Shmoopy's Growout Tank

S

Shmoopy

Its about time I started a thread on my current growout system. Notice its not a build thread since the tanks have been running for a couple of years already.
The purpose of these tanks is to grow frags into colonies for my display tank that I will be setting up once I move. I plan on moving in the coming months but I also planned on moving last year and im still in the same house…

I have two acrylic tanks that are 48X32X9 plumbed into a 40 gallon sump and fuge that I made with acrylic baffles. Total volume is about 130 gallons. One tank is lit by LEDs and is mostly sps while the other is a combo of T5 and LEDs and has mostly zoas and pallies.

I run a calcium reactor, reef octo skimmer, uv sterilizer, and a reactor with phosban. I use carbon and dose vodka and looking at switching to a vsv mixture.

I control everything with a reefkeeper and have control over all the vital systems through my iphone so I can monitor and contain problems while im out of town or at work.

Since this is just a growout tank I didn’t make a nice stand or canopy, just some stained 2X4s and simple hoods to house the lights. Here are a few pics of the system. Im not very good with the camera yet, the leds on the tank make all my pics really blue.

Thanks for looking

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SPS Tank
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Zoa Colonies
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Zoa Frags
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Parameter History
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Remote Control Webpage
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Wow you have a very nice set up there.
And your frags look great. That is going to be one hell of a nice display tank when you do get moved!!
Steve
P.S. hope you are moving close to me [smilie=rofl.gif]
 
Thanks alot! I should mention that 95% of every coral is from other members and frag swaps/next waves. Everything else is from LFSs that are sponsers of the club.
 
Thats a heck of a system for a grow out. Impressive.

Now, where are the pictures of the display tank?
 
@Shmoopy wrote:
Thanks alot! I should mention that 95% of every coral is from other members and frag swaps/next waves. Everything else is from LFSs that are sponsers of the club. said:
That's what I like to hear! Very nice system btw, I started a very similarly sized system but plumbing it I broke one of the tanks and just never started it back up unfortunately. Good luck with it all!
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You have a really nice system and the idea of a grow out tank is a good one. I love the fact that the end result will be fully colonies of corals so my question is are you planning a display tank in the future where all the corals can be displayed in a more natural setting?
 
Thanks for the compliments. I am planning a 200ish gallon brick style tank and yes it will look very natural. Small islands of live rock and no eggcrate. I may have found it at rift2reef, they have a square 3 and half by 3 and a half and around 24 deep. It can be an open top rimless and it would make an amazing tank. Hopefully by the time I move ill have the funds to start it up.

Wes, I have alot of acrylic lying around and lots of glue as well if youd like to patch up your tank.
 
Thats a sweet set up you got there. I had wanted to set up something like what you have a for a while. Just don't have the money to do it. I wanted to do a comparison on LED vs MH vs T5s plumb all the tanks together, set up the same powerheads in the same location (for similar flow patterns) and observe how the same corals respond with just a small variable, lighting.
 
@derek4real wrote:
I had wanted to set up something like what you have a for a while. Just don't have the money to do it. I wanted to do a comparison on LED vs MH vs T5s plumb all the tanks together said:
I also wanted to compare the lights in the same water column and did some comparative growth observations. It was not scientific at all but i was watching closely (pre decent camera).

I started off with a 400w 20k mh over the sps tank and 4 T5 bulbs with uv bulbs. I put some of the same coral in both tanks (birdsnest, monti, zoas etc) and tried to find similar flow. The SPS tanks had an mp40 and a K2 while the zoa tank had a k4 and a K1. They were not a perfect match but close.

The coral under the MH grew very fast but I wasnt getting the color i wanted. The coral under the T5s grew but not nearly as fast but had better greens and blues, less brown. As soon as i could afford leds i put them over the sps tank. I finally got the blue color that i wanted and i could now adjust it if i felt like having a bluer or warmer tank. The growth was very fast and the colors were the best i have seen. I used this setup for several months and then added optics to my leds and then the growth and color exploded! After about a year of this set up i added a strip of luxeons from Steve. The new luxeons put out about 3 times as much par as the epistars and the coral love it. I took one of the epistar blue strips and put it on my Zoa tank and changed the bulbls to ATI. The leds make the zoa colors pop and the combination of bulb change and leds had made them grow much faster. My zoas and pallies dont stretch out for light anymore and the colors are less transparent.

@DFW wrote:
How is that bare bottom tank working out said:
I am not a fan of the bare bottom, it takes alot of work to keep it stirred and vacuumed plus there is not as much media for bacteria to grow and stabilize the system. I am a huge fan of sandbeds in the tank because i think they look natural and many corals and animals prefer sand over rock. Ive never been scubadiving a reef sitting on bare rock without sand. Certain fish like parrots eat coral and poop out sand. Ive never had to vacuum or stir sand because i have added sandsifting stars and gobies, hermits, nassarius, cucumbers, emeralds and anything else i can find to increase diveristy and keep the sand oxygenated and healthy. I also have a dep sand bed in the fuge.
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You finally did a thread on those amazing tanks?

I have seen these things in person and they are really spectacular. I had just started into reefing when I saw these and they really inspired me to keep up with the hobby. You guys really need to see these things in person.
 
One of the best "reefers" on the forum I believe! Great work Shmoopy! His stuff is worth every $$ and great deals if he sells stuff to you.
 
He helped me and a buddy drill our tanks this weekend. Really great guy and one of the friendliest guys I've met on here so far.
 
WOW, when you told me that you "just have a grow out system right now" I didn't expect anything like that. It looks great, cant wait to see your new setup when you get settled.
 
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