WD's Office Mangrove Display Tank

[WDKegge]

Hello Reef2Reef!

For awhile now I have had the itch for a planted tank in my office, over the past few months I have slowly traded for and collected equipment that would be useful for such a thing, after acquiring a tank for the project I have decided to go for it, but with a slight twist.

In the pursuit of trying new and different things I have decided on making a remote mangrove tree tank connected to my SPS display located roughly 20 feet away from my office.

The tank: Waterbox 40 Frag tank.

The lighting: Kessil A360X Tuna Sun with 35degree narrow reflector.

The Equipment: Neptune Dos, Neptune FMM, 2x optical sensors.

The concept:

The plan is to use a Neptune DOS to do a "water change" between the tanks, with the thought process of keeping the systems linked to gain the benefit of more water volume and using the mangrove tank with a substrate of miracle mud to act as another form of natural filtration while also being aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

If you would like to follow my 150G SPS Peninsula tank you can find it here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/wds-150g-sps-peninsula.692263/

Cheers everyone!

 

[Dcal]

love it

 

[WDKegge]

Got all the dosing lines ran from the display to the mangrove tank, sadly it seems there is a limit on how far you can extent the optical water level sensors from neptune. Looks like I will be buying another FMM and running a usb cable to the mangrove tank.

 

[Janci]

Great idea!!!
If this will look as awesome as the DT, we are in for a treat.

 

[WDKegge]

We're alive!

 

[Gedxin]

Hello! I'm that guy bugging you on Reddit for more details on this awesome setup., Thanks for linking me your thread!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you've got one pump going one direction and the second pump going the other direction?

I see the DOS can do about 250ml/min, which means you can do 1gal water change in about 15min, assuming max throughput. Is the intention to have both pumps running simultaneously?

In my research for my own future project, I see a lot of info about equipment life, and tube life (normal 1/8id tube nets about 2000 life hours - I know the DOS uses thicker tube though, so it may be more). How much water do you think you're going to push through daily? Any concerns with the longevity of the setup?

 

[WDKegge]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you've got one pump going one direction and the second pump going the other direction?

I see the DOS can do about 250ml/min, which means you can do 1gal water change in about 15min, assuming max throughput. Is the intention to have both pumps running simultaneously?

The plan is to start with 3-4 gallons a day. The intention is to run both heads pulling water to each other.

 

[Gedxin]

The plan is to start with 3-4 gallons a day. The intention is to run both heads pulling water to each other.

Thanks! I'll be following this thread, very curious how well it performs and if the 3-4 gallons/day is sufficient to support a "one-tank" system. I think my biggest concern is the longevity of the equipment/tube. Pumping 4 gallons a day ~20 feet through the ceiling...a lot could go wrong. Tube life has me concerned as well, I can't find a single piece from Neptune on how long they expect their tubes to last. Most of manufactures that produce peristaltic tube have a "life" attached to it for how many gallons can be pumped.

Either way, good luck!

 

[WDKegge]

Got a bit of work done on the tank today, ran a dedicated circuit to the tank so no more extension cables running all over the office (yay).

Had a spare Apex Jr laying around so decided to install that along with a smart micro ATO, this week of having to hand fill the tank was awful, if you are reading this and don't have an ATO, please, go get one today.

The kessil A80 from my nano tank is not in the sump filtration section, the jawbreakers I had in that tank under that light seemed to LOVE that kessil, so hopefully will be moving all my jawbreakers and mushrooms from my SPS tank to here.

Other than that I will probably be ordering my mangroves soon and then will work on getting the neptune DOS setup to start doing water changes with the 150G!

 

[WDKegge]

Tank has some life in it finally! I had moved several test mushroom frags from my other tanks into the sump and they responded very well so I decided to move my whole mushroom box from my display tank into the sump. Everything looks great! Also surprisingly the few mushrooms I had tossed into the display seem to be thriving under the white light of the kessil.

The Mushroom garden in the sump with bonus flatworms.

Tank is still running on it's own without the automatic water changes yet, but hoping to get that sorted out here soon.

 

[Eric R.]

Looks really great! Love the colors, mangroves and macro look great under natural light. Looking forward to seeing this system evolve!

 

[dantimdad]

This is really close to the concept I am working on in my soon to be fish room. I am running a common sump for mine since they will be right next to each other. I had the same though on lighting up very high like that but I will have to figure out how to narrow the beam of the prime HD FW I bought to avoid light spill. The mangrove display is 30x30x10"

 

[Greatreefer]

We're alive!

What type of light is that you have attached to your celling?

 

[WDKegge]

What type of light is that you have attached to your celling?

It's a kessil a360x with a narrow reflector.

 

[WDKegge]

Slightly cloudy from a water change but thought I would share how the tank has come along.

The tank has defiantly taken a turn for a more traditional reef, the mangrove in the back is doing fantastic however. It originally had several leaves die and fall off, but in the past month it has started to grow several new leaves, I think it might have shocked it going from freshwater to salt, but it appears to be doing great now.

I've begun moving several more LPS and softies over from my big tank for an upcoming rebuild on it and all the coral have responded fantastic to the kessil freshwater light. I have tried to search for other people doing the same but the general consensus I find people posting and saying is that you can't grow coral with white(r) light, and I have found that to not be the case at all.

 

[WDKegge]

A few pics post water change.

And threw a tuna blue over the tank just to see what it would look like.

 

[dantimdad]

Thats super cool!

 

[Janci]

Still looking great.
Do you find any issues with algae in the tank with the use of the freshwater Kessil?
In theory, there should be more red and green light which would improve algae growth.

 

[WDKegge]

Still looking great.
Do you find any issues with algae in the tank with the use of the freshwater Kessil?
In theory, there should be more red and green light which would improve algae growth.

I had quite a big of cyano and some sort of film algae at the start that was not present in the sump that's lit with a kessil a80, as to what caused it I am not sure.

 

[Zarabyte]

Love the mangrove thing, were i am its illegal to collect or even buy mangrove plants.