Swedish fish - behind the scenes rebuilding a public aquarium

[NY_Caveman]

I think You have experienced to many things the last 10 years to cover in 1 speak.
Make at least 4. Here are a few possible items just for You.
Starting with corals in a public aquarium.
Coral propagation for public aquariums.
Maintaining the water quality for public aquariums.
Choosing corals for a public aquarium.
Working with architects and the city to get fonds and build permits for a public aquarium.
Handling a nerd guest / visitor / friend / coworker in a public aquarium.

I am sure each one of those will have to be cut back not to exceed 1 hour.
And I am sure You have a few more subjects.

I am waiting for
“Sweden, for Singles”

 

[Sallstrom]

The talk went well! Me and my colleague did two talks covering how we’ve worked to propagate and expanded our coral collection over the last 10 years, and how we plan to start up the new large reef tank. We also talked about the building process, conservation and our work with marine education.
So didn’t go into details that much. The audience were mixed aquarists from public aquaria in Scandinavia, and not all of them keep tropical corals.

The conference was great. A lot of talk about conservation and how the public aquariums in Scandinavia can collaborate more.

Here’s the octopus Eledone cirrhosa. One you can find in Swedish waters!

 

[Sallstrom]

Here’s my colleague Jens! He did another talk focusing on our plan for a class room for marine education. And a bit on the overall aquarium exhibit.

Back at the Aquarium today. Good to do some work with the corals and do some measuring again
We started a calcium reactor earlier this week, so now both coral systems are running with Core7 together with a calcium reactor. We’ll see if some extra CO2 in the water might cheer up the corals

 

[Fudsey]

Do you always do your presentations in English? I figured it would be in Swedish...

 

[Sallstrom]

Do you always do your presentations in English? I figured it would be in Swedish...

This time we did the presentation in Swedish, but had english text on the power point presentation. We are aquarists from Scandinavia and some words are different in our different languages, so we figured using english text could help the understanding.

Sometimes we've had the talks in english, when some attendes didn't speak swedish/danish/norwegian.

 

[John R]

I was wondering if you got anywhere with Heliospectra? We have marine and terrestrial plant growth research here and the Heliospectras are amazing products in the greenhouses but we are looking for better marine lab lights and if we could get something with Heliospectra's control capabilities it would be amazing.

 

[Sallstrom]

I was wondering if you got anywhere with Heliospectra? We have marine and terrestrial plant growth research here and the Heliospectras are amazing products in the greenhouses but we are looking for better marine lab lights and if we could get something with Heliospectra's control capabilities it would be amazing.

We are still in contact with Heliospectra and visited them a couple of weeks ago to look at their new light bars/fixtures Mitra.

But due to the rules we have to follow for tanks we will dive in, we can’t use their products. This is because of the electrics, we can’t have 230V close to the water. And only below 36V DC above the water.
Which is really a bummer, because I really like their products.
Check out their new Mitra fixtures. They were less red and more white, and would probably do great for coral propagation tanks. They were really powerful!

 

[John R]

The 220v rule makes a lot of sense. I never thought of that. Probably wouldn't want to work in a tank by hand with that either. Thanks for the insight.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

The talk went well! Me and my colleague did two talks covering how we’ve worked to propagate and expanded our coral collection over the last 10 years, and how we plan to start up the new large reef tank. We also talked about the building process, conservation and our work with marine education.
So didn’t go into details that much. The audience were mixed aquarists from public aquaria in Scandinavia, and not all of them keep tropical corals.

The conference was great. A lot of talk about conservation and how the public aquariums in Scandinavia can collaborate more.

Here’s the octopus Eledone cirrhosa. One you can find in Swedish waters!

One thing about octopus DNA, not of this world. No other creature similar to it.

 

[Brew12]

But due to the rules we have to follow for tanks we will dive in, we can’t use their products. This is because of the electrics, we can’t have 230V close to the water. And only below 36V DC above the water.

This is unfortunate. Do they not make exceptions if you use RCD's to protect the system? Properly designed, there is no reason a combination of proper grounding/bonding and RCD's couldn't make the tank safe to dive in with 230V above it.

 

[John R]

This is unfortunate. Do they not make exceptions if you use RCD's to protect the system? Properly designed, there is no reason a combination of proper grounding/bonding and RCD's couldn't make the tank safe to dive in with 230V above it.

Does this rely on earth leakage safety breakers? Because I wouldn't trust my life with earth leakage.

 

[Sallstrom]

This is unfortunate. Do they not make exceptions if you use RCD's to protect the system? Properly designed, there is no reason a combination of proper grounding/bonding and RCD's couldn't make the tank safe to dive in with 230V above it.

