The 200,000 gallon tank build thread.

[Anonymous]

Yeah but how many times have you mentioned you'll never driving into San Francisco Gresham?

I'm not a trained diver, but I do got a fishing pole and fishing net if I can help

I can change :lol:

Plus, they've got to be pretty close to finishing the bridge work on the SF side, that's all that was ticking me off. It took 4 hours to get to Oakland one night after leaving a club and that S U C K E D

 

[Anonymous]

Why would you take the bridge at all? I thought you were down in the Santa Cruz area?

But yeah, my worst time on the bridge was 2 hours to cross it... however it was really bad because I had to GO... I was really considering pulling over and letting fly off the bridge damn the tickets... however I could imagine a gust of wind.. and well that's not the best way to be remembered for going.

 

[Anonymous]

Wow - just perused this thread. I can't wait to visit!

 

[Anonymous]

Bump. Here's me blathering on about the tank at a local hobbyist meeting. If you're trying to fall asleep press play!

http://www.archive.org/details/Mars-082 ... sSteinhart

Thanks to Sierra Saltwater Systems for making the podcast.

 

[Anonymous]

An hour seven. Long talk?

 

[Anonymous]

That looks amazing. The next time I am in Cali I will visit. I just wish the NY Aquarium would keep up with their displays. Their reefs looked sad at best. The large fau reef tank, with the plastic corals and reef fish, was cloudy and dirty looking. The animal displays for the penguins and otters was a murkey disgrace. The shark tank was hazy and the whole bottom was covered with aiptasia anemones. They also misnamed some sort of phymanthus anemone as a M.doreensis. When I went there about 5 years ago it was a much nicer place. I wonder if they are low on money or something?

I also need to visit Atlantis Aquarium in Riverhead, NY I hear mixed reviews from people, but they are not fish keepers like us, so their reviews do not mean as much. The only thing I do hear is that the entry fee is very high(probably due to the energy bill, LIPA is the second most expensive electric provider in the US).

 

[Anonymous]

That looks amazing. The next time I am in Cali I will visit. I just wish the NY Aquarium would keep up with their displays. Their reefs looked sad at best. The large fau reef tank, with the plastic corals and reef fish, was cloudy and dirty looking. The animal displays for the penguins and otters was a murkey disgrace. The shark tank was hazy and the whole bottom was covered with aiptasia anemones. They also misnamed some sort of phymanthus anemone as a M.doreensis. When I went there about 5 years ago it was a much nicer place. I wonder if they are low on money or something?

I also need to visit Atlantis Aquarium in Riverhead, NY I hear mixed reviews from people, but they are not fish keepers like us, so their reviews do not mean as much. The only thing I do hear is that the entry fee is very high(probably due to the energy bill, LIPA is the second most expensive electric provider in the US).

Atlantis is dope. Go for the reef tank. Stay for the other great exhibits.

 

[Anonymous]

Great video Rich shot of the tank here.
[youtube]PZSINQ0N0l0[/youtube]

 

[Anonymous]

This thread has gone a long time since an update so I will try and wrap up the last year or so as best I can. Rich and I will try to update this thread more often, and knowing Rich he has a ton of great photos and video to share.

It has been a long ride to get this tank to where it is today. It's currently a little over 2.5 years since it was first filled with water. We've had some speed bumps along the way, and as we predicted the tank has taken a long time to mature and meet its potential. We now have a lot of Acropora spp. that are growing well, something which just didn't happen for the first year and a half the tank was running. Colonies of stony coral are small (at least for a tank this size) but growing fast in some cases. We have gotten a tremendous amount of support from local hobbyists, including the Bay Area Reefers club, with volunteer time and coral donations. In 5-10 years I expect the coral to look very much like a real coral reef. Fishwise, it already feels that way, as you can see above!

Earlier this year the aquarium decided to switch over from a mix of Ocean Beach well water and Instant Ocean salt to 100% Instant Ocean. We performed several large water changes on the tank (15,000g at a time) to change out about 25% of the water in total. We feel these changes have made a huge impact in the direction of the overall health of the tank. Weekly water changes of 2% are still done to backwash our sand filters.

Other stuff we've done:
Added a kalkwasser reactor. About a half gallon of dry powder is added to the tank daily as a slurry.
Redesigned our calcium reactors, which are still being rebuilt, to be much more effective and maintenance free.
Designed and (nearly!) built reactors for carbon and GFO, and a system for regenerating the GFO.
Turned on our ozone system, which was held up for some time due to animal and human safety concerns.
Removed a number of fish (mostly triggers) that were munching on soft coral and/or small fish.

Each of these projects could fill up a 20 page thread on its own, so I won't bore you with the details.

I'd like to extend a huge thanks to the following people whose advice and support has been invaluable. Figuring out how to make a reef tank this size work is no simple task and their help has made it much easier.

