badguitarist

I can vouch for Robert. I grew up in farm country outside Corvallis and TDS out of the tap was 200-300 depending on time of year. I moved to Corvallis around my college years and quite using RO. Corvallis water just didn't need it. I still do a few maintenance accounts in Corvallis and use tap water on all of them.

Similar to the wet vac idea you could also try blowing air with a compressor through the pipes. not sure what the situation is but could you just cut out everything but the bulkhead and re plumb it?

Other than making sure it's environmental needs are being met. I would say making sure it gets fed often would go a long way to recovery. Foods like cyclops, reef-roids, blended up seafood, fish eggs, etc. fed 3-5 times per week would really help in getting this coral back to health and growing quickly.

Pm sent

if parting out I would love the calcium reactor

Ah Robert, Its been too long. One of these days we will catch up.

Reefing is my career and hobby. I run an aquarium maintenance business in the Corvallis area and a 500 square foot greenhouse for corals. that takes up most of my time. As far as other hobbies go, Its mostly just firewood. Cut it in the spring, split it and stack it in the summer, burn it in the fall and winter, repeat the next year. I also love my vegetable garden and the fruit orchard. between work and firewood, I usually have just enough time in the day to have dinner with my wife, kiss her goodnight and then wake up and do it all over again.

hytek plastics on hwy 34 between corvallis and albany. Just pull into the freebird auto body parking lot and drive behind the shop. There are some small businesses back there. they have a sign. I just bought a 5 oz tube of weld-on 16 there for about $12.00, they have smaller sizes too.

gee Mike, I bet they do but I have never seen one, I bet there would be a way to program something on an apex, or somehow hook a par meter up to an on off switch, it would just take someone with more electronics know how than I have.

the drums will help but not a ton, there are lots of ways to cut down on heating. most of the ways you will see online are more for vegetable farming where the greenhouse has to be above freezing, not 80+degrees. but that being said if space allows any extra water volume will help stabilize night time temps. regarding what types of corals the short answer is all of them. some do better in the winter some do better in the summer. many stony corals wont survive winter without supplemental light. I had about 80 cyphastrea start to bleach last month because they weren't getting enough light. put a halide on them and now they are fine. just because I get PAR levels of 200 on a nice sunny day, there are cloudy days where I get PAR readings of 20-30, get enough cloudy days in a row and corals start to go downhill. on the flip side things like mushrooms love this weather and look incredible. in the summer I have to put 4 layers of 20% shade cloth overt their tub just to keep them from dying, even with all that they still don't grow well.

Heating can definitely get expensive. a space or a cadet heater would probably heat that space fine, I don't know how it would do on the coldest nights though. You might look into workshop type propane heaters, it may end up being a bit more efficient. Regarding water vessels stabilizing temperatures at night, this is very true, unfortunately in that small of a space I doubt there will be enough water volume to make much difference. if you haven't put the interior sheets of plywood up yet I would for sure add some sort of insulation to the walls. Anywhere you can insulate or otherwise cut out heat loss do it. it will help on the heating bill a ton. I would also get a few cans of spray foam and use that to fill any and all gaps in the sheating. especially if the frame is bent there will probably be some gaps where the plastic hooks up to the end walls On a fun note, on Saturday the greenhouse was 85 degrees all day long and I went to build a fire before it got dark and within about 20 minutes the greenhouse went from 85 degrees to 101 degrees, yikes! also took the PAR meter out there and even in December on a sunny day I was getting readings of 200 in the sun and about 80 in the shade. This is plenty of light to grow corals.

I agree with the cracking issue but there is a simple alternative that could work well. you can cut holes in glass with a dremel and Diamond tip bit. It takes longer than a drill but there would be much less pressure. Just draw an outline of your hole (better yet make a wooden template) and carefully use the dremel to grind through the glass. Use a spray bottle to keep the area wet at all times. I have used this approach before and it works well but takes a lot longer.

