds of what has been done before.
- Prevent loss of expensive things such as fish and coral by actively managing ecosystem health (quarantine, monitoring, etc...)
- Reduce external influence on the ecosystem (dust, fumes, visitors)
- Provide unprecedented levels of monitoring and remote management to allow a large group to assist in identifying problems/ideas (this is the entire Internet's fish tank!).
Planning Sections:
Resources:
--All assumed as donated/owned by Freeside unless marked--
Tanks:
- 2x50-gallon rectangular (kive-2 -- loan)
- 1x55-gallon hex (kive-1 -- loan)
- 2x10-gallon rectangular (kive-1, tronik-1)
Water-Moving Hardware:
Air-Moving Hardware:
- 1x20g-rated water pump for a few quarantine tanks (kive-1 -- loan)
Filtering Hardware:
Electronics Hardware:
- 1xArduino Duemilanove (ATMega328) w/ wired Ethernet board and Proto board (kive-1 -- loan)
Mini-Projects (stuff that can happen now/soon):
"Aqua-Carpentry":
- Build stands for tanks (50/55s) [need to design space layout and requirements (integration) first.]
- Minor tank repair (one of the 50/55s needs some acrylic repair)
- Run water and drain lines from kitchen or bath [where TBD]
- Run power (grounded is critical) [where TBD]
Electronics:
- We should start collecting data on temperature in chill space, warehouse, and outside. [outside can be scraped]
- Investigate effectiveness and estimated cost for LED lighting suitable for salt/coral (as compared to metal halide, etc...).
Health Management:
- Get quarantine tanks up and running [2x10, shared water and air for the time being is fine, we can also use this for taking on any "free" fish that we want to have in the environment]
Ideas (brainstorm here):
- Duckie mentioned fishie-cams were necessary. Robotic might be nifty. :)
Scavenger Wishlist:
- 100-gallon+ tank(s) [free/cheap -- should require minimal/no repair]
- 6' sturdy shelf suitable for holding 10-gallon quarantine tanks [should be deep -- tanks will have the long axis going front to back]
- Decent RO system [specs TBD]
- Unused aquarium tubing/hardware
- Large water pump [specs TBD]
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This is a great starting point. When comparing halides to LEDs, I've done some research and from a cost standpoint it loses big time. It can also be pretty time consuming. The nice things about LEDs are the life span, the amazing control you have over the light spectrum (you can get different LEDs at different colors), dimming capability (night mode that has a moon effect), and also programming clouds into the lights so it takes on a natural look. Also, for the brightest part of the day you would probably still want to have a couple smaller halides for the ripple effect on the bottom of the tank. Like I said, I always dreamed of this but never had the technical ability to make it happen. Halides will do for getting a tank setup. Still with a DIY config you are still going to be running around $600 on the low end.
Greg -- is $600 your estimate of just the DIY LED system, or is it a total setup estimate?
If that's just for the LED assembly, I might have to look at what wholesale prices would be like. We should get Sparr or someone involved to take a closer look at what would be involved in building and controlling such a thing.
Imo, if we want to go that route, it's a pretty compelling case for going with a single tank rather than the 3-tank approach.
$600 for a DIY or bought Halide setup (lights, reflectors, ballasts, timers, fittings) < LED setup
Also, having a really large tank and two smaller tanks can work very well for having a staged external filtration system instead of getting a large canister filter (like Rena, or Eheim) This way you can have your not so pretty life bloom in one tank and make awesome bio-filtrated water, chemically filter it in the second tank, and have it pump to the largest tank.
Also if you are looking at DIYing the big tank the halide setup would probably go up to about a grand or more. $500-600 would work for a 55 gallon though