Kessil

So how large of a footprint do our reef tanks put down?

nash

nash

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I always wonder about this. We all talk green but I know most of us run MH for 6-8 hours or more.Pumps 24x7x365.I remember someone who commenting to me that I should think of the environment since I have so much trouble keeping one type of coral. I thought to myself I any of us care that much we should not be keeping corals or fish. :eek: Oh Boy, there I said it. ::)
Lets see:
lights-250w X 8hr
return pump- 100w X24hr
skimmer 48w X 24hr
PH all 120w X24hrs
water change what is it 2-3 wasted for ever 1gal ?
Guess you would have to count trips to pickup food fish corals etc..
I think the list goes on and on. :eek:
It's a wonder my green friends still talk to me :'(
 
[quote author=nash link=topic=2557.msg26440#msg26440 date=1194248810]I thought to myself I any of us care that much we should not be keeping corals or fish.[/quote]

Hard one to answer there. There's a lot more stuff than reef keeping that has an impact on our environment too. Carry the arguement far enough, and you'll ask why there should be people on this planet :D

Maybe the idea is that if we are to do something, reefkeeping or whatever, it would be good to find ways of doing it that minimize negative impacts as best we can.
 
I don't really count as a green friend, but I'll still talk to you. :D

That's one of the cool things about the new Steinhart - their working to keep their footprint low AND keeping lots of cool animals. I also think it's cool when guys like JimSar put up solar panels to help power their tanks.

But let's face it your tank (and mine) are small potatoes. If you really want to be green its airplanes and cars you need to discuss.

So does this mean we can still carpool to meetings? :D

C
 
I try to be conscientientous (sp?) of green as less money in water and electricity bill wise, but in this day and age ignorant as we are we have to actually have to be hit over the head with massive charges before we "get it"
 
What happened to the good old days where we used coal to power everything and TNT to fish? .....sounded funny in my head but not so funny reading it :- We can just do the best we can I guess. People are going to be reefers with or without us, as long as we help decrease the impact a little then I guess that'll have to do right?
 
[quote author=Mr. Ugly link=topic=2557.msg26455#msg26455 date=1194293875]
Unless we want to be the reef club that tries to get everybody to quit reefing :D
[/quote]For every person you get to quit, that's one powerhog piece of equipment you get to use. It's starting to sound like a new WIBGI thread.
 
[quote author=nash link=topic=2557.msg26440#msg26440 date=1194248810]
I always wonder about this. We all talk green but I know most of us run MH for 6-8 hours or more.Pumps 24x7x365.I remember someone who commenting to me that I should think of the environment since I have so much trouble keeping one type of coral. I thought to myself I any of us care that much we should not be keeping corals or fish. :eek: Oh Boy, there I said it. ::)
[/quote]

:D

Everyone should say it and everyone should know it. For 95% of reef keepers out there there is only one justification for keeping a reef tank: "I like it". Anything else is rationalization. The one that chaps me the most is the idea that someone's home reef is 'educational'; A home tank really doesn't qualify.

This hobby/industry is terrible for the planet. The stuff you listed is amazing, but IMO, the biggest is the use of jet fuel to get corals from the wild to our country, and of course the mountains of styrofoam and plastic and wax covered cardboard that they are shipped in. Next comes the amazing amount of other packaging involved in the industry, and of course the massive amount of dead animals. Possibly more important is the fact that this hobby has become cheap. Tanks are cheap and livestock is cheap. This generally leads to people thinking all of it is disposable, which is terrible.

The impacts our hobby has can be considered small compared to other impacts, however, it is important to keep in mind the idea that what we do does have impact. To ignore our impact because others have bigger impact seems like a meaningless proposition. If we want the hobby to continue into the future, its important that we try to minimize our impacts, as well as impacts of others. Believing Golbal warming or not doesn't really need to enter the picture, beacause at the very least poor collecting practices damage the reef, and if we want to make sure the reefs stay around, we need to find ways to to minimize the impact our hobby has on the reefs.

Does all that mean that we shouldn't partake in the hobby? Maybe. I know I could easily see myself out of the hobby at some point, and more and more long time reefers are leaving for the reasons being discussed in this thread. On the other hard, "I like it" matters, and we do lots and lots of things because we like to do them, and there should be room in the world for that. :D

I have actually been thinking about this a great deal since I finished up in Tonga a year or two ago, and I have been trying to figure out ways to express it and propagate the ideas. I have a couple articles and a website in the works - maybe they will actually happen!
 
I think Rich hit it right on the head, the electricity and junk we use for our tank really pales in comparison to the costs associated with transporting this animals to us. Don't know how much of fuel costs for jets I'll really be willing to take blame for though, as those jets usually don't fly unless they're full of people first, and corals get second fiddle as to "additional space".


Now as to my responsibility of the hobby, I'm not going to claim it's educational in the least, sure people ask questions, sure I've learned more about this particular area of animals than I would ordinarily have, but it's aesthetic and that's it. I don't think anyone in here can claim they're going to help restore the reefs by putting back what they took after it grew out. However I would like to think that countries take care of their own and use the funding that this hobby does to try to protect the reef (of course I don't think I can honestly lie to myself and think they do).

I look at it more this way though, I drive a Prius, and that is WAY better than driving an SUV, however not driving at all would be even better than the Prius vs SUV argument. In the same way I'm going to get frags from swaps, rather than buy corals from a store which as large as colonies look you just know came through the chain of custody of "lets see how much we can frag off this and make it seem like it's aquacultured". It would be much better to give it up completely, but I'll keep my dirty little sin as clean as possible.
 
