10000L Coral reef at The Maritime Museum & Aquarium Sweden

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Alright! I got some questions over PM on the 10000L tank so I thought I might post the answer here in the thread.
Here are the questions:

"Why do you keep the LEDs? Are they making a difference? Is that just a test?
Please let me know what halide bulbs and the ballasts you are using.
The lights at the front have fuzzy lenses. You could get similar reflectors with flat glass lenses totally transparent. Is there any reason why you keep those fuzzy lenses?
Do you have a list of the corals there?
What changes are you going to make with the renovations?"

Why we keep the greenhouse LEDs(Heliospectra LX602) is because we have them on loan. So they are free and we will return them. With our budget everything free is welcomed
I can't say they make a difference, can't even say if they are better or worse then a metal halide. If they had a spectrum for reef aquariums, my guess is that this LED is (in some ways) equal to a 1000w MH. The lenses are great IMO.
So yes, it's a test. We also run 3 Pacific Sun Kryos 300W (not for free..) over the "Shark tank" as a test. These are just blue and white spectrum. So not "reef spectrum". They are really "strong", therefor very narrow light(low coverage). We managed to burn corals at 150 cm depth and had to turn them down.

I really like metal halides, but I've come to accept that it's time to change to something more modern. Sure, for growing corals they do a great job. But so do the right LED light, without the extra heat.

Before we used Reeflux metal halide bulbs. I like them a lot. Now they are not made anymore so we are trying BLV bulbs. The corals likes them but IMO the light was better looking with the Reeflux bulbs. We got a bunch of different ballasts. Have to get back on that one.

The lights with the fuzzy lenses are ceramic metal halides. We got them for a good price The lenses are for a square light footprint. We tried to cover the mid part in the tank. But they don't have that much effect, they are just 150 watts each.
So they are just a test as well. We like to test. The bulbs are from BLV.
We haven't touched them for three years because they are very hard to reach..

No, I don't have a complete list of the corals. But I'm working on it! We are trying to improve our skills in IDing corals, so we are working on a picture library of our corals. Next step is to send in DNA analysis. This week I hope my colleague will send in DNA from 15 different Acropora species. Not sure if our method works yet, but hopefully we get some results!
I think we got around 30 species of Acropora in our tanks, next in line is to count and take pictures of the Montipora species
This is something we hope to do more during the time we rebuild.

The biggest change (when it comes to the aquariums) we will do in the new Aquarium is the replace the metal halides with LED. For small tanks I'm sure there are great LEDs, but I'm not sure there are for deeper tanks yet. We want to be able to grow coral at 4 meters depth, so that is a challenge. I'm really not sure we will find the perfect light right from the start, but we will try our best. I can't say more than that now, and I don't know more yet.
Oh, and we will have at least one really big window. That'll be cool

When it comes to our present tanks, none of them were started with a big budget. So we've improved the lighting whenever we've gotten some money to spare. That's is why we've tested some cheaper lights, and lights not designed for reef tanks.

So planning a new Aquarium with all new equipment is a bit new to us. We like to adjust things, rebuild things, add extra lights where we think it's needed, extra flow etc. Now we're supposed to do it right from the beginning ;Nailbiting
Therefor I'm a bit prepared that the new Aquarium won't be perfect from the start. Some stuff won't work the way we wanted. And I know I will have to compromise a lot during the building of the new tanks. It's not my money But I also know we've gotten pretty good at fixing things to the better.

Okey! Long text today. Just got home from work, from a meeting where we got the news that we don't have any room for RO water tanks in the new Aquarium. Maybe we'll have to skip the sauna then..

That's alot writting, our area, we use a lot of tablets, smart phones. I can't write like you, to consuming, on these devices. Like all machines, when your system is up and running, there will be things to straighten up. Patience, a lot patience

 

[A. grandis]

Just to be a honest thread, I would like to share some bad news as well (not super bad, but like, boring.).
Today we discovered some kind of brown jelly disease on a Seriatopora caliendrium/guttatta(never remembers..).
I don't really know why this occurs sometimes in our tanks. Often on Seriatopora, but also on Euphyllia and Acropora. So I took all the infected branches out, plus some extra centimetres live tissue. Hopefully it won't spread, but we'll have to check carefully this week if we find it anywhere else in the tank.
Here's a before and after

I also did a mistake by putting a chiller too close to the shark tank earlier this summer, so the condensation water dripped into the tank. The aluminium in the water went from 0 to 160ug/l in a month. Oops

I would suggest to remove those "red" LEDs right now and you won't loose any more corals!!!
Frag the left over and place them in the system receiving light from the metal halides.
Red light is known to damage zooxanthellae and therefore is possibly the only reason you are having problems with the Seriatopora.
I would remove those LEDs today and give them back to the company. You do not need LEDs in that type of system and the halides do a much better and complete job, offering quality light to the corals.
Here:
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/red-light-negatively-affects-health-of-stony-coral

Metal halides are the best you can offer to that type of system specially because of the depth.
I would also suggest to plan metal halides for the new system as well.
I would use a combination of 400W and 1000W for the new system.

