Swedish fish - behind the scenes rebuilding a public aquarium

[Sallstrom]

Everything ok, now?

Yes. We spoke to the electrician today and we think we know what the problem was. Even if we have measured the power/amperes on all channels and it's fine, we get some power peaks when some LED power supplies are connected at the same time. And then the fuse goes out.
But Lasse figured it out and now everything is working fine again.

Next step is when they start building and cut the power to the whole museum and we will have to use power from outside.. Might be in two weeks, or two months. More adventures..

Yes, and I will do an extra overflow to the drain from the sump(so we won't get water on the floor when the return pump goes off). Haven't had the time yet..

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Yes. We spoke to the electrician today and we think we know what the problem was. Even if we have measured the power/amperes on all channels and it's fine, we get some power peaks when some LED power supplies are connected at the same time. And then the fuse goes out.
But Lasse figured it out and now everything is working fine again.

Next step is when they start building and cut the power to the whole museum and we will have to use power from outside.. Might be in two weeks, or two months. More adventures..

Yes, and I will do an extra overflow to the drain from the sump(so we won't get water on the floor when the return pump goes off). Haven't had the time yet..

You figured out, that's hardest part. Lasse's worth keeping. Now I know why God put him here on earth. .....heeeeee

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Wow, @Sallstrom

I haven’t been on the board much in the last couple of months...looks like you guys have been having a blast.

Are you going to use all of those AI lights in the new museum as well? What made you decide to use those?

 

[Sallstrom]

Wow, @Sallstrom

I haven’t been on the board much in the last couple of months...looks like you guys have been having a blast.

Are you going to use all of those AI lights in the new museum as well? What made you decide to use those?

Hi Gregg!

Yes, the plan is to use the Hydra's, and the Orphek's, if we need them in the new Aquarium. We will have a lot of smaller tank, propagation tanks and algae refugiums, so small LED units will be handy. We will do different public procurements for small and large LEDs, so we will have a different brand over the large tanks(not decided yet).

One important reson why we have bought Hydra's is that the largest wholesale in Sweden always have them in stock and we can have them in two days when we order. So when we needed quick replacement lights we could get those quickly. And at an okey price as well(just okey, I'm still trying to get better prices..).
Then after running a couple of them, both for corals and cold water kelp, for a while, we've found them to be really good. Easy to program and run in groups(no need for extra routers), corals are doing fine under them, good price and avalibility.
At the moment we have 25 units running, in four groups, and I can reprogram all of them in 10 minutes even though I'm not that good with apps..
Two units have failed in the three years we've had Hydra's. So 2 out of 26 units. For me that's okey too.
Last thing, the spectrum when all channels are at 100% seems to be well put together. I've had corals at PAR levels over 500 under Hydra at 100% and they've been fine. So they feel a bit as metal halides to me, but that's just my non scientific observations..

This came out as a long review of our Hydra 52, but I like them. At the moments we don't have any partners for small LED fixtures. So if anyone from AI reading this and would be interested in being a part of buidling the best Aquarium in the world, send me a PM

 

[Sallstrom]

This thread is getting quite long now, so here comes a short recap of this thread for newcomers and you guys with bad memory

I work at the Maritime Museum & Aquarium in Gothenburg Sweden. In Swedish we're called Sjöfartsmuseet Akvariet. We are a small museum, but still competing with the larger museums in the city when it comes to visitors numbers.
The museum and the Aquarium was started next to each other during the 300 years jubilee of the city of Gothenburg in 1923 and it turned out to be a good combination. Ten years later, in 1933, a new building was ready and The Maritime Museum & Aquarium opened. This building is now almost 90 years old and it's time to do some rebuilding.

The most famous animal in the Aquarium was the American alligator Smilet (the grin or the smile in English). It lived at the Aquarium from 1923 to 1987. Some people still ask for Smilet. She was famous for almost never moving..
Since 2004 there are only aquariums in the Aquarium, no more monkeys, snakes and alligators. Since 2012 we have only marine aquariums.

A couple of years ago we started the rebuilding project and so far things are going well. It'll be a new building for the new Aquarium, under the park in front of the museum. It'll still be one entrance for the museum and the Aquarium. The plan is to reopen the fall 2021, with a new Aquarium, a new entrance, new elevators and many new exhibits.

