In 2003 I added the blue plastic lids. Now I didn't need to worry about the Santa Anna winds blowing them apart, and I could also open both sides of the lids at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

These two tanks were connected with a trough, this created a strong laminar flow across the top of the frag tank.

This lid design worked by using blue holiday plastic wrap sandwiched between layers of clear plastic. Unfortunately every 6-9months it had to be replaced due sun and wind damage. Another draw back was that I could only open one side at a time.

October 31th 2006
One month after the cycling of the new system, an amazing thing occurred, the water first looked cloudy then after about two weeks the water turned solid green. This was a great sign in that it a living culture of phytoplankton could survive in the system. I allowed this to go on for two months and it lead to the explosion of copepods and other filter feeders. Fearing that the pH and oxygen level would be harmful to corals at night time I installed an ozone generator and after about 3 days things were clearing up.

Jan 14 2007 8:00am

Here in Costa Mesa it rarely gets below freezing, so you can imagine my surprise to see a 5 to 6 inch icicle hanging from the lid. I quickly grabbed my camera and took some shots, here I have the foam insulation and plastic side panel removed to show the corals safe inside. The cloudy water is from the residual algae left from the previous green water bloom.

     

April 30 2007

This is a close up shot of a Stylophora pistillata. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this at first, but after doing some research it turns out that the orb shaped objects are called Planulae and are basically clones of the parent colony. Eventually they break away from the parent and float around with the current until a suitable place is found to grow into a new coral.

Below is view through the length of the tank

Here are some shots of the growth rate of my little buddy, a Vlamingi tang.