I hope your vision of technology to be choosing the very best metal halides available today in combination with quality ballasts and possibly T5 supplementation for your systems. You won't regret!

Very nice pictures!!!

 

[Sallstrom]

I would suggest to remove those "red" LEDs right now and you won't loose any more corals!!!
Frag the left over and place them in the system receiving light from the metal halides.
Red light is known to damage zooxanthellae and therefore is possibly the only reason you are having problems with the Seriatopora.
I would remove those LEDs today and give them back to the company. You do not need LEDs in that type of system and the halides do a much better and complete job, offering quality light to the corals.
Here:
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/red-light-negatively-affects-health-of-stony-coral

Metal halides are the best you can offer to that type of system specially because of the depth.
I would also suggest to plan metal halides for the new system as well.
I would use a combination of 400W and 1000W for the new system.

I hope your vision of technology to be choosing the very best metal halides available today in combination with quality ballasts and possibly T5 supplementation for your systems. You won't regret!

Very nice pictures!!!

Thank you for you thoughts!

We have been testing a lot, trying different wavelenghts and meassured the oxygen production etc. I've even tested to grow corals under just 660nm red LEDs And I agree on to be careful with red wavelenghts but not to be too scared. I believe red is not that harmful used the right way, and together with other wavelengts. This particular greenhouse LED over the 10000L tank has been there since November 2015. So a three year test time and the corals have grown a lot. I don't believe that LED fixture is harmful in this case, when the corals also get some more wavelenghts from the other lamps.

Brown jelly disease has occured in our other tanks as well, even in tanks with only metal halides.

I don't question the results with metal halides, I've just accepted to not use such old technique in a new Aquarium, when there is other options. I love metal halides, don't get me wrong

And if you have a look at the pictures Ive posted on the Hydnopora, thats only LED over that tank(the "shark tank"), 3 x Heliospectra 600W + 3 x PS Kryos 300W, not on full effect. So it's quite possible to run a larger tank on LEDs as well.

Another option with some of the LED fixtures we've been looking into is to connect them directly to a air ventilation tube. Thats is also something that might be important, to control the heat and maybe be able to reuse the heat.

/ David

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Deep coral reef in Carolina. So polluted and thriving

 

[Brew12]

Another option with some of the LED fixtures we've been looking into is to connect them directly to a air ventilation tube.

I've often thought about this for larger aquariums. It would seem to make sense to mount the light fixtures into a ventilation duct that could draw a suction from and discharge to the outside. I would think this would work in all but the warmest of climates. A variable speed ventilation fan would reduce air flow on cooler days to limit condensation risks.

 

[Sallstrom]

Deep coral reef in Carolina. So polluted and thriving

Nice corals! We've been looking for those for a long time. Would really like to try to create a deep water reef(deep and cold) with Lophelia pertusa. Hopefully we can get some before we open up the new Aquarium.

I've heard they are quite hardy in aquariums as well. Some scientists study them in Sweden at a research centre under the university of Gothenburg.
We got a small Lophelia reef outside the west coast here. Unfortunately most of it is destroyed by trawl fishing boats, but nowadays it's protected. I think it's at 85 meters depth.

 

[Sallstrom]

I've often thought about this for larger aquariums. It would seem to make sense to mount the light fixtures into a ventilation duct that could draw a suction from and discharge to the outside. I would think this would work in all but the warmest of climates. A variable speed ventilation fan would reduce air flow on cooler days to limit condensation risks.

Yes, something like that would have been great. Heliospectra LX602, the greenhouse LED we've borrowed, have fans and an option to attach a big pipe. You could also connect several lamps together leading the air to a ventilation duct. Not a fixture you want in your livingroom, but perfect for us.
To bad they don't have a "reef daylight spectrum" yet

 

[A. grandis]

Thank you for you thoughts!

We have been testing a lot, trying different wavelenghts and meassured the oxygen production etc. I've even tested to grow corals under just 660nm red LEDs And I agree on to be careful with red wavelenghts but not to be too scared. I believe red is not that harmful used the right way, and together with other wavelengts. This particular greenhouse LED over the 10000L tank has been there since November 2015. So a three year test time and the corals have grown a lot. I don't believe that LED fixture is harmful in this case, when the corals also get some more wavelenghts from the other lamps.

Brown jelly disease has occured in our other tanks as well, even in tanks with only metal halides.