I'm not that good at the electric stuff, but when sitting down with the engineers to draw the power supplys etc for the new builing they were quite clear that we had to follow the rules for swimming pools in Sweden. Then we can't have 230V closer than something like 2 meter from the water surface.
We will probably be the only aquarium in Sweden following these rules.. But we're trying to do our best anyway

 

[Lasse]

I was wondering if you got anywhere with Heliospectra? We have marine and terrestrial plant growth research here and the Heliospectras are amazing products in the greenhouses but we are looking for better marine lab lights and if we could get something with Heliospectra's control capabilities it would be amazing.

I suppose you men their L4A research fixtures. Unfortunately - they does not do these fixtures any longer. The new ones have no or few possibilities to change spectra.

If you use normal aquariums in your research - look at GHL Mitras LX 7000 serie or GHL Mitras lightbar 2 serie They have 9 different channels and if you combine both the fresh and saltwater fixtures - you have all opportunities you can wish without one thing - the far red option. However - it is rather easy to construct a far red fixture by your self if you need it

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Brew12]

Does this rely on earth leakage safety breakers? Because I wouldn't trust my life with earth leakage.

It does not. For the most part, the earth leakage protection scheme was replaced with RCD's (Residual Current Device). Instead of measuring voltage on the metal housing it measures actual leakage current making it much more reliable. Combined with proper bonding/grounding this can be a very safe installation.

Unfortunately, I can't find an online and translatable version of Swedish electrical code to find out what may or may not be allowed.

 

[ksed]

Does this apply to submersible pumps and or external pumps?

We are still in contact with Heliospectra and visited them a couple of weeks ago to look at their new light bars/fixtures Mitra.

But due to the rules we have to follow for tanks we will dive in, we can’t use their products. This is because of the electrics, we can’t have 230V close to the water. And only below 36V DC above the water.
Which is really a bummer, because I really like their products.
Check out their new Mitra fixtures. They were less red and more white, and would probably do great for coral propagation tanks. They were really powerful!

 

[John R]

I suppose you men their L4A research fixtures. Unfortunately - they does not do these fixtures any longer. The new ones have no or few possibilities to change spectra.

If you use normal aquariums in your research - look at GHL Mitras LX 7000 serie or GHL Mitras lightbar 2 serie They have 9 different channels and if you combine both the fresh and saltwater fixtures - you have all opportunities you can wish without one thing - the far red option. However - it is rather easy to construct a far red fixture by your self if you need it

Sincerely Lasse

Thanks. We have about 50 Heliospectra units that work well in the greenhouses. The Ethernet control option is great via switch. I think the GHLs look like a great option for the marine side!

 

[Stigigemla]

I am a friend of safety.
I have been educating TV servicemen for 20 years so I have learned a bit of safety.
It is possible to have pupils to work with high voltages and opened TV:s.
I had a test on electrical safety the pupils had to go through before getting near to dangerous voltage.
The pupils that didnt make the test had to do it again. OK limit were 90% on the test.
It was totally OK for the electrical inspection to have pupils to work with high voltage. But the teacher was responsible for all the pupils having advocate knowledge.

What I want to say with this is that its doubtful what the laws are. If guests with no special education are allowed it is certainly so but in an environment restricted to educated personal I doubt it. But then it is a must that someone has the responsibility for that the education is done and that no temporary personal has access and so on. In my eyes the support area over a tank has very little in common with a swimming pool.

If I were the boss I would go for the 36 v solution.

 

[Sallstrom]

Does this apply to submersible pumps and or external pumps?

For submersible pumps yes. External pumps no. I think No engineer had any complaints on the large large pumps for retur and skimmers at least.

 

[Sallstrom]

Did some simple PAR testing today. Four different LED fixtures were tested at 120 cm distance in air. Two different Orphek 500W(wide and narrow lenses), one Pacific Sun 300W and one ProVolitans 480W. We just needed to get an idea on “penetration” ability. Still some way to go before we know what lights we will have over the large new tanks

 

[Sallstrom]

Here’re two Acropora species I’ve battle for a long time to propagate and to keep alive. I do ten frags, eight of them die. Do another ten, eight die.. Now some of the colonies are getting a bit larger then frags at least. Sometimes I forget our temporary tanks are still quite new tanks and that some Acropora corals are pretty hard to keep alive.. But it feels like most of the tanks are getting into a more mature state now, with more coralline algae.

I think I’ve improved my skill on doing American sized frags