"Summer School"

[davelin315]

Well, since the school year has been so long and I won't have time to move tanks into kids' homes this summer, I have opted to change up what I do and purchased a Rubber Maid Stock Tank, 300G, and put it under my deck. It gets a couple of hours of late afternoon sun and has a single pump on it circulating water for the time being. I broke down 5 tanks today, a 75, 72, 40, 29, and 26, and took all of the rock and inhabitants and put them into the tub. It is only 1/2 full or so, around 110 gallons with liverock all across the bottom, but when I add more water it will probably go up to around 200 or maybe 250 as I want to keep the level down a bit to account for the eels in there. Some pretty crazy inhabitant combinations in there right now, including 4 pairs of clowns and a couple of single clowns as well as a zebra moray eel, snowflake moray, and a bonded pair of angels (lemonpeel and coral beauty), as well as some assorted damsels. There's also a sea hare in there and a green bubble tip that has split a few times recently in school. I'll take a shot of it and post it up when I get a chance. It's really quite amazing the colors that come out in the fish when they're in natural sunlight. The gold bar maroons really pop!

[Glenn]

Unfortunately our retirement plans don't call for a move THAT FAR SOUTH, but I'd love to be able to setup an outdoor reef pond. Would be fun to see how the fish and corals react in a more natural lighting environment.

[Coral Hind]

How will you regulate the temps?

Curious to see if the eels eat any of the clowns.

[zoozilla]

I would imagine you'd have to contend with some increases in evaporation.

 

Please post pics.

[davelin315]

So far there haven't really been any fluctuations in temperature, the ambient temperature doesn't seem to really affect the water in the tub so far, but we also haven't hit the dog days of summer yet. If needed, I'll toss a chiller on the system to keep it cool. Having it on the ground also helps because the brick stays cool that it's on. I do think that evaporation will become an issue with this, but I may also hook up a float valve in there with my RO/DI to do some auto top off. I'll try and get pictures over the next couple of days. Ended up adding yet another pair of clowns today from yet another tank. As far as the eel eating them, the zebra moray won't touch fish (this is the one that hosts the pair of gold bar maroons) and the snowflake has yet to eat a fish so hopefully it doesn't become an issue.

[davelin315]

Here are some pictures I took last week. Since then I have added some various soft corals from one of the sumps in my system (zoanthids, palys, mushrooms, GSP that was suffering, cladiella, and some mini-tapetums) that were being grown out for school tanks. This system is doing great with the temperature staying cooler than inside the house, believe it or not. The sun shines on it for about 3-5 hours in the afternoon and I have something hanging from my deck to deflect rain water. This also keeps most of the tree fallout out of the water (pine needles and maple tree seeds). The random bugs that fall in get eaten by the trigger and I'm guessing that anything else small ends up in the mouth of one of the fish in there. The fish look great and happy and there is very little aggression between any of the fish due to the large footprint of space they have. It's interesting seeing how bonded pairs have reordered themselves into smaller groups and single fish now - for example 2 pairs of bonded gold bar maroons, one a former breeding pair, have shuffled into a different dynamic with the two females pairing up with another male from a different tank. The two males have also paired up separately. Out of the various perculas, there are two trios from what I can tell as well as other pairs or single fish. It's pretty neat to see the dynamics of this system, makes me want to turn my regular tank into a system like this instead of what I've got!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[davelin315]

Oh, and I also added my "gold bar" zebra moray to the tub tonight, too. I know that they pair up and will change gender to match once they have fought it out, so this is probably the best way to pair them up with a lot of space in the tub and no way for them to jump out unless they can leap up and over the lip (it's not filled all the way yet). Even the sea hare is thriving in there, seems to have grown since I dumped it in.