mangrove estuary

[DiZASTiX]

prelude

The nature of adult mangroves aesthetically appeal to me for I can only suppose the same reason that Joshua trees elicit the same fascination. Not long ago I moved to Silicon Valley due to join Bugdroid's crew in Sunnyvale, and I found a second floor condo in a small and rather communal and retired HOA tribe. I live on a unit above the landgirl. Fairly strict with sound (e.g., my Google Home attempting to wake me for work was met with perhaps some irritation, though my window was closed, which leads me to conclude the sound isolation isn't very good). For this reason, a leak of even a single drop entering her perfectly-manicured unit below—would be catastrophic.

I wish to mitigate risk by displacing it outside. Additionally, having attended Julian Sprung's talk with front row seats with my SO, I was very much impressed with his outdoor saltwater pond. Previously, I've made outdoor ponds, but only freshwater.

My goal is to combine risk management with creating something that would be a natural evolution: a mangrove estuary.

picture book

The sump—mangrove estuary—will be outside. The inside contains an 85 gal acrylic aquarium. (Gardening is another hobby.)

Our goal is to pass one 0.75 in return PVC pipes, two 1 in PVC drain pipes, and a single USB cable to connect an autofeeder and lights to the Neptune Apex system outside. The previous tenant must've made a hole to thread cabling for DirecTV. This is very fortunate for me, because I can fit everything my ecosystem requires thru this hole:

This is how the plumbing might look. Because we don't wish to drill more holes on her drywall (remember, she never approved a 100+ gal system in her house), we prefer to use the existing hole. Unfortunately, this leads to a P shape, which a member on @BRSTV indicated that it could be resolved by adding a vent that is at least as high as the overflow. Another member offered that I should add an emergency drain, and I added that I should ensure removability of the P shaped portion and perform cleaning and visual verification diligently. (Only one overflow pipe is shown, but there will be two overflow pipes).

Here is what I envision:

This is all I have for you:

 

[DiZASTiX]

too tall, but the shape is right

This is as far as I got in an afternoon: 4x 4x4 beams. Already, I noticed the height of the aquarium isn't right. Where Bugdroid sits is where a loveseat will go, and the wall to his left is where two chairs will go. Individuals sitting ought to be able to look at the aquarium by turning their head, without standing up. On the other side of the wall, I'll have chaise lounge (the LC4, specifically).

I placed a beam horizontally to demonstrate an idea: I'll have square cubbies accessible from either side of the aquarium and place things inside them. I'll have space for 8 cubbies. Each one I'll add a lighting to afford the ensconced objects a dramatic visual effect.

 

[chiefifd]

I'm not a structural engineer or professional carpenter by any means. If it were me I'd add more supports, short-side to short-side, under the 4x4's holding the tank up at least if that makes sense.
Acrylic tanks are meant to be supported 100% on the bottom as I understand, it doesn't look like you have a solid bottom from the photos.
Please don't take this as criticism, just something to think about. The weight of the tank combined with height, bad things can happen fast.
Take care....

 

[DiZASTiX]

Those are good points:

Under the tank is going to be 9 in 4x4s (~5 total). A thin piece of wood will rest between the aquarium and the tank. Half of my aquaria in the past were acrylic, and I'd use 1/2 in board + 1/2 in foam. I used to use foam as well. I may use something very thin this time around.

The Home Depot expert recommended I get at least the skeleton up, so I can see it in "3d", as he put it—so the right side isn't even braced: you can push the aquarium from either side right now and the right side would just fall apart. I need to run back just to buy more screws and two kinds of braces. I'm going to buy another 4x4, but I'll wait till the weekdays when she's not home. Rule #0. Don't be suspicious, if you're doing something you think you should be asking permission for.

Also, I'm going to lop the height reduced by ~10 in, which increases the front-back stability. The far side of the photo will have a chaise lounge, which is too short to view the aquarium. How do I view from one side on a sofa and the other side on a chaise lounge? I know: elevate the side where one would be lower. We'll attach 2x4s to the bottom of the aquarium, cover with a giant piece of compressed wood, and now we add maybe 4 in and increase stability.

If the landgirl ever came in here, she'd be like "what the heck ;Wideyed". That's why we'll have plywood pieces that cover up the aquarium, on which we can add marker paper or a whiteboard. "Oh .. this person setup home like a work place." is better than "OMG my tenant living above me has an 85 gal aquarium I didn't know about."

On that note, @chiefifd , thoughts on plumbing? For reasons implied above, the plumbing must go thru that hole in the wall. I can make it a double panel, and she might not realise it's bigger. If I dig a hole higher up though, that'd be a huge no no. I plan on a BeanAnimal system with 1.25 in pipes (I have a VarioS-6 already). People on AskBRSTV have said it sounds okay even if the plumbing must go down, pass a hole in the wall, and then go up and over the edge of the outdoor pond—just a tall standpipe for venting must be used (as this is functionally the same as a P-line in domestic and commercial use).

