Oregon Coast Temperate Setups.

Yeah I was impressed, only downside is how loud it is when its on Thats what discouraged me from setting the tank up inside the house. On the plus side, if I plumb the little tank into this system I doubt that the chiller on it would even turn on at all.

Is this going to be a tidepool tank ? or are you going for something a little more off shore ? The underwater world just off shore is vastly different than the tidepools. Here's a nice video of what lies just off shore.....although.....the dive site in the video is one of the best in the San Juans and can only be safely dived under certain tidal conditions.....but, it gives you a good idea on what it is like out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwcqY926YLQ&feature=player_embedded#!

well you can put in isolation around the components to try and quite it. maybe that hard sheet pink stuff

AquaticEngineer wrote:Yeah I was impressed, only downside is how loud it is when its on Thats what discouraged me from setting the tank up inside the house.

The only thing that turns me off in the hobby is the noise. I was also impressed with the chill rate . I'm curious to see how your tank will turn out.

steveweast wrote:Is this going to be a tidepool tank ? or are you going for something a little more off shore ?

For the time being it was going to be solely what I am able to collect myself. I've talked to a good friend of mine who dives and he said he would collect some stuff for me from deeper out, or if you ever have any extra critters let me know

steveweast wrote:The underwater world just off shore is vastly different than the tidepools. Here's a nice video of what lies just off shore.....although.....the dive site in the video is one of the best in the San Juans and can only be safely dived under certain tidal conditions.....but, it gives you a good idea on what it is like out there.

WOW That video is awesome, if stuff like that was available I would definitely go with that. I have been thinking of using the big tank for deeper water stuff and the little tank for tidepool life since it is viewable from above.

Pufferfreak wrote:

AquaticEngineer wrote:Yeah I was impressed, only downside is how loud it is when its on Thats what discouraged me from setting the tank up inside the house.

The only thing that turns me off in the hobby is the noise. I was also impressed with the chill rate . I'm curious to see how your tank will turn out.

After a little over 12hrs today with no chiller running on the system it only crept up about 5 degrees, so the system is definitely well insulated.

I drained the system to make sure all the valves on the drain for water changes were working and not leaking. Also going to paint that clear round porthole, its there so you can make sure the biowheel is still spinning and since I'm not going to use a biowheel I'd rather have it blacked out I think.

Ok here comes another update

I painted off the one area I wanted and let the tank sit for a couple days and today I filled it back up.

I decided to keep better records this time about the temperature and how fast the chiller works.

@1:45pm, temp 62.3F water went in at this temp, outside temp was 75F
@2:57pm, temp 57.4F
@3:40pm, temp 54.9F
@4:16pm, temp 53.2F outside temp was up to 82F by now.
@4:55pm, temp 52.0F at this point I turned the chiller off and set it to chill at 54/55 degrees.

So within 3 hours it was able to take over 100 gallons of water down 10 degrees and maintain it while the outside air temperature was in the high 70's and low 80's.

Right now I'm adding the salt to the tank so I should be ready to start cycling it tomorrow. Its holding around 53F now, I may still bump it up a bit for the cycling. I still gotta find a few things like some large nylon bags and some plastic screen mesh. But I may get antsy and go grab some sacrificial clams to get the tank going

Here's some pics
Start Temp

FTS filling up

All filled and holding steady at 53F

Built in Protein Skimmer

Shot of just the chiller


Shot of the plumbing / UV / return pump

Back of the tank showing were the filter/skimmer/pumps/chiller all sit

steady temp now 53F

A few suggestions...

1) I would cycle at 60 F....there's no need to go lower at this point.

2) I would also suggest going with a salinity of 30 -32 ppt. most of Puget Sound is 30ppt.....the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca is 32ppt. I run mine at 31ppt.....if I get to 35 ppt, my strawberries close up. I use a temperature compensating Hanna optical unit for salinity since most hobby units are calibrated to tropical temperatures. You can always take a common refractometer with you when collecting and match your tank's salinity to the ocean reading (regardless of what it reads).

3) I might have a few extra rocks to get your cycle going. I have a few collecting trips planned for as soon as this weekend. It's dependent upon boat availability from a Seattle friend of mine. The tides might be right this weekend, but the boat may not be. If I do collect what I'm after.....I will be removing a few rocks from my tank. They will have minimal macro life on them (perfect for cycling).....we'll see.

