I've learned a lot since first setting up the greenhouse coral farm. Hopefully you learned something from my experiences that can translate to your setup. #tidalgardens #coral #reeftank
Have subscribed to you for a few months now. This has been one of my dreams since I've been in the hobby. I don't think I would be anywhere near this but 3-6 tanks I think I could do.
Best lesson from my time in retail. If maintenance is more difficult, you WILL slow down your maintenance. Making maintenance easy is NOT about being lazy, but investing in consistent upkeep.
This video was a long time coming! I thought it would never happen 😂 Great Video as always Than!!! So nice to see an in depth look at your operation in the green house! I’m sure everyone will enjoy this! I know I did! Great planning for lessons learned from one building to another. Thanks for all your hard work !!
Great video, enjoyed hearing your thoughts. Hopefully when the new building is up and running you can follow up on if closed loops are indeed better. I would speculate they will be and you can always supplement powerheads for additional flow. In my display I'm taking apart my powerheads every 1-2 months to clean them but I only take apart and clean my return pump once a year. My return (eheim 1262) is 13 years old and has been going 24/7 pretty much that whole time less a move. All of my powerheads are much newer and many have died in that time.
Just from working in a store previously, and working on my personal tanks. What I've learned is that you need at least 1 utility sink and 1x 48" workbench per tank. It makes life so much easier.
Great video! Thanks for sharing your wisdom on these. For future videos, can you talk about how to get your tank ready for coral, especially acropora? People usually say give it a year to mature before adding sps. With frag tank that don't have sand or much live rock, I would imagine it would take even longer to get to mature that way. I guess that's not what you will do, so I'm really interested in your approach.
Looks like a dream setup to me 😁 if this is your worst issues then I'd say your in pretty good shape lol Great work, something to be proud of, now you have the ability to work out the minor quirks and get it set up exactly how you want. I doubt this kinda stuff ever comes out 100% perfect and they'll always be stuff you would've done differently, hind sight and all lol
It's funny that such different kinds of life require similar kinds of work environments to maintain healthy closed ecosystems. All this is easily relatable to indoor horticulture and reptile keeping. Clean the environment often and check the life support systems. Look for imbalances, possible pathogens, and pests. Value SPACE. Room to work around the tank or enclosure is valuable real estate. Sometimes more valuable than what you could gain from filling as much space as possible with enclosures. Great video man. I know a ton of people who I wish had thought about these things before dumping money on their workspaces. Really I think the big dreamers with deep pockets get run off so easily partly because they end up making these hobbies unbearable for themselves. They know what it's gonna look like when everything is perfect, but forget to think about what it'll be like to maintain it. The guy building his dream aquarium in the perfect place for everyone to see it and forgetting that he now has to lug water upstairs to keep it looking good is a great example of this. Truly valuable advice.
Great video! I just ordered some GSP and a aussie teal duncan from you, but I'm so scared there going to be DOA😥 Ups had a mechanical issue so my corals are a day late now, they're supposed to be here tomorrow at 10:30am so I soo hope the extra day doesn't kill them. 😫 but I'll leave another comment and let you know how it goes tomorrow. Thank you so much for great customer service, and a user friendly site! Keep up the great work!
Looking forward to the update on the closed loops. I imagine there could be a cost savings for electrical as well Have you considered SCWDs for variable flow on the loops?
Question? With all that money spent on the new facility why didn’t you go with Gavita Plasma lights? I just think there’s better when it comes to growth. I just think saltwater industry needs to look at commercial grower lights when it comes to building big warehouses like that. Whoever does will definitely be a game changer. Cheers from California 15+ yrs in the hobby!
I've never heard of these before. Seems they offer a full spectrum light similar to sunlight. Many people would find that too low temp for a reef tank, though I'm sure it could be adjusted with some blue T5's. I wonder how they compare lumen/watt with LEDs. After having looked in to them they offer about 60 lumen per watt which seems to be lower than what LEDs offer. Would be interesting to see how they look over a reef tank.
Loved the video and also practical points even for the individual reefer. Than, how do you dispose of dirty water change saltwater and how will you do it for the new building?
@@AlienScientistFanThank you. So he's going to use a septic system for salt water disposal? I'm curious how that would work as far as dissipating the salt from the system. Maybe have it cleaned out periodically? I'm an individual and I don't dare put it down my septic system because it kills the bacteria. (Did this and was not a good outcome lol cost $2500 to ckean out the tank and replace the leach field) Don't want to put it in my yard because it kills the lawn and plants. So in the middle of the night I wind up running it from a hose down the street. Most of the time it's not such a bad thing because it rains quite a bit in Florida and no one notices however during dry periods you can see the salt buildup.
Great job distilling the lessons learned, I agree with all your points. So I take it the greenhouse and the natural sunlight was more work than it was worth?
