Cali Kid Corals

Ray's 125G Cuttle Rearing System

magnetar68

magnetar68

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Here are some shots of my new cuttle rearing system. Mike (Coral Reefer) and David (lattehiatus) were instrumental in helping me get this together. I hope to start by ordering some cuttlefish eggs and live mysids after Thanksgiving. I am sure it will take a few trys to get this right, but I am excited about the journey.

The Main Tank
125G custom acrylic built by ZeroEdge in Chicago. The lights are DIY LEDs. I still need to aquascape the rock.
CuttleSystem011.jpg


Plumping
The drain is a BeanAnimal(ish) design: one full siphon, one open channel, and one emergency siphon. In a true bean animal the open channel should be able to go full siphon, but in my setup, this tube goes from 1" to 1.5" so I can Tee in the gravity overflows from the support tanks. If this goes siphon, it causes some water to push up out of the silencers in the support overflows. Everything drains out through the wall to the closet behind. You can also see the DIY LED power controller. Yes, I need to hope I don't spring a leak.
CuttleSystem012.jpg


This is the "ultra-flex" PVC from MarineDepot, although 1/2 of it is not what I ordered, so it is really a combination of regular spa-flex and ultra-flex. The gate value is for the full siphon. The trick to running the full siphons such a long distance is that the tubes must run continually go down. If they don't, they have trouble starting. The open channel and the return are the ones in the back going up and then down. In my setup the open channel won't go full siphon. The emergency drain will and it will make a lot of noise so I know the main siphon is clogged.
CuttleSystem009.jpg


The Sump
36"x16"x18". This needs some wire management :). I will wait until it is all dialed in before making it more permanent:
  • ATB 804v2 cone skimmer
  • NextReef SRM biopellet reactor (far left in blue)
  • BRS dual reactor for GAC and GFO
  • Refugium w/Chaeto and Home Depot LED
    Two returns, one for the main 125DT and one for the two 20G and 29G tanks.
    ATO: line from 6-stage RO/DI unit, float switch that activates a solenoid, and a manual float switch that the RO/DI line runs through in case the float switch fails
    BRS 2-part Dosing Pumps (not shown and not yet installed - currently dosing manually since load is small)
CuttleSystem007.jpg



The Support Tanks
The Blue are plumbed into the main filtration system for the 125G and the pink ones are standalone with a heater and a sponge filter.
CuttleSystem006-labled.jpg
 
Everything looks great! I'm interested to see/hear about your LED light build. Also, that Support Tank room looks awfully snug. :)
 
Here's the info on the lights. I know the new school method is to use Violet and Red and other colors, but I planned this before that came in vogue and before those color LEDs were available at reasonable efficiencies. I am happy with the color, but I am sure once the industry gets to some off-the-shelf stuff that is fairly stable in terms of specs I will upgrade. That could be a while though.

3 fixtures. Each fixture looks like this:
AquaIlliminationCopy9LEDs-1.jpg


9 XP-G Cool White run at 1000mA
9 XP-E Blue run at 700mA
9 XP-E Royal Blue run at 700mA

Each fixture has 3 Meanwell ELN-60-48D 0-10V dimmable drivers. I started with 8 LEDs per driver but at low dimming settings there was not enough total forward voltage across the driver output (eg, less than 24V), so I went to 9 LEDs. Otherwise, the lights blinked when doing a sunrise and sunset with the dimming at low voltage. I use an LM324 op-amp and a secondary 12V 1A switching power supply to drive the dimmable inputs on the Meanwells. These Meanwells draw a lot of current and the Digital Aquatics ALC module was not designed for that.

Here was the work on the 60 degree optics. I have found these work better much higher than 12" with the 60 degree optics. Otherwise there is a little too much light immediately below the center of each fixture.
AquaIlliminationCopyw-Cones60degree.png

AquaIlliminationCopyw-Cones30degree.png


More Pics:
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Nice job on the LEDs!
I am a big fan of clusters like that.
Note that 9 meanwell drivers have a lot of inrush current.
Suggest you super-size the relay, or stagger them.

I got a kick out of the spaghetti mess of wiring. Seems like all tanks start out like that.
:)
But you really need a splash guard at least over those electronics.
Even if it never leaks, you will spill something yourself.
 
OK, so I have 10 cuttle eggs in a breeder net in the 20G Long rearing tank. Most of them have cuttles inside and they appear to move (although not much).

I also have 250 mysids in a 20G Long with a sponge feeder and heater. This is at ~22ppt. I have been feeding them frozen rotifers 2x per day.

I also bought a rotifer starter kit from Reed Mariculture so I will be feeding the mysids live rotifers starting tomorrow when the culture is ready. The culture seems to be doing well as the water is getting substantially lighter after 12 hours. I took a small 3ml sample last night and there were several rotifers in this sample, so I assume things are OK with that for now.

My plan is to have two rotifer cultures going and put some of the mysids in the 10G as a backup mysid tank for now.
 
Cool. You don't need to feed the mysids live rotifers. Almost any dry food crushed up will do if you want to save some effort.
 
One thing I noticed is that it looked like one of the cuttles may have inked in his egg. This happened when I tapped it with a chopstick to see the little guy inside would move. Will that kill it?
 
Thales said:
Cool. You don't need to feed the mysids live rotifers. Almost any dry food crushed up will do if you want to save some effort.
Click to expand...

I suspect its better to feed a non motile food to them as well. I know the producers we use for them only feed non live items.
 
BAYMAC said:
I suspect its better to feed a non motile food to them as well. I know the producers we use for them only feed non live items.
Click to expand...

In this case, the vendor of these lab raised mysids recommended rotifers after I inquired how best to minimize cannibalism and maintain the stock as long as possible. But with you and Thales saying dry food is fine, I am comfortable with the recommendation. Also, not maintaining the rotifers would be a big plus.
 
So I have had the cuttles for a week. The eggs are getting more transparent and the cuttles inside seem to be getting bigger, but I don't see them move at all. Should I be worried?

I have been feeding the mysids live rotifers and I seem to still have a healthy population. Here's some video of the rotifers I took through a microscope:

[youtube]LwYUqVV9Y6Q[/youtube]
 
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