 

[Smarkow]

Very cool. Bold move with the landlord... I approve haha! San Jose must be nice... outdoor tank, will you lose much heat at night?

Thanks for sharing

 

[chiefifd]

The only thing I would consider no matter what final design for plumbing you decide on DiZASTiX is to use true-unions in a few locations for cleaning/replacing pumps ect.

Schedule 80 Union Slip x Slip

Why does BRS recommend this? We have never heard “I put too many unions on my plumbing.” When it comes to the initial plumbing, servicing, repair, or replacement of any hardware unions will be your best friend. For a couple extra bucks right off the start, down the line, they will pay for...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

Hope everything goes well for you! Take Care

 

[Eric R.]

@DiZASTiX any updates on the mangrove estuary?

 

[DiZASTiX]

mangrove sprouts and leather toadstools can grow outdoors

Yes, it's been rained in. We live in San José, near a CalTrain + LRail station, by a heavily-trafficked street. I have bird feeders and many flowers, and flowers just fall in. I just leave them. Bugs too. Someone tried to tell me this would never work with bird feces and bugs. Now, I wouldn't say I'm an expert, aren't most reefs and mangrove estuaries outdoors?

We decided we no longer wished to live in this part of town, but it might be a bit of time until we actually move; that means we won't expand. Right now, the indoor tank is just sitting in the living room, empty. We decided that since we're planning to move anyway, rather than tear everything apart, we'll work on the tiny kitchen reef tank and this outdoor tank, as separate aquaria.

These poor mangrove plants die with a lot of people (speaking as someone who's grown a lot of plants, not so much as a reefer growing aquatic plants), and a lot of it is due to acclimitisation: there's the bit where people change the salinity too much, but what I wasn't aware of is that there may be gaps in knowledge in terms of handling these guys: don't float the saltwater ones temporarily in a freshwater tank, or they turn into desiccated sticks, as you can see below. I used to tie them to sticks I pushed into the water. I did that in my Taiwan home. Like all plants, roots are delicate, and it'll reduce their chances to survive if you agitate them. For aquatic and terrestrial plants (ornamentals and fruit), on I like sand. All I did was place them into Home Depot playground sand, which helps keep everyone steady, and the roots protected, and the bacteria and fungi stuff too:

Literally, I recycled garbage, such as milk jugs, poked lots of holes all over, so the water level within the "planter" would mimic the water level in the watering trough. Right now, there is no ATO. I turn on a switch once every week to fill it up over a few hours, and that would be a swing of 33 to 36 PPT; at 2 week, it gets to 38 PPT, which is not great for the one coral. You can see the leaves tips are opening up. I tried to tune the lighting with a PAR metre, because Ryan and Randy from BRSTV are right: more is not better. The right amount is better. A lot of people have been saying a good amount is fine, but there is no upper bound. I used to grow these guys outdoors using just the sun. There's a roof overhead and things blocking the sun at some hours, so I used a PAR metre to plot for 12 hours, what the PAR looks like, and adjusted my light output so we don't blast plants or corals with more than peak photoperiod. Then, I expanded the photoperiod to become 16/8: for me, that's ON at 10 am, and OFF at 2 am. The Fluval reef tank and other plant lighting in the house follow a similar shifted day-nite period.

This one came this way, but it's my favourite one:

There's a BRS heater in there, that's tied to the BRS thermostat. That, in turn, is tied to an inexpensive Smart Life, a Home-compatible smart socket, tied to monitoring weather conditions. If it's blazing hot outside, the heater shouldn't be on. (Plus, saying "Hey Google, turn on Mangrove Lights" is neat). If you track my project, this is all proof-of-concept. The end goal is to move out of San Jose in the Pacific coast area, with land to dig a big pond in the ground—kind of like a bigger version of what Julian Sprung did .. all hail Julian Sprung =o) However, how awesome would it be to create a mini version of those coastal wetlands at the edges of the SF Bay?

Yes, that's a KZ system: those are ZEOvits. Yes, I shook them the first few weeks. Now, it's kinda cold to be going outside shaking ZEOvits. I also use a ton of ceramic surfaces. I dose carbon (though I can't detect nitrates) various other KZ products—mostly the amino acids, bacteria, and other food items.

The only thing that wrecks the ecosystem is dosing too much of an amino acid that's gone rancid. This is on me, not Polyp Lab, but though the amino acid contains some nitrates or phosphates as a fresh product, it is not great if gone rancid. It didn't raise nitrates or phosphates, but made the water very tinted.

Not an experimental guinea pig. A loved leather toadstool, just like every other pet. Quite the contrary, I think the larger body of water brings better overall stability, even though normally we'd say 33-36 ppt range is bad (indoor tanks have it locked down just under 35, just over 34. But look. Growing. On sunlight.

Thanks for everyone's interest.