I don't question the results with metal halides, I've just accepted to not use such old technique in a new Aquarium, when there is other options. I love metal halides, don't get me wrong

And if you have a look at the pictures Ive posted on the Hydnopora, thats only LED over that tank(the "shark tank"), 3 x Heliospectra 600W + 3 x PS Kryos 300W, not on full effect. So it's quite possible to run a larger tank on LEDs as well.

Another option with some of the LED fixtures we've been looking into is to connect them directly to a air ventilation tube. Thats is also something that might be important, to control the heat and maybe be able to reuse the heat.

/ David

Thanks for the reply!
Do you see any differences between the systems with corals growing under halides and with LEDs?
Colony shape?
Polyp extension?
Dead spots?
Colors?
Growth rate?
Vulnerability to diseases (like the " brown jelly"), drop in their immune system?
Formation of pigments?

IMHO red, as any other color, is only beneficial in the right rate, with a balanced spectrum. That is the way I see.
Thanks very much for sharing all the info with us.

 

[Sallstrom]

Thanks for the reply!
Do you see any differences between the systems with corals growing under halides and with LEDs?
Colony shape?
Polyp extension?
Dead spots?
Colors?
Growth rate?
Vulnerability to diseases (like the " brown jelly"), drop in their immune system?
Formation of pigments?

IMHO red, as any other color, is only beneficial in the right rate, with a balanced spectrum. That is the way I see.
Thanks very much for sharing all the info with us.

No problem. I hope I can contribute some with our experiences at work

It's really hard to make any claims between tanks. They all are a bit different, both the setups and how the water is. So in that case I can only say they survive and grow or not. And right now the corals survive and grow in most of our tanks, LED or metal halides.

We do have systems with both LEDs and metal halides, and in those systems I can't really say by looking at a coral under which light source they have been growing under. I may be able to see if the PAR has been high or low.

But playing around with LEDs we also had spots with too high PAR without realising. It was first when we measured PAR that we figured that out. This was under the Pacific Sun Kryos. But they are more like spot lights with only white and blue diods, not really made for live reef tanks I think. The corals do fine now though when we lowered the output.

Colony shape and shading has more to do if you have many light sources/good coverage. Large tanks with several lamps you'll have light coming from a large area, making the colony's in the middle grow in all directions instead of growing toward one lights source. But it also has to do with water flow etc.

So I can't really say the corals do better or worse under LEDs or metal halides. One thing that's better with MH (often) is the coverage, a metal halide with a good reflector has great coverage, small LEDs doesn't. But that kind of obvious. The Heliospectra LX has some kind of lense and has really good coverage for a LED. I hope more LED will come with better lenses.

Maybe not great answers, but having tested a lot of light sources I feel the corals don't really care that much. I think it's mostly the aquarists thats picky..

 

[A. grandis]

No problem. I hope I can contribute some with our experiences at work

It's really hard to make any claims between tanks. They all are a bit different, both the setups and how the water is. So in that case I can only say they survive and grow or not. And right now the corals survive and grow in most of our tanks, LED or metal halides.

We do have systems with both LEDs and metal halides, and in those systems I can't really say by looking at a coral under which light source they have been growing under. I may be able to see if the PAR has been high or low.

But playing around with LEDs we also had spots with too high PAR without realising. It was first when we measured PAR that we figured that out. This was under the Pacific Sun Kryos. But they are more like spot lights with only white and blue diods, not really made for live reef tanks I think. The corals do fine now though when we lowered the output.

Colony shape and shading has more to do if you have many light sources/good coverage. Large tanks with several lamps you'll have light coming from a large area, making the colony's in the middle grow in all directions instead of growing toward one lights source. But it also has to do with water flow etc.

So I can't really say the corals do better or worse under LEDs or metal halides. One thing that's better with MH (often) is the coverage, a metal halide with a good reflector has great coverage, small LEDs doesn't. But that kind of obvious. The Heliospectra LX has some kind of lense and has really good coverage for a LED. I hope more LED will come with better lenses.

Maybe not great answers, but having tested a lot of light sources I feel the corals don't really care that much. I think it's mostly the aquarists thats picky..

I appreciate your answer anyway. Great point with the coverage. That is some of the main differences between the 2 light sources.
I would think that the fact that you "fell the corals don't really care that much" is more like they have a tremendous ability to adapt to most artificial light sources than they are receiving the exact quality from both sources, in order to try to resemble the natural light over the reefs.
My vision is to get closer to the natural environment as possible when I set up my systems in regards to light, therefore my suggestion for halides for such deeper tanks because of the efficiency in photons/PAR distrubution.

