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On this week's how to project we are going to set up a SPS Propagation System. We will
show you the differences between this system and the softy tank we did a few weeks ago,
discuss some equipment changes, show you how to plumb it and answer some of the common
questions related to these kits.
The biggest difference between the two kits is this one has a sump to increase system
water volume. The reason we want to increase water volume is because SPS corals consume
calcium and alkalinity, which will have to be continually replaced.
The three main methods of maintaining calcium and alkalinity all have impacts on the water
chemistry which are magnified as you put large quantities of corals in a small volume of
water. Kalkwasser will raise the pH, calcium reactors will lower the pH and two part will
slowly raise salinity.
Adding a sump will come close to doubling the water volume and basically cut any of
these effects in half. However if you use kalkwasser or a calcium reactor you should
still keep a close eye on the pH. In fact, a pH monitor or aquarium controller is pretty
much required and you should watch the salinity if you are using two part.
You will have to select one of these options, none of them are wrong and they all have advantages
and a prop tank has unique requirements that don't exist in a standard tank. For instance
this is supposed to be profitable endeavor or at least low cost and kalkwasser in your
auto top off is likely to be the cheapest long term solution and other than adding carbonate,
calcium and elevating pH there is very little effect on overall water chemistry.
However we are going to select two part in this case and the primary reason is we find
it the easiest to adjust. With a frag tank you are constantly adding and removing corals
in different stages of growth and the rate of calcium and carbonate being consumed will
correlate to this. More or less after I sell half my corals I am going to need to reduce
the amount of calcium and alkalinity added by around half as well.
While this can be done with kalkwasser or a calcium reactor as well, This means changing
the amount of kalk dissolved or dosed to the tank which can be a pain in the butt to nail
down when you are constantly selling or adding corals.
Constantly tuning a reactor to adjust for volume of corals and growth isn't realistic
for most people unless you are very experienced with the process and have a natural instinct
for how to adjust the bubble rate and flow rate to get the addition you are looking for.
With two part, all I have to do is to change the digital timer on my doser or use the controller
to cut the dose in half or add 10-20% a month for growth. However because two part is salt
based it will have a slow elevating effect on salinity so adjusting for this and keeping
up on water changes is important.
I am going to use a controller, on a SPS tank I want to keep a closer eye on the pH and
by the time I have purchased a pH controller, timers, power bars and a wave maker it just
makes sense to get a controller and have the added features they bring at little to no
additional cost. The internal temperature controller is probably the biggest benefit
since heaters fail constantly. This is supposed to be a multi-year profitable endeavor and
heater failure just isn't an option.
For a heater we selected the low profile option from Cobalt Aquatics again. For lighting we
are going with the ATI T5 fixture. Again I want to go with something easy to use, fits
the shape of this tank, uses technology that has been proven to be very effective in large
scale propagation systems and ATI is pretty much the go to brand when it comes to T5 technology.
This time we selected the Sicce Voyager pumps for flow. The nice thing about the two, three
and four is they use an impeller design rather than a prop which can start in either direction.
Most AC prop-based pumps have to start in a single direction so they all have some type
of mechanism to prevent the prop from starting backwards. On a wave maker this mechanism
wears out. If a pump turns on and off every five minutes it might not sound like much
but that's 12 times an hour, 288 times a day and over 100,000 times a year. It is pretty
easy for that mechanism to fail when it experiences that much use.
This impeller design Sicce uses can spin either way and will stand up to on/off style wave
makers substantially better. If you are not using your own controller they have a stand-alone
wave maker called the Wave Surfer. Like the one from Hydor it has two outlets but you
can plug multiple pumps into a single outlet if you like. This one is rated for up to 100
Watts per channel.
For filtration you can use basically any common method, live rock in the sump is probably
most popular. Just to be different we going to use this ceramic bio media from Marine
Pure . I like this stuff because it adds an immense amount of surface area in a really
small package and comes clean ready to use. Let's get to plumbing.
Alright, so there is a hundred ways to plumb this thing. But we are going to use the kit
that we've assembled here on the website. And the first step is to go ahead and drill
the holes in the bottom for our overflow. You'll notice that this tank has two little
divots here made for centering your holes and installing bulkheads so just center right
on top of one...and start your hole. Next we're going to want to get off as many of
these burrs as possible so we can get a nice, clean seal with the bulkhead. You can really
use pretty much any tool of your choice. Once you have the holes drilled you just want to
go ahead and disassemble your bulkhead. You can see we have already installed one of them.
It has three parts -- the main head, the screw and the gasket. The gasket is definitely going
to go on the inside of the tank. Just put it in the hole and screw on the nut on the
bottom to install. The next bit here is to cut a couple lengths from our one inch pipe
for our emergency and standard overflow. The pipe for the emergency overflow should be
about five and a quarter inches so we can go ahead and mark it there and cut it. The
pipe for the second overflow will be a little bit shorter at about three and a half inches
this depends somewhat on how high you want the water level to be in the tank. So now
that we have our pipe cut, we are going to go ahead and glue some of the pieces together.
The first step is to apply your primer. The primer will melt a small amount of the surface
of the fitting and the pipe so that they adhere together better. I like to apply the cement
to both the fitting as well as the pipe. When you insert it, make sure you push it all the
way in and give it a nice twist. Then hold it all the way down to the bottom because
as it is cementing together it is heating up and expanding slighting which can push
the pipe out a bit. So when you're all done gluing it should look basically like this
with the emergency overflow being a bit taller than the standard overflow. I am going to
go ahead and screw in our strainer I've already applied the plumbers tape to this fitting.