Joe Yaiullo
Mitch Carl
Chris Maupin
Jake Adams
Craig Bingman
Ken Feldman
Gresham Hendee
Randy Holmes-Farley
William Wing

That's it for now...

 

[Anonymous]

I hope to get to see this beast one day. Thanks for posting Matt. 8)

 

[Anonymous]

Just to be clear, I was talking about the tank...

 

[Anonymous]

Super sweet Matt. We have to figure out the photos on page 1 and replace the dead links.

Here is a drawing of the new Ca reactors we designed. The old ones didn't perform well 20 feet below the surface of the water. They have been approved and work starts this month. You know at home you can just buy something new and install it? At work we can't really do that on the big tank - lots of other people involved and the scale on this tank is amazing. Fun though!

Some more fun links:
http://www.calacademy.org/academy/exhib ... /index.php
http://www.calacademy.org/academy/exhib ... /index.php

 

[Anonymous]

Bump. Here's me blathering on about the tank at a local hobbyist meeting. If you're trying to fall asleep press play!

http://www.archive.org/details/Mars-082 ... sSteinhart

Thanks to Sierra Saltwater Systems for making the podcast.

Just listened to the whole thing. Interesting talk Matt, thanks for sharing it. BTW, you have one of the coolest jobs in the world. 8)

 

[Anonymous]

BTW, you have one of the coolest jobs in the world. 8)

I agree!! I wish I had a job like that. All I do all day is take wax out of people's ears. :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

Considering California's water issues, I'm rather surprised to read that the aquarium made the decision to use 100% manmade ocean water. I understand the issues with cleanliness, maintaining parameters, and so on, but there's also a broader issue to be considered, no? I mean, does it make much sense, especially in "the city by the bay", to take fresh water and use that to reconstitute sea water? It is disappointing to read this from that perspective.

The tank is beautiful, but I can't get out of my head the volume of water used and what it says overall. That juxtaposition thing.

Couple of questions for you gentlemen if you are willing and able to address them; Where does the fresh water that is used to mix the sea water come from? How is it treated?

I don't mean to be a drag, but I feel they beg asking.

 

[Ben1]

Very cool guys thanks for posting. My sister lives out there, this may give me a reason to visit her lol. The video was cool, what a great assortment of healthy looking fish. This tank is awesome!

 

[Anonymous]

Considering California's water issues, I'm rather surprised to read that the aquarium made the decision to use 100% manmade ocean water. I understand the issues with cleanliness, maintaining parameters, and so on, but there's also a broader issue to be considered, no? I mean, does it make much sense, especially in "the city by the bay", to take fresh water and use that to reconstitute sea water? It is disappointing to read this from that perspective.

The decision was not made quickly, but over about 1.5 years of heavy discussion covering a all the points you bring up and more. There are significant issues with the water we were pumping from Ocean Beach, and while there are some long term plans to address those problems, moving to all salt mix is what we need to do for the health of the animals right now.

The tank is beautiful, but I can't get out of my head the volume of water used and what it says overall. That juxtaposition thing.

The water changes mentioned earlier have been the first ones we have done in over 2 years due to the water issues you bring up. We are bending over backwards to not waste water. At the same time, it is a public aquarium and water changes are going to be needed from time to time.

Couple of questions for you gentlemen if you are willing and able to address them; Where does the fresh water that is used to mix the sea water come from? How is it treated?

Tap water run through carbon.

 

[Anonymous]

I very much appreciate addressing all but the one point (source of fresh water), location of source isn't the most important thing.

I assume all other ocean water options were explored as well, by the sounds of it. What was the volume of the water change required? Is there significant topping off? I also appreciate that reverse osmosis is not used in this context, that would be horribly wasteful.

 

[Anonymous]

I very much appreciate addressing all but the one point (source of fresh water), location of source isn't the most important thing.

I assume all other ocean water options were explored as well, by the sounds of it. What was the volume of the water change required? Is there significant topping off? I also appreciate that reverse osmosis is not used in this context, that would be horribly wasteful.

SF tap water info:
http://www.sfwater.org/mto_main.cfm/MC_ ... MTO_ID/288

We did a total water change of approximately 25%, or 50,000g.

The tank is topped off with about 50gpd of a slurry of calcium hydroxide and deionized water (yes, NOT reverse osmosis). As a percentage of the total volume of the tank, evaporation is incredibly small. To put that in perspective, it's equivalent to a 200g tank evaporating about 6oz of water per day, enough to fill half a can of soda.

 

[Anonymous]

How often do you need to perform water changes on a system this size? Also, that topping off amount is incredibly low, how on earth is that achieved? The top of the tank isn't completely closed off, is it? (Obviously, haven't visited the new facility.)