That sounds awesome Steve, thanks for the pointers and the offer on the rocks. I'll go bump it up to 60 then. Next thing I need to do is go substrate collecting, maybe this weekend

If you bump it to 60 wont you have to keep the temperature of the tank at 60 so as not to kill the bacteria by the temperature change? Or maybe I'm confusing salinities with temperatures..

I think that a fluctuation from 60 to 55 would be minimal enough to prevent any serious problems.

Perhaps not serious, but even a small problem maybe. Maybe this shouldn't be compared since they are on much different scale, but when the earth fluctuates 5 or so degrees, things don't go to well.

But Steve suggested it and since he's from the Sound, it shouldn't be a problem at all.

While diving, I've registered temps as low as 38F .....and as high as 63 F in the Sound. The bacterial strains are the same regardless....however, the temperature will affect their metabolism. A 5 degree swing in tropical waters is huge....but, not in temperate waters.

While cycling, a "little" warmer will speed up his cycle and reduce his PGE bill..... the final running temp setting should really be a function of what he is keeping. If he is keeping local Pacific Northwest critters.....then 55 F is more of an average temp that they experience. But, I've experience no negative long term issues with keeping local critters at 60 F. My strawberry anemone population has easily doubled over the last year running at 59 - 60.

I also keep a few Austrailian boxes and a herd of catalina gobies that really prefer 60 - 62.....but, will be OK with the mid to upper 50's. As a result, I mostly keep my system at 58 F. Recently, I acquired a couple local grunt sculpins......so, I temporarily dropped the temp to 55 F to better aclimate them to captivity.

As long as the tank never gets above 60 F long term, he will be fine with both bacteria colonies or local critters.

When I cycled my temperate tank a while back I kept the temp around 60, and it cycled within about 2 months instead of 3. But then over a week you are supposed to lower the temp. I was making that tank for a Puget Sound biotope.

Anyone think tossing bio balls in the area where the biowheel would normally go would be of any benefit?

Thanks for the clarification steve.

AquaticEngineer wrote:Anyone think tossing bio balls in the area where the biowheel would normally go would be of any benefit?

Using bioballs is necessary if you do not enough bacterial real estate......which is evident by having a consistent problem with detectable nitrite (NO2) or ammonium (NH4). This situation is a function on how densely stocked your system is....and what and how much you feed.

So.....the answer is....maybe. Bioballs, if submerged, will do no harm.....but, they do accumulate debris over time and occasionally need to be cleaned. In my system, I use lots of bioballs since my system is heavily stocked, heavily fed, and uses dense local rocks and substrate. The sump was designed around them for easy maintenance.I feel the need to clean out the bioball chamber two or three times a year.

I use dry rock rubble instead of bio balls. The rubble provides a lot more space for bacteris to live.

The area in the over flow that the biowheel would sit in is where the bioballs would go. This area is never fully submerged so it essentially would be working like a traditional trickle filter. It is very easy to access since it is directly below the 2 trickle plates for the filter pads, which I'll be accessing regularly to change anyways.

There will also be about 50+ lbs of tropical live rock in fist size and smaller pieces that I have dried out and washed being put in the false bottom chamber above the coolant coil for bacteria real estate.

Based on that info do you think it would be beneficial? I've looked at lots of the trickle filter/bioballs and submerged/nonsubmerged debates on different forums but I just wasnt sure how that all translated to a temperate water system with the lack of biological area in the rock.

Temperqate aquariums are basicly large nitrate factories. You are goingt o need as much biological filtration that you can get. Bioballs have never been good in my tropical system, but i am not sure if they would be beneficial for a temperate setup.

Cycle it as proposed. If a nitrite issue arises, you can always add bioballs. There's nothing wrong with bioballs in a trickle filter situation. That situation is just VERY effective at turning waste into nitrate (NO3). Submerged bioballs are no different than rock, glass, piping, or any other hard surface in the system....it's just bacterial real estate. The trickle situation supercharges the nitrate conversion for better or worse depending on the system.

The intolerable scenario, however, is ammonia or nitrite. Nitrate can be dealt with by other means.

Water changes on this system will be super easy so Nitrate removal wont be too hard in that regard. I may run some of those poly-pads once the tank is in full swing to make sure that there is no other build up of any metals or anything else detramental.

I went ahead and decided to put bioballs in the back, and made part of the filter into a trickle filter. All it took was a bunch of holes with the drill and a bucket of bioballs I had laying around.





Also got almost all of the live rock to fit in the false bottom.







There was some debris left on the live rock so I now know how well my skimmer works

Crafty. Nice skimmer .