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.