The System
The club started with a single 55 gallon reef tank on the back counter of the classroom. The interest from students was so incredible that I decided to add a 100 gallon tub to the greenhouse. I started moving corals from home, and from the tank in the back of the room, into the greenhouse. At this time I had a few students who were helping in the propagation efforts. I realized that this whole system was an amazing opportunity to not only teach students about corals and reef keeping but also involve students in some real science research. I put together an application to the Toyota Tapestry Grant Program and got the award in the spring of 2006. Since that initial 800 gallon system was set-up, we have added another 300 gallons of tank space to the prep room next to the classroom. We have also gone from 2 students working on independent study projects to 8 with room for more!
System Information
Our “Ideal” Parameters:
Specific Gravity- 1.023
Temperature- 78°F
Main System
The main coral growing system consists of a series of tubs and tanks all plumbed together to form a single 800+ gallon set-up. Water is pumped initially into a custom made 72” x 36” x 12” glass tank made by GlassCages.com. Circulation is accomplished by 8 maxijet pumps around the rim of the tank. The tank is lit by 3 250W HQI metal halide pendants.
Water from the first tank flows into a fiberglass raceway tub, 72” x 24” x 18”, which is lit by natural sunlight through the greenhouse. Additional water flow is added by a Maxi-jet 1200 with an Oceanflow Modification Kit and a Seio 1500. The last 24” of the raceway houses a Euroreef CS350 Skimmer.
Water from the raceway flows into a pair of 50 gallon Rubbermaid stock tanks. The first tank is lit by a 48” OuterOrbit fixture from Current USA. The second is lit by a single 250W Metal Halide HQI Aquamedic pendant.
From the final 50 gallon tub, water flows down a single 2” overflow tube down into a series of 100 gallon Rubbermaid stock tubs. The first is filled with ~300lbs of live rock. From there the water goes into a second tub with another ~300lbs of rock. A third 100 gallon stock tank is attached to that and has a 20” deep aragonite sand bed with a layer of macroalgaes growing on it. The final tub is a holding tank for the main system pump and the auto-topoff system. The system is topped off by a direct connection, with a float switch, to a Spectrapure RO/DI system.
Display Tank
To display some of our captive bred corals (and a few fish) a 135 gallon tank is set-up in the back of the classroom. The tank is lit with a 72” Solaris LED Fixture by PFO (R.I.P.). There are a number of pumps running in the tank including a Seio 1100, a Maxi-jet 1200 with an Oceanflow mod kit, 2 Koralia 3’s, and 4 Maxi-jet 1200’s on a Red Sea Wavemaker. The filtration in the tank is done via a Berlin approach using 150+lbs of live rock and an AquaC Remora protein skimmer.
The tank houses a mixed reef with many hard and soft corals representing many genera within the cnidaria including: Acanthastrea, Acropora, Galaxea, Montipora, Palyothoa, Ricordia, Sarcophyton, Sinularia, and Zooanthus.
Fish Breeding System
The 140 gallon system consists of six 15 gallon aquariums with over flows plumbed into a single drain line that feeds into a 55 gallon sump. The sump has two chambers. One filled with Chaetomorpha, that is harvested regularly for nutrient export, and the other filled with 100+lbs of live rock for biological filtration. A single return pump (Supreme Mag Drive 1800) pumps the water up to the tanks through ½” PVC. Each tank has an input pipe with a ball valve to regulate the flow of water into the tank. The tanks are lit with two 54W T-5 fluorescent bulbs in a Current USA .
Research Tanks
A rack with fifteen 10 gallon tanks that can be set-up and run independent of each other allow for testing of different water parameters. Each tank is outfitted with a Maxi-jet 400 or 600 pump, and a 25W or 50W heater. Each rack of five tanks is lit by a single Current USA T-5 fixture with either 4 or 8 bulbs. This set-up allows students to test different parameters that our larger system cannot be used for such as temperature, salinity, nutrient loads, etc…
