250 gallon marine fish tank feeding
Here are some video clips from UStream.tv from my feeding today. Enjoy.
Round 1:
Round 2:
Round 3:
Live Zebra Moray Eel UStream feed.
Thought I'd fire up a ustream feed to monitor my new 250 gallon marine fish tank. I just finished testing all the pumps, connections, tubing, etc and introduced my Zebra Moray Eel and a couple of Damsels in the new tank to get the biological cycle started. I'll leave the stream up for a couple days as I continue to ensure that there are no leaks or fish-related issues. This is only the beginning for this new tank, as we will be adding more rock, some nice red macroalgae-like plants, and a LOT more fish.
How To: My 300 gallon salt water reef tank
This is a repost from another blog I used to have setup that I'm now consolidating. Here's the cut & paste from the original post, where I explain how my 300 gallon reef tank came to be, along with a rough approximation of how much it cost me to setup.
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With a background in the biological sciences, I’ve always been amazed at the complexity of natural systems, especially those that exist in the oceans. Just over 10 years ago, I got into salt water reef tanks and the science of growing corals and other marine species. I started with a 50 gallon setup, and before I knew it I had like 6-7 reef systems up and running. Over time, this became quite cumbersome and time consuming to maintain as separate tanks, so when I had the opportunity to remodel one of my apt units, I decided to take the plunge and go big. The result is an in-wall 300 gallon salt water reef aquarium that is filled with exotics collections of marine life. Here are some links to some older pics. I hope to post lots more and also video clips of the amazingly complex ecosystem and slice of the ocean in my living room.
Quite often, I’m asked what it really takes to pull something like this off, so here are some rough estimates. This is a 10 year project in the making and some of my live animals are original species that I still have from my first few reef tanks. It took about a year and a half to get everything in order and dialed in to where it is now - which is basically a thriving 100% biologically filtered marine ecosystem.
I will try to post some new HD video clips soon (new Panasonic HDC-SD1P AVCHD video camera).
Cost estimates:
- Tank - $2250 - SeaClear custom ordered from The Fish Store in Seattle, WA USA. It's 96"x18"x30" (LxWxH)
- Primary flow pump - Dolphin AMP Master S-Series - 5600/4700 extenal pump - $330 - main flow pump from 2x 40 gallon sump tanks.
- Power head circulation pumps 4x @ $250/pump - EcoTech Marine Vortech Magnetic impeller pumps. AMAZING TECH.
- ~500 lbs of live rock - $6-10/lb - assorted Fiji, Marshall Island, Tonga live rock.
- Custom tank room - $10k - contractor helped build, electrician wired
- MH Lighting - 4x @ $125/ballast/reflector - 250W IceCap Metal Halide lamps + ballast
- MH Lamps - ~$100 each - 2x 20k Radium Blue, 2x 10k Ushuii White
- VHO ballasts - 2x @ ~$315/ballast - Icecap 660 VHO
- 48″ VHO lamps - 4x @ $25/lamp - super actinic (420nm), 4x @ $25/lamp AquaSun
- Animals - hard to estimate - rough guess - $5000 live corals, fish, inverts.
- Titanium Heater - ~$200
- Auto top off and mixing system - ~$600
- Air, Water, Ice - RO/DI - $250 + filter media
- Assorted test / water quality / monitoring kits - ~100
- Salt / additives / foodstuffs - ~$200/month
- EcoTech Marine Battery backup units - 2x @ $150/unit
- Monthly electrical cost ~$150
GRAND TOTAL (rough estimate - probably a bit low, but fairly close) = $26480