Coral farm is almost done...

richard rendos

Active Member
In November of 2002 I started a coral farm project. I converted the storage room in my garage to a tank room to grow out frags. Well, since then I have gotten a lot done. I currently have a 125 gallon SPS growout tank with 4 X 400 watt MH lights (2 X 20K, and 2 X 10K) I also have a 90 gallon softies tank with 4 X 110 watt VHO's. I will be adding a clam vat, and several smaller tanks for species tanks. It is all plumbed together into a 100 gallon rubbermaid sump. I have an ETSS 800 Pro skimmer running off a Little Giant 4MDQ-SC pressure pump. I have a couple of 350 watt titanium heaters, an Iwaki 100 RLT for my return pump, and a Little Giant for the closed loop on the SPS tank (which needs to be a bigger pump). I am building a dual chamber calcium reactor for this system...2 chambers 3 feet tall each and 6" in diameter using a Little Giant 2MDQ-SC pump for circulation (will hold around 30 pounds or ARM media). I have a humidity activated fan in the ceiling, and will be buying a 3/4 HP chiller very soon. I can see that heat is already starting to be an issue. Here are a couple of pics...will update as I progress...


 

sterling

Member
Richard, looks great!!
A standing joke around dog shows is that dog people don't have garages, because they always turn them into kennels for the dogs.
Now you have taken that a step further, fish people don't have garages either, they turn them into coral farms :)
 

dockery07

Active Member
RIchard,
I am going to need to send Sean to see you again when my 220 is ready. I am going to need some cool stuff.
 

swilbs83

Member
Richard I notice that you are no longer working out of the large rubbermaid tubs. What happened to that setup? It was pretty nice
 

cmpowell

Member
Richard that is the cool.It kinda looks like i could walk in front of the tank and say i'll take that one and that one and that one....:D .Nice job.Very well done.
 

richard rendos

Active Member
Thanks for all the kind words...this idea has been in my head for a couple of years now, but is only now coming to fruition.
skilos - email me and I will talk with you more about the square tank. Email Me
j21kickster - yes, I will be selling frags...I am working on getting more variety of everything right now.
Aggie05 - the tang was in my friends 75 gallon and was getting way too big for it...I am gonna keep him in the 125 until I get a bigger tank for him.
swilbs83 - I started with tubs, but you can only see in from the top - I like to see in from the side...makes selection much easier plus you can enjoy it more that way.
I will take some pics of the filtration, etc. this weekend and post them. That is my favorite part of the system. Water changes are as easy as turning a couple of ball valves. The return pump will stop returning water to the tanks and suck the water out of the sump through a hose, and water storage containers are plumbed to the sump for refilling. Auto top of fresh RO water is done through a float valve system. Lights over the 125 can be raised or lowered via a pulley system.
 

krux

Member
looking great. hopefully when yer softies get going i can help you fund the cost of that setup a bit. also hoping to move into sps in a couple months, so i should be able to work with ya a little more.
be sure to post when stuff is ready, im sure a ton of us would love to get in on some healthy, captive, and environmentally responsibly raised corals.
as for your lighting, why are you running 20k over the sps tank? from my research, as long as it isnt a display tank and you are looking for coral flourescence, isnt maximum growth achieved at or around 6500k, being more the level of true equatorial sunlight? i have read that by going closer to 6500 you get faster growth, maybe you have found differently though.
curious, because i am growing out my own stuff from tiny tiny frags (small pocketbook till i change jobs).
thanks and again, looking awesome.... too bad apartments dont have garages!
 

richard rendos

Active Member
From my experience, 20K's give the best coloration...that is what I am looking for. Lots of people sell fast growing brown SPS...I want to have bright colors. I have talked with Dr. Mac on several occassions about his systems (both lighting and filtration) and we agree on several things...lots of high intensity light, lots of chaotic water flow, great filtration, and constant temperature make for healthy SPS colonies. This is not something I am jumping into...I have researched a lot on this. I do agree that 6500K bulbs will give faster growth rates, but that is not what I am after. Thanks for the comments, though. I will always listen to others thoughts and hopefully learn from their ideas.
 

bang guy

Moderator

Originally posted by sterling
Richard, looks great!!
A standing joke around dog shows is that dog people don't have garages, because they always turn them into kennels for the dogs.
Now you have taken that a step further, fish people don't have garages either, they turn them into coral farms :)

Nor basements because they turn them into refugiums. ;)
 

richard rendos

Active Member
it is in the storage room in my garage...not the whole garage, and there is a vent from my home A/C unit in there...the room has been heavily insulated, and I will be adding a chiller soon. right now the temp is staying around 78 but it hasn't even begun to get hot yet (also don't have the A/C on yet either)
 
I'm going to figure out where he is and scout the place out and break in with a bunch of plastic baggies when no one is home. *LOL*
:D
Just kidding, good job Richie!
;)
 

krux

Member
ahh wasnt aware that the color of the bulb had to do with the actual coloration of the coral, always assumed that it only altered the way the corals appeared as the colors looked different under differing wave lengths.
a fun experiment to run (unless someone has already done it) would be to hook up 2 tanks into the same water system, and put a frag into each of the tanks form the same mother colony, and check their coloration after a couple months with one under a 20k and one under a 6500... not just under their grow lights, but side by side in a display tank. maybe the blue wavelengths cause the corals to develop more, or different zooanthalle (sp?).
 

richard rendos

Active Member
Bonermeister - I used to live in Waynesboro, PA. Been to Chambersburg many, many times. What is the name of the pet shop there that has a big display with a giant green bubble coral? I used to love going in there and looking. What other pet shops do you go to? I hated Pugh's Petcetera...and the other place that I used to go to went out of business back in 1996 or 1997.
Krux - If someone wants to send me a 6500K 400 watt bulb, I would be willing to do that experiment. I will run it on the same type ballast, same water flow, etc. and will take pictures every couple of weeks to show the difference in color.
 

overanalyzer

Active Member
Dang Richard I want to be you when I grow up!!
Also - thanks for all your help recently!!
are you plannign on shipping them out of state at all??
 
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