Right now we are waiting for the city to announce which company that will lead the building process. All the drawings were done by April this year. Hopefully the building process will start in about two weeks.

During the building process many of our animals live in what we call "The temporary Aquarium". It's not open to the public, just a room filled with tanks. The room is located in the museum building(where the the old cafe was located), so the move into the New Aquarium won't be far. We have about 8000 liters of water in the temporary Aquarium.
We have had pretty good success with tropical corals the last 8-10 years, so corals are a large portion of the things we've saved and will bring into the new tanks in the new Aquarium.

The last years we've had about 75000 liters of aquarium water in total. So are a small public aquarium, more interested in showing details and ecosystems, than say just sharks..
The new Aquarium will be almost ten times bigger, with the largest tank planned to be a live coral reef at around 400 000 litres. There will also be cold water tanks exhibiting kelp forests, sea grass communities, deep water reefs etc. All tanks haven't been decided yet, much of that fun work will be done during the fall. Together with the planning of the exhibition room.

My name is David and I'm responsible for keeping the corals alive, and running to get tools for @Lasse, among other things
I'm an aquarist who studied marine biology and ended up at a public aquarium. I like to share ideas, get news and input, and hang out on R2R. Therefor I have this thread.

Feel free to ask anything you like or give any input you like.

Edit. Here an old sketch up drawing my colleague did. Just for you to get an idea of the new Aquarium building. Some tanks are not correct, and some are missing.. But the large reef tank is in the drawing Plus another drawing from the top.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Hi Gregg!

Yes, the plan is to use the Hydra's, and the Orphek's, if we need them in the new Aquarium. We will have a lot of smaller tank, propagation tanks and algae refugiums, so small LED units will be handy. We will do different public procurements for small and large LEDs, so we will have a different brand over the large tanks(not decided yet).

One important reson why we have bought Hydra's is that the largest wholesale in Sweden always have them in stock and we can have them in two days when we order. So when we needed quick replacement lights we could get those quickly. And at an okey price as well(just okey, I'm still trying to get better prices..).
Then after running a couple of them, both for corals and cold water kelp, for a while, we've found them to be really good. Easy to program and run in groups(no need for extra routers), corals are doing fine under them, good price and avalibility.
At the moment we have 25 units running, in four groups, and I can reprogram all of them in 10 minutes even though I'm not that good with apps..
Two units have failed in the three years we've had Hydra's. So 2 out of 26 units. For me that's okey too.
Last thing, the spectrum when all channels are at 100% seems to be well put together. I've had corals at PAR levels over 500 under Hydra at 100% and they've been fine. So they feel a bit as metal halides to me, but that's just my non scientific observations..

This came out as a long review of our Hydra 52, but I like them. At the moments we don't have any partners for small LED fixtures. So if anyone from AI reading this and would be interested in being a part of buidling the best Aquarium in the world, send me a PM

I agree. I have been using the Hydras for years, and have really liked the results. It’s really the programmability that I like, and the output is fairly halide-like, as you said.

I’ve started running a program with a steady ramp-up from 7am-12pm, and getting pretty close to 100%. Then, for a few hours, I will drop most spectra all the way down to ~20% and then back up over the course of 20 minutes. I do this 5 or 6 times. I’ve really liked the response I’ve gotten from the corals.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I agree. I have been using the Hydras for years, and have really liked the results. It’s really the programmability that I like, and the output is fairly halide-like, as you said.

I’ve started running a program with a steady ramp-up from 7am-12pm, and getting pretty close to 100%. Then, for a few hours, I will drop most spectra all the way down to ~20% and then back up over the course of 20 minutes. I do this 5 or 6 times. I’ve really liked the response I’ve gotten from the corals.

From your description, I visualise cloud movement. Yes/no?

 

[Sallstrom]

I agree. I have been using the Hydras for years, and have really liked the results. It’s really the programmability that I like, and the output is fairly halide-like, as you said.

I’ve started running a program with a steady ramp-up from 7am-12pm, and getting pretty close to 100%. Then, for a few hours, I will drop most spectra all the way down to ~20% and then back up over the course of 20 minutes. I do this 5 or 6 times. I’ve really liked the response I’ve gotten from the corals.

