MS-ATR Announcement:

[Marshall]

I have just finished a deal to rent out a section of the water in/out building to a lady I know who works as a marine biologist and does research mainly into corals and other "non-fish" marine critters so she is going to set up a 500 gallon reef aquarium and a 118.5 gallon lab-tank in there and will bring in both rent money to the turtles and also allow me to explore my fascination with coral and salt-water fish. The panels are being installed today and as soon as the mains power is back on in that building and I shut down the backup generator set I will take some pics and scan in the schematics. I think that we should have the tanks installed and filled up by Wed or Thu and then probably have the first active unit running soon after. She said she will have some SW-Fish in the tank but I think the reef is what I am gonna want to follow and she also said that once I have a knowledge base I feel comfortable with she will be willing to donate starter stock coral and other marine plants if I decide to start my own personal tank. My dream obviously would be having one large enough to sustain coral reefs, marine plants and critters but most of all salt water/sea turtles so we will see

 

[sissy]

sounds like an interesting project and a lot to learn

 

[Marshall]

sounds like an interesting project and a lot to learn

Also will save me alot of money as I have heard saltwater tanks and especially coral can get crazy expensive and who knows the turtles may enjoy looking over at the coral tanks lol

 

[cas]

Looking forward to seeing pictures.

 

[Nepen]

wow wow, how exciting! Great job! I'm always amaze people could find a deal/make a deal like that (i'm a tunnel vision lol)

 

[MitchM]

Lighting will be the most expensive part and you can probably find inexpensive coral frags from local hobbyists.
Good luck!

 

[Marshall]

Lighting will be the most expensive part and you can probably find inexpensive coral frags from local hobbyists.
Good luck!

She already has the lighting and the only expense I had to absorb was the power upgrade to add another gang-box that has 240 twins so all in all it costs me approx 400 dollars total and the tanks and everything besides the fish , coral and lab equipment is mine as part of the lease agreement. My mother did not raise no fool

 

[MitchM]

Another piece of advice - the most reliable method of heating a large tank is to use a hot water PEX pipe loop. The temperature is then controlled by an inexpensive aquarium controller, such as an Apex.
The standard electric aquarium heaters can be very unreliable and fail in either the on or off position.

If you're not familiar with the setup, I can provide more information, but you basically install a plumbing loop off your domestic hot water tank, have a coil of PEX piping sitting in the sump and move the hot water within the loop using a low wattage recirculation pump you can buy from Home Depot. I've been using that type of heating for my larger tanks for about 4 years now with no issues.