Chillers/refrigeration units for coldwater system.

[Anonymous]

After yet another visit to the tidepools and Monterey Bay Aquarium yesterday, I'm going to begin planning this thing. I've been wanting one for years.
I have only one major issue - the chiller. Rather than a unit that is designed to lower a tank a few degrees, I need a full on refrigeration unit I think. I don't know, you guys tell me. Matt? I have no experience with chillers, as I don't use them on my reef tanks. The unit should be farily quiet as well.
The tank will be about 100 gallons or so, maybe a cube, and it will be made from 1" acrylic to insulate it. The sump will be enclosed and will also be 1" acrylic.
Any help appreciated.

Cheers
Jim

 

[Anonymous]

Ah, I wish I could tell you what brand we have on campus. We have three 100 gallon tanks being kept at 55 degrees IIRC. Unfortuantely I'm not in Davis right now, and won't be until Aug 1 or so. (I'm at the Bodega Marine Lab, a couple hundred miles N, but the same animals mostly) They're just chillers, no bigger than a microwave oven or so. Of course, the building they're in is a constant 75 year round, so you may need a little more HP. Ours are pretty loud too, so I don't know how much help I can be in that dept.

When it comes to local animals and habitats though, I can probably offer some advice. If it were my tank I'd stick in some of the intertidal anemones (Anthopleura spp.) and Corynactis species on the rocks. They'll grow like mad.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Matt,
Anemones will be the gaint green (Anthopleura), but I'm not familiar off the top of my head with Corynactis sp, can you describe?
I plan on lots of inverts, including chitons, limpets, shore crabs, etc. Maybe a scuplin or two. One time I caught a baby wolf eel out there, so who knows.
One tank at the MBA has a bunch of beautiful pink anemones or coralomorphians, not sure which. Very bright pink. Ring a bell? I haven't seen them in any tidepools though.

Jim

 

[Anonymous]

Those are Corynactis californica, corallimorphians. Very hardy and they spread prolifically. They're only found subtidally. Not sure if they're zooxanthellate, I have a feeling they're not.

There are a couple species of Anthopleura, A. xanthogrammica (the one you're thinking of), and the smaller A. elegantissima, also called the aggregating anemone. It's smaller but forms large mats of asexual clones. Both are zooxanthellate and fairly easy to care for. You should be able to pull these off the rocks at the beach at low tide. There are some tricks to it, so let me know if you do this

The shore crabs will probably be either Pachygrapsis or Hemigrapsis spp. Both have greenish bodies with red and white claws. They stay smallish (ping pong ball size) so they should be OK if fed well.

Sculpins would be nice, but some species actually eat anemones from what I understand when they get bigger. Did ya ever know there's a temperate water pipefish? Try looking up a fish called a "gunnel" as well, and "surfperches". All of those come from mudflat type areas but would do OK if given a little bit of seagrass to hide in.

I think you should get an abalone too

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, definitely a little abalone. Thanks for the info.
Do tell about your trick at getting those anemones off. I've tried a time or two just to see if I could - no dice. How do you do it?
I collected 3 species of shore crabs yesterday to show my little girls. The greens, the purples, and an interesting dark green little guy with flattened claws. A frew urchins, some sea stars, some chitons, a bunch of hermits. They were making little mini-habitats in their buckets. We released everything after they were finished.

Jim

 

[Anonymous]

Hmm, the flattened claw green crab could very well be a porcelain crab (Petrolisthes spp.) Easy way to tell is that porcelains have three pairs of walking legs (besides the claws) vs. 4 pairs in true crabs.

 

[Anonymous]

That's him.
What is that anemone trick?

 

[Anonymous]

The aggregating anemones are pretty tricky to get off. You'll want to find a colony that's high up in the intertidal, and hopefully on a horizontal surface, preferably on smooth rock. The clones on the outer perimeter of the colony hold on tighter than the ones in the middle, so once you get one of those off it's actually pretty easy. I use a small spatula or my fingernail and just sort of tickle the side of the foot up. Once you get part of its foot exposed it's just a matter of lifting gently so as not to tear it. If you see bright orange goopy stuff, you probably tore its foot. Those are its internal filaments. Once you get going you can keep moving towards the center of the colony; this is probably the best way, collect a bunch from the same colony as non-clones will sting each other.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Matt.
I'll let you know when I get further along, it's early days still.


Jim

 

[Anonymous]

I'll add some animals that I think are kind of neat to this thread as I think of them...

I can't believe I didn't think of this one before: Hermissenda crassicornis

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t ... ermissenda

A pic is on this thread. It's a beautiful little nudibranch that feeds on hydroids--a definite plus. Up until very recently I believed it was an obligate "hydroid-ivore". Turns out it will eat just about any dead fish or crab meat you throw in the tank. I wish they adapted to warmer temps! I'm not positive yet about its behavior towards coral and anemones. It won't go after either of the Anthopleura, but I'm not sure about Corynactis. These guys concentrate their prey's polyps in the feathery things on their back, but there's pretty good evidence that it's not used for defense--as many people have assumed about nudibranchs. It's suggested that the very highly acidic stomach fluids (pH = 1!) of nudis are responsible for their distastefulness. <rambling...>

Anyway, these are readily obtainable in any seagrass habitat. Just look very closely at blades of seagrass at low tide in ankle to knee deep water.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Matt, keep em coming.
I'll use this thread as a reference later on. We could use some good info on coldwater critters around here anyway. I'm sure over time others will beneifit from it. I've spent years looking at tidepools and getting to know the critters, but keeping them in captivity will be a new learning curve. Thanks for your help!

