Rostatos Reefer 450 and Reefer 170

[Thales]

Currently we program our spawning tanks to be like somewhere in the world, that way we have and idea for when things change and by how much.
Where did you pull the info to program the sunrise/sunset, moon rise/set, annual temp swings and solar insolation?

 

[Rostato]

Currently we program our spawning tanks to be like somewhere in the world, that way we have and idea for when things change and by how much.
Where did you pull the info to program the sunrise/sunset, moon rise/set, annual temp swings and solar insolation?

Lots of reading on Neptune’s forum and a lot of beers, trial and error. I haven’t done the temp change yet. I still need to change the season table to somewhere else. I’m thinking maybe Indonesia or Tonga. Just spitballing here.

Here’s my current light programming. Basically it’s running WWC’s AB+ setting. The whole program starts and ends 120 minutes after real sunrise/sunset so that I get more observation time at night.

The sunup profile is AB+ with a 240 minute ramp up from 0.
Then it will go to my MidDaySun profile for 5 hours
Then it will switch to my middayblue profile for a couple hours of all blues and only 4% white
Then it will go to the SunDown profile for a 120 minute sunset


Set OFF
If Sun 120/-330 Then SunUp
If Sun 450/120 Then SunDown
If Sun 450/000 Then MidDayBlue
If Sun 360/-180 Then MidDaySun

 

[NickRoseSN1985]

Has anyone used a GHL controller for this type of project(coral spawning) or has it only been APEX?

 

[Rostato]

NERD ALERT!

So i changed the plan a bit. I decided to mimic Palau because it seems to be a pretty diverse reef, and is close enough to the equator that the days and nights don’t change in length too much over the course of a year. I pulled the data for the sun and moon rise and set times from this site https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/palau

My season table was updated to match and then I changed all start times to be 3 hours later and end 3 hours later than Palau’s ”normal” times because their sunrise starts around 5:30-6am every day. Here is my season table with Palau‘s times and temp adjustments and my apex program I got for the xr30’s

When trying to find the water temps to mimic I came across this very interesting paper. https://coralreefpalau.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/CRRFTechRep1.pdf

I was amazed by how warm the reefs are there...especially with this data being 2 decades old. I realize most of the data in the paper was surface temperature, so instead of high temps being around 85 degrees, I subtracted 5 degrees from every month. In the end, there is only about a 4 degree change throughout the year. So this was a long way for me to say I ain’t changing the temp of my tank. I get 1 degree swings all day anyway, and according to that paper it’s completely normal. The 4 degrees spread over the year seems like the corals wouldn’t even notice. So I think it’s pointless. I could be wrong, but we will see.

I also got sick of my low ph issue and slow growth in my tank. So I hooked my co2 scrubber back up. Look at that jump in ph and dip in dkh today! I’m super stoked to have the tank in what I call supercharged mode again. Time to turn up the carx again!

 

[Rostato]

Well, after digging, I found this paper that is Using the same data but was published in 2020. It does show a dip in temp in April which also seems to be when the corals spawn in Palau. So this probably means something.

(PDF) Measuring Temperature in Coral Reef Environments: Experience, Lessons, and Results from Palau

PDF | Sea surface temperature, determined remotely by satellite (SSST), measures only the thin “skin” of the ocean but is widely used to quantify the... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

I looked at all the data and kinda re-hashed my temp table to be somewhere closer to this and will maybe set the apex to do this work.

 

[Squist]

I finally read all of the coral magazine articles on coral spawning and have gone down the rabbit hole. A fun one mind you. Maybe @Thales has some suggestions or things I may be missing? @Squist have you changed anything yet?

Ooohh. Check you out. Following along.

I'm looking into feeding now. The automatic fresh food feeder and algae reactor are a big part of my feeding strategy. Once I get that worked out -- quantities, etc. -- I'll turn to tuning Apex routines and schedules. There's a lot of WXM config I haven't bothered to sort through. I've taken note of your nighttime feeding schedule.

 

[MarAquatic]

Are you running a kh gaurdian?

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[Rostato]

Are you running a kh gaurdian?

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Yes sir

 

[Rostato]

Finally found a spot to mount my KhG thanks to @Srt4eric

This is a much more efficient spot to mount it. I previously called this the “dead zone” of the stand where I had unused space.