For what its worth, I have a lifetime of commercial greenhouse experience. my folks owned a wholesale orchid nursery growing up and I continued with the idea and swapped out Orchids for corals and do that for a living. My folks have a 2700 square foot greenhouse built exactly like the one in your youtube channel. it still costs around 1000 bucks a month to heat with Propane all throughout the winter and thats only keeping it at 65 degrees. My Coral Greenhouse is 500 square feet and is built with 16 mm triple wall Polycarbonate, with an R value of 2.0 this is the most energy efficient way to cover a greenhouse aside from very expensive acrylic panels. I still pay $200 a month in propane with commercial discounts and this is on top of a woodstove that burns hot 24/7. While a greenhouse has no problem getting very warm on a cold clear day (mine was 95 degrees on the last sunny day) it will never get warm when it is a cloudy overcast day. One way or another there will be no way of getting around heating the greenhouse in one way shape or form. In your case with those small tanks I would suggest heating the water directly and making sure your breaker(s) can handle the amperage all those submersible heaters will be pulling. I am not saying this to discourage you, just giving some practical hands on experience. Your greenhouse may get very hot during the day but as soon as the sun goes down it will take no time flat for it to dip to a few degrees above outside temperature and the corals just wont be able to take those kinds of temp swings. Over all I say go for it, it will be a very rewarding experience. My only other advice is buy a PAR meter. once february rolls around corals will actually start bleaching from too much light!

Ha!, I can't believe you still have that tank. I'm glad its working for you. and Yep Kyles my name. You should post a pic of the tank (maybe not the stand though, it doesn't exactly show off my carpentry skills)

Hey all, Looking for large holding tanks like the one in the photo. I know where to get these new but I figure there are probably some floating around the area that may be more affordable. I have a pickup and can come get them. Looking for several so let me know how many you have and how much you want for them. Tubs don't have to be exactly like this but this picture should give an Idea of what I'm looking for. Let me know what you've got folks. Thanks

Yes its similar to having someone take care of your tanks while on vacation except that if your tank crashes life goes on relatively unchanged. If a greenhouse operation crashes then you don't get a paycheck. Seriously though, Checklists are imperative. It drives my wife nuts but I will get up at 3 in the morning sometimes just to Double check on some menial thing that I can't remember if I put back correctly before I left the greenhouse. In the winter this happens to be a good time to stoke the stove as well (wood heat cuts down on the propane bill, plus its a nice place to dry off after playing in water all day!)

Hey john, Glad your enjoying the club. While I know these forums serve a purpose, my participation with them is few and far between,I really like my privacy and I'm not much of a socialite and being a commercial operation selling at wholesale levels only, I do like to keep most things private. anyways I am glad that its a good place for so many people, yourself included. My concern with letting others "help out" is that its only going to take one idiot to do something stupid and kill everything. What happens when someone stops by for ten minutes and accidentaly leaves the door open when they leave on a night thats 20 degrees. Or someone decides your water parameters are off and doses things in such a way that you have a giant precipitation issue. Or hey what if someone adds a new coral without quarantining it and now you have a 500 gallon tub full of Aptasia/aefw/etc. I can very seriously see that happening if it becomes a group project. If your just doing it for fun and not business then sure let others join in and accept the fact that people very well may screw things up. If it is a business I would steer clear of this route. Thats just my two cents on that topic. I have enough paranoia letting my dad take over when I'm out of town and hes been keeping saltwater aquariums since the 70's...I don't want to scare you off just letting you know some of the serious realities that could present themselves. I'll try to get a few pictures up later

I personally would go with medium to low light (60-200 par) and heavy flow. Cyphastrea don't really have very big polyps to begin with.

