Will the real indoor ocean please stand up

[Scouse]

OK you may think I’m nuts after reading this or maybe not, but here’s a question for you to ponder, or should I say theory?…..

You’re a purest, you’re a hobbyist, you’re a pet keeper, and your to somewhat a conservationist….or you could be all or none. Whichever I’m sure you may well relate to the fact that your ‘hobby’ has become an obsession and you would like to be able to give your pet/s the best life style you possibly could. Maybe not?

Well since you have a tank in your living room and naturally it shouldn’t be there, as in how Mother Nature perceived it. Have you considered all the elements, people speak of miracle mud, live sand beds, ‘live this an live that’ all to create an eco-system as close to the natural ways of the world.

Well what about beyond that?

Your pets live in water and the main controlling factor over water is…? Yep! He’s gone nuts!!… It’s the moon!!!

So since you could not reproduce the tidal effect of your local area every 12 hrs etc, what about every week or month etc?

I was wonderin if anyone has ever considered undertaking their water changes in relation to the moon cycle each month, i.e. when gravitational pull would be at its strongest or weakest? or other periods? It would be interesting to know if this would benefit the creatures in the tank, probably minimal if anything, but who knows? Wonder if its ever been studied? It may benefit them considerably????

I know many try to recreate the ocean with their wave machines, is this not just another step on?

 

[Rockthis11]

That sounds like a great idea. I dont know if it would increase the animals health or anything but im sure it would help if you were trying to breed them. Also, i believe the neptune aquacontroller (or something like that) can simulate the moons tidal changes and adjust your powerheads and wavemachines thusly.
not sure though

 

[Chamkeeper]

I do have waves in my reef tanks (still doing Ceph reasearch), for the hard core coral folks, it's a necessity. Im working on a Lunar Cycle moonlight, when perfected, making lighting coinciding with the Lunar cycle will be simple. The real trouble is verification. A mistake in timing takes months to find.

As far as Water Changes go, please explain to me why the timing of them plays an influence in the natural life of sea creatures.

 

[Colin]

i have done 2 out of the 3 points made. And know of some places that do the third.

The powerheads in my cuttletank, before it was a cuttletank used to be set on normal household timers where the ones on the left blew for 6 hours and then switched off and then the ones on the right blew for 6 hrs and then switched off... not as fast as the usual 3 seconds delay that a typical 'wavemachine' for fishtanks gives.

The lights that I use on my FW tank were on the marine tank and they are called ufo complet lights (the 'e' is missing on purpose ) and they have 2 x 150watt MH lights, 2 x 30watt fluro lights and they also have 2 x 100watt halogens. I dont have the halogens operating just now but i did in the marine tank. They simulate the cycles of the moon and start a month being on and no more and each night get brighter until full moon and then back again.

The large male cuttlefish would display his full breeding colours only on the days around 'full moon'

Lastly, some sea life centres have tanks with dump tanks. Works a bit like the theory of how a urinal works... the water gets pumped out of the tank slowly over 6 hours until half of it is gone and then the syphon starts from the dump tank and the water crashes back in over a short period of time.. therefore being a bit like a tidal effect.

there once was a thread here about how to change gravity but that was about a year ago LOLOL

So, it can all (except gravity) be done!

Marine Reef Supply - Sewatec A.E. ufo in german!!! maye babblefish would help

http://www.coburgaquarium.com.au/lighting.html Australia

 

[Octopus_Reef]

I have a 300 gallon reef tank and it does all of thee above. I have an Octopus 3000 controller that runs everything as far as pumps,lights etc.

I have (2) 5 gallon surge buckets that dump back and forth to simulate waves in the ocean and also have moon lights that are the same wave length as natural moon light and have the controller set up to make them more and less intense by adding more light or taking away more light in a 28 to 30 day cycle. The surge buckets dont run as much at night an run more (faster) during the day to simulate high and low tide.

 

[Scouse]

Well I havnt had time to respond to Colin's comments on this yet and like buses...before you know it along pops another!!!

Your tank sounds cool mate, it would be nice to see some pic's if poss?

How long have you been runnin your tank with the dumpers and how have you got the tide thingy set-up i.e. slow release of water or fast? an is it noisy?

Sounds like you've been doin it while.

Nice one

Rich

 

[Octopus_Reef]

Sorry for the slow reply... I have had this tank for about 3 years, It was a fish only with live rock and just recently I have started to switch it to a reef. The surge buckets have 2 pumps for each bucket (one pumps much more volume) and thru seperate timers during the day both timers will run making the buckets fill faster and at night only the slow pumps run. The day pumps dump 5 gallons of water about every 30 to 45 seconds and at night they dump about every 3 to 4 minutes. As far as noise goes it is really quiet, everything is ran thru the walls of the house down to the basement thru the refugium/sump/skimmer then back up to the display, so there is no "pump/filtration" noise the only noise you here is the dumps and it is not very loud in fact you can bearly here it at all. I will try to get some pic's soon but I don't have a digital camara yet ........

 

[Scouse]

Sounds excellent, look forward to it!!!