Jim

 

[Anonymous]

I have a book call "The temperate marine aquarium" by David Wrobel that you may find useful if you don't already have it. Here is one online article by same author:

http://www.petsforum.com/cis-fishnet/afm/G29122.htm

 

[Anonymous]

I would very much like to acquire that book Dan. Where did you get your copy?
Thanks for that link too.

'edit' I found part 1 to that article for anyone interested.

http://www.aquariumfish.com/aquariumfis ... 93&search=

Jim

 

[Anonymous]

I have a book--I think it's called Intertidal Invertebrates of the North Pacific--that is readily available and a great guide for ID'ing stuff you find. I'll get the author for you when I get home.

You'll probably see a lot of these guys too--Asterina miniata, commonly called bat stars. They're all over the rocky intertidal. IIRC, this is the same genus that the little asexual stars we find in our reefs as HHs are in. From a brief search I couldn't find any info pertinent to their diet unfortunately.

If you do get some of these, check the underside of them. You'll see these little worms called polynoid worms that live among their tube feet. You'll probably want to make sure the star you collect has at least one of these--they have a mutualistic relationship where the worm cleans off the top side of the star of detritus. Most sea stars have little parts called pedicillerae (sp?) that clean off their tops for them, but bat stars don't. Thus the worm. If separated, they can find each other through chemical signals as well. Neat!

 

[Anonymous]

Where did you get your copy?

I probably got it from that company that used to be a dealer in coldwater pacific organisms, before somebody made collection of anemones illegal and put them out of business. That was in the early 90s, I think the company was California Reef Specialists, maybe. The web doesn't turn up much. If you have access to an interlibrary loan you might be able to get it. Its just black and white and could be easily xeroxed.

 

[Anonymous]

Eh? I wasn't aware collection of anemones was illegal in CA. There might be some issues with selling them, but as far as I'm aware it's perfectly fine to collect them. You'll have to buy a fishing license, Jim, filled out with the animals you plan on taking. There may be some issues with transporting a live abalone as well, but most of the other stuff is just filed away as "other invertebrates" and there's little restriction.

BTW, the book I was thinking of is the Light's manual

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 3?v=glance

Really great reference with photos and a guide to keying out specimens down to the species level.

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe its collecting and selling then. I was a set on putting up a temperate tank back then- and that company had a totally awesome stock list. They would get anything. But the anemones were the backbone of their biz. I called them for a pre-order inquiry, and the guy said I could only buy if I was an institution after that law, and they were going to go out of business.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm going to have to find a good collecting site or two somewhere between Monterey and Mendocino (huge area) that isn't a park or reserve. I know some great spots, but they all fit into one of the categories above.
Natural Bridges has some incredible tide pools. I want to emulate that in my tank.
Jim

 

[deek]

Hey,

I've been looking at doing a temperate tank too, although possibly a bit cooler as I'm up in Vancouver (50-55F) 8) . I'm thinking of doing a 40G with intertidal stuff. From talking to people around here who have done it I've picked up some nice hints:

- apparently urchins and anything with a radula (like a chiton) can actually scrape acrylic. I'm thinking of going glass. I was going to get a custom acrylic tank, but I don't want a $500 tank going cloudy after a year so I'm going to build my own glass thank.

- to prevent condensation, you can go double pane with a 1/2" space between the panes like a window. Apparently there are problems with homemade systems fogging between the panes after a while. They guy I was talking too thought that water might be slowly diffusing through the silicone. I'm thinking of introducing some kind of removeable/recharably dessicant between the panes to fix this. I'm leaning towards only a double front pane with full wrap-around concrete on foam aquascaping to make it look like a tide-pool. Only having a double front should make the tank easier to build.

- Apparently the UMI chillers are good for this type of installation. (http://umii.net/cham_specs.htm) as they're designed for large temperature pull-downs. You can buy them direct for about the same cost as retail (at least the same as retail in Van). A 1/5HP chiller from them is CDN$899. UMI says they're a bit louder than a fridge.

- As for stuff to put in it, I'm hoping I can get some small sculpins, gunnels and a few spiny lumpsuckers + assorted anenomes, shrimp and hermits. For any Canadians out there, you can collect fish using hook and line with a standard tidal fishing license. Obviously I'd like to avoid the hook part so I'm trying to get a Scientific collection permit from DFO (Fisheries and Oceans).

Dave

 

[Anonymous]

Your temp range is about what I would target for critters around here too. I think Matt even said that they maintain their tanks around those temps.
Intersting you say this about chitons scratching acrylic, I was wondering about this. Hmm...I don't really want to tackle double pained glass though either.
You need a gas between the pains that doesn't hold moisture, like house windows have. I can't remember what gas they use. If you just trap air in there you're going to have problems.
A chiton really shouldn't scratch the acrylic, his shell is out of the way even more than a snail.

You do have me thinking though about attempting a DIY tank.

Jim