I am going to start with a disclaimer: I don't get on here often so don't be offended if I don't answer your questions in a reasonable time frame. Also I am very, very tired so I might just ramble. Also, I don't really enjoy the message boards as there tends to be a lot of negativity on them, That is why I never post. Also I only go to town 1 or 2 days a week, so I get kinda cabin feverish sometimes. Sorry if stuff is out of order or I sound blunt. And yes my greenhouse is in the corvallis area (Kings Valley actually. If you want a history lesson on Kings/Airlie and Tampico Valleys I can give one to you). I own and operate a wholesale Facility growing Coral under natural sunlight. I currently produce 250 or so corals every month, not only tiny frags but colonies as well. The new greenhouse will produce around 800 corals per month,maybe more. I have been doing this for going on 7 years. To answer the question. YES you can grow coral under natural sunlight and much faster than under even the best artificial lights. There is way too much sun in Oregon. From February-October I shade all of my corals in one way or another to keep lighting in the correct range. Right now the greenhouse has 50% shade cloth on it and I am still getting PAR Readings of 200 in my coral tubs (these readings were taken today around 4 pm with a medium cloud cover). in fact, My euphyllia and Leather coral tubs both have an additional 60% shade cloth on them to get the par down to around 80. The idea that natural sunlight grows brown corals is mostly false, with the exception of Acroporiids (acropora, montipora). I am not sure where this idea is coming from as I grow many brains, Leathers, Mushrooms, Hammers, Pocilloporiids, ricordia, etc that look exceptional under natural sunlight, In fact the only real time they start to lose their color is when the days get longer and they get over illuminated (I have measured over 1500 Par in the greenhouse on nice summer days.) as soon as I pop more shade cloth on them and measure with a PAR meter to get correct light intensity, they start to get their color back. Currently the only light I have in the greenhouse is 1 250 watt 20k Halide on a light rail running over about 500 gallons of stony corals to keep the color more consistent. Other than that everything is natural sunlight only. as far as temp control. I am not sure what the issue with that would be. Heat the greenhouse in the winter and vent it/swamp cool/evap cool in the summer. Very simple to heat and cool a greenhouse, just expensive through the cold months. No different than running a retail or wholesale building. climate control the room, not the water. As far as growing corals in a greenhouse, is it better? yes. is it harder YES. is it a good idea to turn into a group project as someone on here mentioned? terrible idea for so many reasons it is making my brain melt just thinking about it. Anyone wanting to make a living at this needs to realize, It will take a HUGE investment with little to no return on that investment for several years and that is only if you don't screw up and kill EVERYTHING. I did that once, it sucked. If you have a family, I wouldn't even think about it unless you have a very sizeable chunk of money stored away as a rainy day fund, you'll need it. I have a very loving and supportive wife, If it wasn't for her I would have to be like all you other chumps and work for the man, and drive into the city every day. I was able to learn the ropes as my family is in the agriculture industry and it was pretty easy for me to play around with some tanks in the back of a greenhouse for a few years before even attempting to do this project. Expect a TON of work to be involved. Litteraly a TON and expect it at the worst time. Like the morning of your wedding when Power goes out to the entire greenhouse and instead of enjoying your family your troubleshooting what went wrong and praying you can fix it in time... In essense if you just want an enjoyable, really good looking, easy to maintain fish tank. buy some LEDS and keep it in the house. If you want a full time job that wont make you money for a loooong time build a greenhouse and put some Extra lighting over any corals that wont color up. I have much, much more to say on this but I am tired and I may not get back on here for quite some time. There is also some info I wont divulge as I have put a huge investment of time, money and energy into this and I'm not too interested in handing it out for free. If you want to learn go get an education in the school of hard nocks, thats how I did it. Robert, I do want you to come out sometime I am just busy 100% of the time. I would love to have you over. I should be filling tubs in the new greenhouse around the middle of July. Hit me up sometime! If someone can teach me how to put pictures on this thread I will do so.

Oh no I sold that tank a long time ago.

If you cant find someone to take him I have a 400 gallon Tub full of soft corals that he could go into, 7 foot long by 4 foot wide. Don't really have anything to trade but it would be a good home for the guy. And I do know how big these guys can get have seen ones that wouldn't fit into a five gallon bucket.

Just sent you an email via your craigslist add regarding this tank. I am very interested

How does your Rainbows in Spain look? I also have that coral and in my tank it grows quickly but seems to be one of those Acros that browns out as soon as somethings amiss...It'll look great but as soon as I get busy and skip a water change or my Alk gets low, etc. its the first thing to brown out.

Coral Looks great, I like the lavender tips. Oh and Battle Corals is awesome

I watched the video a week or so ago and agreed with just about everything he said.