You are right, everyone has a different taste for what they want to see in their tanks and choose how they like to run their systems.
That shows how different we are and our tanks will reflect our personalities and choices.
Once more I really appreciate you sharing your pictures and I hope to see the catalog of Acropora species soon with their scientific names posted and possibly some images?
Cheers!

 

[Sallstrom]

10000L reef tank
KH was 5,9 yesterday at 14:30. Lowered the pH in the calcium reactor from 6,3 to 6,25 and today at 08:30 KH was 6,1. Sometimes you are lucky
Aiming for 7 dKH(but I'm actually more scared of KH running away up then if the KH drops a bit under 6).
The summer heat is over and now all the lights are on and the temperature is around 26-27, so the growth started again.

/ David

 

[Brew12]

Sometimes you are lucky

Somehow, I feel experience may have come into play.

Aiming for 7 dKH(but I'm actually more scared of KH running away up then if the KH drops a bit under 6).

I aim for 8 but hang out at 7.7dkh more often than not for the same reason. Going high scares me.

The summer heat is over and now all the lights are on and the temperature is around 26-27, so the growth started again.

You should tell that to the weather around here! I had a package of frozen food delivered yesterday morning and it sat on my porch until I got home 7 hours later. It was over 35C out but fortunately the package stayed frozen.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Sallstrom or Lasse, I haven't googled, is there a test for sulfur in saltwater water, how much in sw?

 

[Sallstrom]

Sallstrom or Lasse, I haven't googled, is there a test for sulfur in saltwater water, how much in sw?

I only know of the ICP tests. Haven't seen any hobby tests. Did a quick search and found a SO2 titrator for 1000$ (for wine and beer)

On the ICP tests fron Triton lab the setpoint is 900 mg/l for S.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I only know of the ICP tests. Haven't seen any hobby tests. Did a quick search and found a SO2 titrator for 1000$ (for wine and beer)

On the ICP tests fron Triton lab the setpoint is 900 mg/l for S.

Thanks, will look into it

 

[Sallstrom]

I appreciate your answer anyway. Great point with the coverage. That is some of the main differences between the 2 light sources.
I would think that the fact that you "fell the corals don't really care that much" is more like they have a tremendous ability to adapt to most artificial light sources than they are receiving the exact quality from both sources, in order to try to resemble the natural light over the reefs.
My vision is to get closer to the natural environment as possible when I set up my systems in regards to light, therefore my suggestion for halides for such deeper tanks because of the efficiency in photons/PAR distrubution.

You are right, everyone has a different taste for what they want to see in their tanks and choose how they like to run their systems.
That shows how different we are and our tanks will reflect our personalities and choices.
Once more I really appreciate you sharing your pictures and I hope to see the catalog of Acropora species soon with their scientific names posted and possibly some images?
Cheers!

Here's an interesting thing about the metal halides. This is a graph of wavelenghts taken by an expert, using a JAZ-something, testing some of our light fixtures. The graph is a 1000W metal halide 16000K BLV.

Check out the peaks above 800nm. I think thats heat(but I might be wrong, I'm not an expert at all on wavelenghts). That part you don't see when you see the spectrum for a metal halide bulb. So a lot of the energi is transformed into wavelenghts above 800nm. Those LEDs we tested had almost no photons over 800nm.

And speaking of red wavelenghts, 600-700nm, you see on the table that 25% of the PAR is made up from red light.

 

[gregkn73]

Sallstrom ,do you have any plan to use natural sun light, for your new reef?

 

[Sallstrom]

Sallstrom ,do you have any plan to use natural sun light, for your new reef?

No, unfortunately. The new building will be under ground. We've talked about using solar tubes, but that wasn't possible.

When it comes to the outside of the old museum building and the small park in front of it, that is supposed to stay as close as possible to the original. Or at least not change to much. That due to rules and neighbors
Of course the small park will have to be removed when they build the new Aquarium, but restored afterwards.

Edit. Our firsts plans was a new Aquarium building outside the museum in the park. But it turned out to be easier/better to dig a hole in the park, build and covered the new building instead

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Sallstrom ,do you have any plan to use natural sun light, for your new reef?

Thats a real good idea, if my setup, i would have cover type material that lets a percentage of light and material be removed for days wben cold and bright sun. Specially heat buildup in tank(s) cover material to control that

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

No, unfortunately. The new building will be under ground. We've talked about using solar tubes, but that wasn't possible.

When it comes to the outside of the old museum building and the small park in front of it, that is supposed to stay as close as possible to the original. Or at least not change to much. That due to rules and neighbors
Of course the small park will have to be removed when they build the new Aquarium, but restored afterwards.

Edit. Our firsts plans was a new Aquarium building outside the museum in the park. But it turned out to be easier/better to dig a hole in the park, build and covered the new building instead

How about refugium outside. Big one