Believe it or not there is different qualities of plumbers tape out there. And you can tell
pretty easily by squeezing it. The harder it is the denser the material is and thicker
so you don't have to do as many wraps and it will get into the crevices quite a bit
better. This one is actually half inch wide so it is a lot easier to apply as well. Once
the overflows are assembled just screw them into the bulkheads and this portion of it
is done.
Once you have this assembled go ahead and check the height of both your overflows -- there
could have been small variances in your cut or how deep you got the pipe into the fitting.
This one is a little bit more forgiving with the strainer and your emergency overflow can
be adjusted if need be by just cutting a little bit off the top.
To assemble the bottom of the overflow is pretty simple. For the emergency we are going
to go ahead and glue a male pipe thread adapter on the bottom and screw it in. This is about
14 inches in length but you can make it the height you want it for your equipment. And
on the main overflow, we are going to make it about the same length but we are going
to put a ball valve in the center. By putting this in the middle we will be able to tune
the amount of water going down the main overflow so it creates a full syphon.
So this is what it looks like installed underneath with our emergency overflow and are primary
right here. Primary again has the gate valve to adjust the flow.
Next step is to drill your hole for the bulkhead and return line. Resist the temptation to
drill in the center because these two little divots will get in the way of making a proper
seal so just use them to make your hole again. Once the hole is drilled, go ahead and install
your three quarter inch bulkhead. Again, we want the seal on the inside of the tank, the
water side.
Next we are going to build our return assembly. I cut my piece of pipe here to about five
inches. It could vary a little bit based on your return pump and how you have your overflow
tuned. Once you have it all glued together go ahead and snap your Loc-line together and
thread it in to your return. Once you have it installed, this is pretty much what it
will look like and you can adjust your return height with the nozzle pretty easily.
At this point, we are basically done and all that's left is to screw our barbed insert
fitting into the bulkhead on our return and then connect our pump with some tubing. It
is always a good idea to use hose clamps when using barbed fittings on plumbing.
So that only took us about 30 minutes and was pretty easy. I do want to point out why
we have two overflows here. The first one has a strainer on it which will keep livestock
from going down the drain. However, that strainer could get clogged so we have the emergency
overflow to take up the excess water if need be.
So this is what it will look like once you have water in the tank. It won't be completely
silent because of the fairly shallow tank we are dealing with, but you can adjust the
flow rate of your pump and the flow rate going down the drain with the gate valve to get
something pretty quiet. One of the things we did is use a Speedwave controllable DC
pump for our return which makes it a lot easier to adjust the flow rate.
Lastly there are a few common questions reefers have about systems like these. First one is
where's the skimmer? Whether or not you use a skimmer will be largely based on if and
what you plan on feeding. If there is no fish food a skimmer isn't really required unless
you want to feed coral specific foods and with some of the more expensive coral foods
you might not want a skimmer to remove them.
Everyone has a different take on this and I suggest you take everything you hear, pass
it through your own experience and try different things to get the best results. Thing is all
foods are going to feed algae growth and add phosphate which can slow calcification. Flip
side of that is many people feel corals simply grow faster in tanks which have livestock
and nutrients from feeding. My personal advice is to only add livestock that serves a purpose.
Like fish that eat algae or other pests.
As to coral foods, If it isn't a coral where you can literally see them capture the prey,
i prefer to use products based on amino acids or carbohydrates which have already been broken
down rather than prey based foods which corals have to capture and breakdown themselves.
One off the more economical solutions is the Reef Energy program by Red Sea, there are
also options like Elos and Korallen Zucht.
The KZ products are nice because there is an entire community at zeovit.com that has
used their products effectively and can offer advice. KZ products are often thought of as
just zeovit but thats really just a small part of what they offer. To make it a bit
simpler we sperated the KZ products out on our site into the zeovit system, color enhancers
and elements, coral nutrition and problem solvers.
For this purpose most of you will be looking at the coral nutrition because we want them
to grow faster in a propagation tank. If you are new to these products the best advice
I can give is try the nano power package first. These are the products most people start with.
At around $12 a bottle this is probably the most affordable way to test the products and
see if they provide value to you. If you find the extra growth is valuable enough to continue
in your system, I would try some of the color enhancers next since color quality directly
enhances the value of the corals you are trying to trade or sell.
Another common question about this system particularly is in reference to the fact it
looks a lot like a hydroponics growing system, that's because that's exactly what it is.
Our industry loans products from basically every water related industry.
There is also a good chance that you might be able to find a system like this somewhat
cheaper if you are lucky enough to have a good hydroponics store near you. A good portion
of the cost with this set up is in shipping large stuff like this across the nation. If
you don't have a hydroponics store near you we have them available on our site so everyone
has easy access to something like this.
Lastly many people want to know if you could use a glass or acrylic tank as a sump instead
of this container and you absolutely could however this tank is designed for this purpose
which makes it an ideal height to hold a large volume of water and still provide easy access
to get things in and out of the tank. So thanks for hanging out with us this week, comment
down below and let me know if this propagation thing is something you're interested in, would
you recommend to other reefers or any advice you have. I look forward to hearing your thoughts
and interacting with you in the comments. If you are new here we would love to have
you subscribe and hit that like button. I'll see you guys next week with another BRSTV
video.