This may or may not be something you could give me advice on but since my space is at a premium, What is a really good all inclusive 5 gal nano reef system? or if nothing else what would be a really good set of lights for a small tank that would work with most any kind of coral/anemones? Thanks.
Dear Sir if your plumber needs a helper I will be there. Also I did work with sch.80 pipe and did the illuminator a 100,00 sq ft building also you can weld sch80 pipe, if you have a leak. Also for your outlets they do make plugs that are in different ways to plug in. You have a awesome building and have you thought of a cooling tower? When
+1 on Armpit depth as a tank height limit. Also many people never think about serviceability especially when it comes down to the wiring of all the equipment. Sure it looks nice at first till you have to rip it out to clean.
@@tidalgardens If there's an easy way to have quick disconnects closer to the tanks that would be best but would require cutting the existing OEM wires and inserting New waterproof connectors right near the head units of pumps, lights, modules, at the tank side. The same would be at the controller sides. This way you don't have to pull wiring all the way through all the channels and only where you need to. It's almost like thinking about it in terms of network patch cables and switch boxes.
Thanks Than ! Your advice is always good ! Why do you like to have a few damsesl ? I've watched you since almost the beginning & have learned the cons of a green house . Would you automatically poo poo trying a solar tube ?
The damsels help mow down some critters that can be problematic. As for solar tubes, I think they are ok, but I want a lot more control over the light in the tanks. I would more likely consider them to light interior hallways.
Yea but one could agree that larger glass tanks are simply just unmanageable for most people for a lot of different reasons one alone being price I mean if you want anything over 210 gallons your looking at thousands were as I can get a 625 gallon stock tank for 449 lol the price disparity outweighs not being able to perfectly see my corals when I can simply throw in a go pro or two and monitor the inside of my aquarium without even looking at it a lot of these problems can be remedied with technology
Damsels are more useful than you think. The only knock off for many ppl is their territory aggression for such cheap fish which is why should be placed in the tank as your last live stock additions. But damsels are part of a clean up crew as well.
Do you mean for this video? I used a noise reduction filter in the editing software to knock out the pump noise. In the new place here I tried to make things as quiet as possible, but it is a long term struggle
Than, do you have recommendations on how you instruct your workers to clean their hands before going into a tank? That's something that is not discussed a lot in the reefing community.
@@tidalgardens I always wandered about this approach Than. No soap, lotions and hand sanitizers. What do you do about natural skin oils that require something to remove it before placing hands into the systems?
Plain steel would be better as most paints won't stick to galvanized surfaces. And even those that do, don't do so as well as they would on a well prep'd steel surface. Not to mention that the galvanization wouldn't buy you much protection against constant exposure to salt water should your paint fail anyways. If you have tanks that are already galvanized, I'd strip the zinc off with muratic acid and then paint. When you take the cost of good coatings, the time involved in doing a good job and the still significant risk of having the tank rust away eventually, plastic or composite tanks might still be cheaper in the long run.
@@siggyincr7447 thanks the idea had just came to me when I was buying some horse feed at rural King they had a returned tank on sale for $20 it had a crack in one of the welds I also know galvanized steel leaches toxic zinc into the water not a problem to livestock since they drink it away and it doesn't have time to reach dangerous limits I think if I were to try it I would sand the coating off with a belt sander and then line it with some kind of epoxy then do a final coat of some form of pond liner another reason I would like to use metal tanks is I have about 100 hours of technical drawings and research waiting to be used for building a 15 inch gauge farm railroad one of the drawings is a fragging table boxcar what it is ,is a portable sink with a RV water tank and water pump over a RV septic tank of the same size. next to the sink is a raised edge tray in between this tray and is a mini tile saw and a dry table a circulation of tank water will run through the tray and the drain that Flows back into the tank will have a filter on it to catch any particles ,the tile saw will have it's own pump that takes water from the holding tray and uses it, for the saw's waste water it will end up in the septic tank at the bottom the sinks tank will be filled using the RODI tank at the end of the building I created that idea when I saw some fragging taking place at reefsystems in new Albany Ohio they had a fragging table /cart when I saw that he was using a sink on the other side of the building I thought why not have a portable sink / fragging table and not only that but to be able to use it in any of the several greenhouses I plan to set up, the first area I already started working on in filling the area across the drive from the barn two buildings will be going there a machine shop for maintaining the railroad and farm equipment I'll be leaving some room in between the shop and greenhouse for the showroom that will come later
@@tidalgardens thanks I would like to visit sometime my family host a horse show in Ashland every June and I also will be most likely going to Flite Fest again in July .
Yeah these tubs are more for non reefs or non reef fish such as sharks and rays pretty much not for coral or if you want to use them as a non reef exhibit
