Pond Update

[danmhippo]

The pond is coming around, some stupid stupid mistakes, but is being corrected.

Originally, I only put in 1/2" of sand. But being a lazy ass I am, I decided to bump the sand depth up to 4 1/2" to battle with dissolved nutrients more efficiently. I bought 1000 pound of southdown and prepare to use about 600 pound of it. I bought them from Murray, one of the locals here that ordered pallets of them from East. As I were buying it from him, he asked me how am I going to do with them. I replied I am going to go slow, put them in garbage can and wait for bacteria to colonize on them before I implement into my tank. Well, Let's just say I ate my own words. I dumped all bags of southdown directly into the pond, and was already regretted it when I am dumping the second bag. It was a big mess and took more then 2 weeks to clear up. The southdown smothered all macro algae and clogged up pores of sponges. Needless to say, algae bloom developed soon after.

After the pond cleared and is taking off slowly again, I decided to test 2 anemones into the pond, one carpet and one sebae. This is where I discovered devastating effect of temp swing. The sebae is doing great, but the carpet cloaked after a week. Instead of attribute its death to bad specimen, I would say it has more to do with each species' tolerance on temp swing.

My pond temp swing from high 60s at night to high 80's at 2:pm. Figuring this is a big stress factor, I added a 250W titanium heater. Then another, then another. 3 250W heaters to maintain temp at 85F. The pond is doing fine now. But I am still waiting for the NO3 to drop naturally before I start stocking it with clams and other anemones. I am also going to setup a live phyto station to continuously drip live phyto into the pond. We'll see how everything turns out.

 

[AJT]

Are you putting a salt water pond outside? What size ? My wife will not let me upgrade my 200gal reef, but I think outside is fair game. Do you have any pics? What are the pond dimensions?

Thanks
Andy

 

[danmhippo]

No pics at this time, it's still in ugly, very ugly stage. It's fairly small, 72 long, 48 wide, 18" deep. Holds about 200G of water excluding sand. I used a feeding trough sold at farm supply store. Basic equipment is 1 Powerhead, 4 heaters, 5" sand, and sunlight.

 

[AJT]

It sounds like a good outside project. I have been thinking about an out side pond with a waterfall and all the trimmings. I wonder if it is feasable to do this saltwater? I live in houston , so it would have to be pretty deep to stay cool... are there any threads of anyone doing this that you know about?

Andy

 

[JeremyR]

I've always been curiuos what the effect of big city polluted rain would have on such a setup. (or rain in general).

 

[pcmankey]

What do you put in an outdoor saltwater pond, and do you try to control the temperature or is it at the mercy of the weather?

 

[Anonymous]

I replied I am going to go slow, put them in garbage can and wait for bacteria to colonize on them before I implement into my tank. Well, Let's just say I ate my own words. I dumped all bags of southdown directly into the pond, and was already regretted it when I am dumping the second bag.

tisk tisk tisk

what is that saying again. The only thing that comes quickly is problems? :wink:

It sounds like its coming around.

Thanks for the update.

 

[esmithiii]

When can we see pics?

 

[danmhippo]

I will show pic after the diatom bloom subsides and tank condition stablized. Say, another 4-6 weeks.

 

[dvb]

I have never heard of an outside saltwater pond. I have just seen the ones with waterlillies in them!

What inspired you to do an outside saltwater pond? It sounds pretty cool!

 

[danmhippo]

What inspired me in such a task? Well, trying to raise a few anemones and see if I can raise money here and there. That's the most part. Of course, I also wanted to see and test out viability of maintaining a out door SW pond. I've heard of people do it down here in SoCal, never know who it is, but have definetly heard of it. I also heard that guy spent a couple of thousand bucks on the initial setup as well. No, I am not going to spend that much $$, but just like all reef tank setups, there are expensive ways to do things and there are poorman's way as well.

I am just trying to experiment with poorman's methods and see if I can find a way to promote this hobby so more people can have the joy of having a SW system. If we can attract more novice into this hobby with some fool proof methods, those of us that are more advanced and got a "green thumb" of propagating corals and breed fish will also benefit from the boom as well.

(I feel like a saint now............ :lol: )

 

[skylsdale]

Hey Hippo, when's that diatom bloom gonna end so we can see some pictures of this ghetto operation?

 

[danmhippo]

OOOps, I forgot about the picture thing. OK, give me a couple of days to post them.

The diatom bloom is complete vanished, thanks to the wonderful California Sun that cooked the pond water temp to 95 just a couple of days ago. Not only diatom disappeared, macro algae too, All of them!

Not much to see right now accept the setup and some clams. But I will post the pic up.

 

[skylsdale]

As delicate as we sometimes make corals out to be, most of our tanks are pretty stable when compared to many of the reef flats where these things grow. I'm be curious to see if things actually fair pretty well in this pond with all the parameter swings.