I've been quite bad at using all programming options on LEDs. To be honest I would be happy with a on/off switch most of the times.. But at the moment we run an hour ramping up to 100%, seven hours on 100%, then ramping down for one hour.

Are you going for the supposed extra growth with several daylight periods a day or is it just for some variation?

Thinking of it, we run three identical tanks now, with the same water and light setups. Those three could be used as three treatments in an experiment. Perhaps not for a scientific paper, but as an aquarium experiment. I will look into the method with more then one daylight period. Would be easy to do a growth experiment using some fast growing Seriatopora hystrix.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I've been quite bad at using all programming options on LEDs. To be honest I would be happy with a on/off switch most of the times.. But at the moment we run an hour ramping up to 100%, seven hours on 100%, then ramping down for one hour.

Are you going for the supposed extra growth with several daylight periods a day or is it just for some variation?

Thinking of it, we run three identical tanks now, with the same water and light setups. Those three could be used as three treatments in an experiment. Perhaps not for a scientific paper, but as an aquarium experiment. I will look into the method with more then one daylight period. Would be easy to do a growth experiment using some fast growing Seriatopora hystrix.

So, it’s a 10 minute drop, and a 10 minute ramp up. Realistically, it’s 5 minutes with low output, and 15 between that and full output.

Like clouds moving over, it just gives the corals a little break. Fish too. Nothing big, but natural. I wish there was a way on those lights to program full days here and there of cloud cover.

Also differentiates the appearance of the tank...it’s nice to see it look differently during the day.

I have zero scientific evidence to support it helping the corals, but to my eyes, they just look a little happier. LEDs are not always kind to them, so I think they appreciate the relief her and there. Growth and color are good, and they have that extra little puff to them.

The other thing I’ve do (even though it’s a little more of a pain to program) is a true sunrise to sunset by angling the lights and ramping up and down accordingly. Lights at the ends mounted at ~45deg (or even a little more), and lights in the middle parallel to surface. It looks pretty cool when you can do it, and it helps get light to the lower parts of your SPS as well.

You should definitely run some trials and try to determine if there is a difference. It would be cool to see if some of those alterations make a difference.

 

[Fudsey]

So, it’s a 10 minute drop, and a 10 minute ramp up. Realistically, it’s 5 minutes with low output, and 15 between that and full output.

Like clouds moving over, it just gives the corals a little break. Fish too. Nothing big, but natural. I wish there was a way on those lights to program full days here and there of cloud cover.

Also differentiates the appearance of the tank...it’s nice to see it look differently during the day.

I have zero scientific evidence to support it helping the corals, but to my eyes, they just look a little happier. LEDs are not always kind to them, so I think they appreciate the relief her and there. Growth and color are good, and they have that extra little puff to them.

The other thing I’ve do (even though it’s a little more of a pain to program) is a true sunrise to sunset by angling the lights and ramping up and down accordingly. Lights at the ends mounted at ~45deg (or even a little more), and lights in the middle parallel to surface. It looks pretty cool when you can do it, and it helps get light to the lower parts of your SPS as well.

You should definitely run some trials and try to determine if there is a difference. It would be cool to see if some of those alterations make a difference.

Care to share that setting?

 

[Sallstrom]

So, it’s a 10 minute drop, and a 10 minute ramp up. Realistically, it’s 5 minutes with low output, and 15 between that and full output.

Like clouds moving over, it just gives the corals a little break. Fish too. Nothing big, but natural. I wish there was a way on those lights to program full days here and there of cloud cover.

Also differentiates the appearance of the tank...it’s nice to see it look differently during the day.

I have zero scientific evidence to support it helping the corals, but to my eyes, they just look a little happier. LEDs are not always kind to them, so I think they appreciate the relief her and there. Growth and color are good, and they have that extra little puff to them.

The other thing I’ve do (even though it’s a little more of a pain to program) is a true sunrise to sunset by angling the lights and ramping up and down accordingly. Lights at the ends mounted at ~45deg (or even a little more), and lights in the middle parallel to surface. It looks pretty cool when you can do it, and it helps get light to the lower parts of your SPS as well.

You should definitely run some trials and try to determine if there is a difference. It would be cool to see if some of those alterations make a difference.

