Tank birthday, 47+ years

[cdness]

Paul, Congrats on the 40 years and I love the look of the tank. The recreation of the look of some real reefs with the bottles and other stuff gives it an original tank look. It's awesome to see a tank that is successfully keeping many different gorgoans too. Since many tanks are way too clean, they can be hard to keep.

Do you happen to have pictures of all the stuff you probably had to DIY before a production model of equipment was released? I know now days people DIY for flexibility and to save money while when you are in the pioneer days of the hobby it was DIY out of necessity.

Is your zapper in full swing production yet or are they still being made one by one?

 

[Paul B]

Cdness, thanks. I DIY because I like to and I want everything custom made for my tank. I could buy everything but building it is part of my hobby.
So far I have never hired anyone to do anything for my house, car or boat. Only dentists and if I could see in there, I would do that myself.:squigglemouth:
I first bought a skimmer in about 1975 or so. It was a small airstone Sanders skimmer and it worked well but the sirstones wore out quickly.
So I built about 10 prototypes of skimmer and when ever I designed a better model I would sell the old one. The 5' model I have now should be the final one and it is many years old. I don't even remember when I built it.
The lights have always been changing but this week I built a LED fixture that should be completed this tuesday.
My old MH lights that I have left over from lighting up the Plaza Hotel are going in the garbage. They are big and heavy but were free, you can't argue with free.
My reverse UG filter I have not seen in about 25 years but I would not change that for anything. It is the heart of the system and if I could not run a system like this, I would not have a salt tank. It is a no problem, almost, no maintenance system that can't fail.
The Zapper now called a Majano Wand (Majanowand.com) is in full production and some day I will break even. The lawyers fees, patents and molds came to about $20,000.00. But they are selling swiftly and now I have a lot of sales in Europe.
Home made hollow rock. ( I use a lot of this)

Plaza Hotel Lights

Algae trough

Worm keeper

Surface skimmer

Here is the protein skimmer

 

[reefin]

Really cool to hear this story. I was out of the hobby for about 6 years and I thought I saw a lot of changes when I got back in.

 

[Paul B]

I was out of the hobby for about 6 years and I thought I saw a lot of changes when I got back in.

A lot of changes did happen. But not in my tank. The largest change is LED lights which is the future of all types of lighting and I am fairly sure that in a few years LEDs will be the only lights available. It's a no brainer. Less heat, less power, less pollution, less weight, and they are just cooler.

 

[marinelife]

Congrats on this great tank!!

 

[Paul B]

Here is the new LED fixture, there is a slot in the bottom of the fan housing and the aluminum tubes so the air is sucked through the tubes to cool the fixture.

They seem to work.

 

[Paul B]

Now the thing is 99% completed. Here it is with the control box with the 3 dimmers and fan switch.

Here are the old (Plaza Hotel) MH lights. Anyone need any slightly used 150 watt 14,000K MH lamps? free.

Here is the new fixture hung over the tank, that of course is in the blue mode

This is with all the lights almost at full brilliancy.
So far after 30 minutes the fixture is still at room temperature.

All I have to do next is to build the pulley system so I can raise the fixture out of the way to remove rocks and what not. Now it is still hung on string.

 

[Paul B]

 

[subielover]

Looks great Paul

 

[Paul B]

Thanks Subielover

 

[LittleDabOSalt]

Congrats on the 40 years! So impressive and inspiring, especially for someone like me who is brand new to the world of salt. Thank you for sharing and I look forward to many years more reading about your tank. :smile:

 

[Paul B]

I look forward to many years more reading about your tank. :smile:

Thanks but I am getting old so I am fairlysure I won't get another 40 years out of it. Unless my Daughter wants to inherit that and that aint going to happen. She has no interest in it.

 

[nlandgraf]

Congrats on the longevity in the hobby! I hope I still have the passion for it 40 years down the road.

 

[Paul B]

I hope I am still above ground in another 40 years but I seriousely doubt it.

Now the system is 100% done. I installed a pulley system that raises the LED fixture about a foot so it goes out of the way for maintenance. I just have to slightly tough it and it rises. The plastic container (counterweight) is filled with lead shot.
I love this stuff.

 

[steamer51]

If your daughter is not interested work on the grandchildren. Mine have much more interest than the children did but they started helping me at age two or so.

 

[Paul B]

My Daughter had goldfish when she was very little and she really loved them but I think that because we always had fish and SCUBA dove, it was just a normal thing for her and other things became more interesting. She still likes looking at the tank and learning about it but I doubt she will ever have a tank.

 

[Paul B]

I am happy to say that my reef is 5 degrees cooler than it should be for this time of the year. Outside it is almost 100 degrees and my tank usually runs about 87 degrees in the summer which is a little hot.
Now the tank is a comfortable 82 degrees which is fine.
The LEDs emit just about zero heat and you can put your hand right on the lenses without feeling anything.

 

[CJO]

Nice job on the LEDs, but be careful. They are brighter than they look! There are quite a few people who switched to LEDs and subsequently fried their corals. I'm assuming that you are using Cree XP-G's and XP-E's? At what current?

CJ

 

[Paul B]

They are Cree XP 3 watts I have half white and half royal blue. For a week I kept them at half brightness. Now they are about 3/4 brightness.
The corals didn't notice any difference except they are now wearing sunglasses.

 

[Paul B]

I re-designed my algae trough this morning. I thought my LED lights would supply enough light to the trough but they were not positioned enough above it so the hair algae in the trough died in a week. I bought a 4' strip of waterproof LEDs and mounted them about 2" above the trough where they illuminate it very brightly for practically free.
It took a while removing the screen from the trough as it was full of brittle stars and amphipods and I didn't want to lose any so I had to pick them out betwen the tube worms that grow all over the trough bottom.
You can make out the strip of LEDs here but I should have shut them off to take the picture as they wash out the photo.

Here it is with the tank lights out