And just a few suggestions--take them for what you will. I would take this opportunity to NOT add any more macroalgae to the pond. Been doing some research lately and have I'm starting to think it's a little too unstable to depend on in our systems. If you're looking for something to aid in nutrient uptake, I would go for something a little more dependable such as turtle grass. Being a more advanced plant, it isn't prone to crashing or going sexual. Also, the seagrass areas often located next to reefs are able to absorb an extremely high nutrient load from the adjacent reef. Since it sounds like you're keeping anemones and clams, it would be perfect since many of them come from this type of environment as well. If you're feeling adventurous, you could add some mangroves as well, but you would need around a dozen of them to aid in any sort of nutrient uptake. Either of these would be a pretty cheap acquisition.

 

[danmhippo]

I actually have some turtle grass in my pond, but their growth rate is surprisingly slow. No, I am pretty sure they are not dead yet, but just not sprouting new shoots either. But you are probably right. I shouldn't depend on macro algae for nutrient uptake. I should go for the more advanced form of plants that would normally resist temp swings like this.

I think I will throw a couple of planting pots into the pond and do some mangrove as well.

 

[Minh Nguyen]

danmhippo,
How are you going to solve the temp problem. Tem hit 95 degree and not much will live though that.
Chiller? shades? fans?
You got to do this before adding anything to the pond.
What about dilutional effects if it rain? I guess it never rain in Southern CA.

 

[danmhippo]

Minh, that's the point, we hardly ever get rain!

Right now I am getting the pond partially shaded but that doesn't help a whole lot as the ambient air temp hovers around 100. Being outdoors, I don't want to install fans to blow across surface fearing neighbor sprinkles may cause sparks on fan. The location I chose has remote chance of being sprinkled upon, but as long as there is that 1% probability, I wouldn't do it.

I've just ordered a teclima 400W chiller and heater combo to be installed on this pond. I will build a roomy housing/roof for the chiller module to prevent sprinkler sprays, if any.

This pond project is getting more complicated then I thought.

I also have another live phyto reactor to be installed onto it for continuous plankton feeding. It's basically 2x10gal reactor vessels with litermeter between the 2 reactors responsible for pulling and pushing liquid from one reactor to the next. The flow rate I will set it at 2 gal per day. Source water will be drawn from the pond through a 200micron filter screen. The source water will also travel through a 40W spiralling UV at the 2 gal per day super slow flow rate ensuring all zooplankton are zapped and parallyzed before entering the phyto culturing vessel. I am planning to have the second chamber culturing rotifer.

 

[Anonymous]

hi.
Danm, I forget what kind of tank is the pond made of... you may want to install insulation around the pond so that it will not be affected by the hot air as much. Otherwise, your chiller is just cooling off the air in your backyard, a real waste of electricity.

Another option is using heat pool or geothermo cooling like others. But that depends on the size of your backyard... your pool is not that big, so it is more sensitive to ambient temperature swing.

As I told you already, a similar experiment done by me was a disaster because of the low night temperature (near freezing) during winter time.

 

[esmithiii]

Another cheap solution for cooling:

Have a temp controller connected to a solenoid that shuts on/off city water supply (usually this water is about 60F) and then run it through plastic tubing coiled in the bottom of the tank and then out into your yard. When the temp gets up past a set temp, the water cuts on and flows through the tubing coiled in the pond cooling it and then out into the yard watering it. I believe mr4000 uses this method to cool his tank, which is 4000gal.

Ernie

 

[danmhippo]

Here is the pic of my pond setup. Basically, it's a 4x6 rubber pond with 550lbs of southdown. I added 40lbs of LR frags for shrimps and pods to shelter from. There is a screen that I made to provide 50% shade at all time and to aid in keeping pond temp low.

Here is the only mean of filtration, a big pond filter with all bioballs removed, 6" of coarse filter floss changed every week. I Intend to remove all filter floss after another 2 weeks when the condition stablized.

Here is the basket that I am using to hold sponges and clams. There used to be a big patch of caulerpa prolifera and ulva. But the high water temp of 95 and over really killed them fast. All there is left in terms of macro algae is sea grass, eel grass, and today I received my order of widgeon grass that I will also add to the tank to try out. The shrimps clams, and sponges survived the high water temp miraculously. Chiller has been ordered already.

Here is a shot of marine shrimps I throw into the tank to get cycling started. I purchased these LFS called "marine ghost shrimp", and now I am pretty sure they are not the true ghost shrimps that I used to get from Florida coastal waters. The one's from FL does not grow big at all, and stayed within 3/4" size. These ones I purchased used to be 1/2" size from LFS, turns out to be a whopping 2" shrimp, and still growing. I think these are the common grass shrimps.......I think.

Air temp in Socal varys a lot from day to night. Our night temp now are typically in the 60's and the high in the day can reach up to 100's. I am using shading and the on-order chiller to keep the temp cool during day time, and 3 250W titanium heaters to keep tank warm during the day. The pond is placed on concrete and there is no way that I am going to dig a trench and bury pipes into it to help cool the pond. Other then the chiller, I am thinking haveing 3-4 32Gal trashcans all filled with saltwater, placed in the shade. Plumb them all together to circulate water in the pond to help cool the temp in the day time.

I should've use a green house instead to experiment with this idea. But I doubt my wife will let me.......