Okey, thanks for sharing!
That sounds great to try to mimic natural conditions even more. I like it!

It's there an option for clouds in the AI program?
I know they have lightning flashes/thunderstorms. They really scared me one night I was trying to fix something alone at the old Aquarium. The room was dark but the something started to flash. I though it was a burglar with a flashlight at first. I've turned those thunderstorms off now..

I've had lots of discussions on LED fixtures with 45 degrees angle to the surface with @Lasse , specially for the new large tank. My feeling is that we won't need it since there are so many light sources and we'll get those angles anyway, but I'm just guessing at this point. Hopefully we can try it out when the light are up.

In a regular tank it would be great I think! We had a couple lights at about 45 degrees in the front of our old 10000 litres tank.

Thanks again for sharing! I've only been trying to keep the corals alive since the move to the temporary Aquarium. It's fun to start thinking of more improvements and possible setups for new tanks.

 

[Mortie31]

Okey, thanks for sharing!
That sounds great to try to mimic natural conditions even more. I like it!

It's there an option for clouds in the AI program?
I know they have lightning flashes/thunderstorms. They really scared me one night I was trying to fix something alone at the old Aquarium. The room was dark but the something started to flash. I though it was a burglar with a flashlight at first. I've turned those thunderstorms off now..

I've had lots of discussions on LED fixtures with 45 degrees angle to the surface with @Lasse , specially for the new large tank. My feeling is that we won't need it since there are so many light sources and we'll get those angles anyway, but I'm just guessing at this point. Hopefully we can try it out when the light are up.

In a regular tank it would be great I think! We had a couple lights at about 45 degrees in the front of our old 10000 litres tank.

Thanks again for sharing! I've only been trying to keep the corals alive since the move to the temporary Aquarium. It's fun to start thinking of more improvements and possible setups for new tanks.

Have you looked st the orphek amazonas LEDs for your big tanks? They look awesome

 

[Sallstrom]

Have you looked st the orphek amazonas LEDs for your big tanks? They look awesome

We got two of those already Bought them this spring, so haven't had them for long.
They fulfill our demands when it comes to voltage and the rules we have to follow, so they are absolutely one option we will look into more for the new reef tank.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Care to share that setting?

It’s generally like this, plus or minus here and there depending on depth of the tank, types of coral, light placements, etc:

Even though I take the intensity way down, it’s only for 10-20 minutes, and realistically, is only at the lowest intensity for a few minutes at a time.

 

[Sallstrom]

The build start is delayed for a couple of week due to an appeal. Not super fun but I guess these things are common

Aquarium wise not much has happened. We're having a bit low pH in one of the coral systems, due to the calcium reactor. We've started dosing Core7 to be able to turn the reactor down a bit and so far the pH has gone up on average 0,1. The corals are doing fine though (that's why we have had to turn the reactor up and up..). The absolutely easiest way would be to pull the plug and connect our two coral systems together, since the other one has really high pH(the pipes is already there, just need to remove two pipes which are not glued).
But then we would leave the idea of having separate systems to ensure not all of the corals would be killed if something happened to the water.. Have to think about that for some time before I change anything

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

The build start is delayed for a couple of week due to an appeal. Not super fun but I guess these things are common

Aquarium wise not much has happened. We're having a bit low pH in one of the coral systems, due to the calcium reactor. We've started dosing Core7 to be able to turn the reactor down a bit and so far the pH has gone up on average 0,1. The corals are doing fine though (that's why we have had to turn the reactor up and up..). The absolutely easiest way would be to pull the plug and connect our two coral systems together, since the other one has really high pH(the pipes is already there, just need to remove two pipes which are not glued).
But then we would leave the idea of having separate systems to ensure not all of the corals would be killed if something happened to the water.. Have to think about that for some time before I change anything

Calcium reactor also increase alkalinity?

 

[Sallstrom]

@Lasse can I have all our LEDs connected to a board like this??

 

[Sallstrom]

Calcium reactor also increase alkalinity?

Yes, you dial it in by checking the alkalinity.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

@Lasse can I have all our LEDs connected to a board like this??

Can Lasse come over and organize my wiring, all that for 46 gallon tank

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

This was on FB. It's only size of a pea


Body has like honeycomb structure