[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=2557.msg26468#msg26468 date=1194308541]
I think Rich hit it right on the head, the electricity and junk we use for our tank really pales in comparison to the costs associated with transporting this animals to us. Don't know how much of fuel costs for jets I'll really be willing to take blame for though, as those jets usually don't fly unless they're full of people first, and corals get second fiddle as to "additional space".[/quote]

:D

Part of the reason those jets fly is because of cheap bulk cargo. That translates into live animals as a volume commodity which is bad bad bad in terms of staying alive. That is our responsibility.
 
"Green footprint" is another hype like many others.
US alone has planned and building 54 new coal plants.
It's just every goverment/country need to have bi-polar political regime like:
coldwar - freelove
globalwarming - war on terror.

This keeps majority of the public in shape I guess.
 
I guess I agree with "I like it" since all of us feel the same way. I just wish I had ideas of how to use less power for the tank. I toyed with running the skimmer 3day on and 2 off.My son came home from school with some CFL to save energy I justed smiled. :)
 
Hmm... you might be able to cut an hour off of your MH lighting.

Some people even were leaving their lights off for one day a week. They said the corals seemed to look better for it. I didn't see anything quantifiable as far as the corals, but you reduce your lighting electrical by 1/7th.

Some people run surges to get a lot of water movement for low power consumption. Airlifts are another option. Watch out for salt creep though.

Do you run your lighting on "reverse" cycle? Lights come on at night?

Can you use DI or tap instead of RODI?

If you have your skimmer on a timer, it's better to have it come on at night to help with oxygen levels and pH.

Tyree still doesn't run skimmers? He does sponge filtration instead? No problems with coral colors there :D
 
I'll have to say my hobby has been educational mostly in an indirect way.

I made a point to learn stuff because of it. And they tied in with tons of other stuff I've learned previously.

I'm a bio guy by education, a techie by profession, and I'm the kind of person that wants to know everything about everything.
 
Educational to you (and other addicts) and your family, sure, but that still is 'I like it' IMO, and is different from the 'educational' justification that people try to rationalize. They use 'educational' like its for the greater good. :D

I like the list of power saving tips! I wish we had more of them.
 
SMUG ALERT!!!
Here's a list of things, some of which I do...
Run gyre/ ciche/ surge tanks.
Consider evaporative cooling instead of a chiller.
Run a large, insulated sump. Obviously use energy efficient pumps. Run fewer, larger pumps instead of multiple, small pumps.If you run multiple , small pumps, make them internal if you need more heat or external if less. Whenever possible, plan the tank for efficient flow from the beginning, this is harder than it sounds, btw.
Do away with multiple equipment on the tanks. Keep your skimmer clean. Use only large,efficient reflectors and energy efficient ballasts. Site the lighting as close to the water level as possible and use lowest wattage bulbs. Run shallower, more efficiently lit tanks. Eliminate supplemental lighting (actinic supplementals for example). Site the display tank directly over the sump, both for heat sharing issues and to reduce the head pressure for the sump return. Use only single pump skimmers. Always use gravity first if possible instead of power (for example, use an IV bag for dosing instead of a metering pump). Use a smaller pump to mix SW. Always plumb w/ flex if possible and if not, always use sweeps instead of elbows. Design all plumbing to be the shortest runs. Oversize the plumbing wherever possible. Site the system in a place that is not directly in a draft. Site the tank near to a house heat vent. Don't buy cheap equipment or livestock. While possible you may be the lucky individual who gets a good fish or a good piece of equipment from a cheap source, it's really not worth it once you factor in the risk and potential loss.
 
This is a great thread and a topic to keep alive. Whenever people get creative about doing the things they love with less impact on the environment, rather than browbeating about the terrible people they are for using energy, we make some progress. Small changes are still better than denial and thus no changes or changes for the worse.

A few small changes I made:

Changed from RODI to tap. Anyone with water from the Orinda reservoir (Alameda, San Leandro, and I'm not sure where else, the EBMUD reports have maps showing which reservoirs you use) should be fine doing this - we basically get snowmelt. If this isn't an option, using DI only (no water waste) works for many, especially if the tank isn't too large. I did that for years.

Cut back MH hours. I may also change from 10K back to higher color temp bulbs so I can stop with the actinics.

Removed MH lamps I used on freshwater tanks just because I had them laying around from old reefing uses and replaced them with CF.

Stopped running multiple small PHs and replaced with Vortechs. Now that was clearly not money saving and my primary reason wasn't environmental but it did cut down on power usage in addition to making me and my corals happy.

Installed a big tower fan sideways in the back of the tank. Chiller rarely comes on now.

Made the decision that I will not upgrade tank size. There, I've put it in writing, so I can't change my mind.

And, by happy circumstance, raised a son around enough reef tanks to influence him to study biology at UCSC and become interested in reef conservation.

Questions - Has anyone considered changing from MH to T5? Also about lighting - I know I keep my lights on longer than the corals need because I want to see the tank. Like Rich said, we do this because it makes us happy and a dark tank doesn't make me happy! Would it make sense to run whatever light is most energy efficient (?T5, CF? for all viewing time but the 6 hours or so of MH the corals need?

Changes I'll try as a result of this thread:

Lights off one day a week seems like a good plan - I could do it the day I do my 13 hour shift and barely see the tank anyway.

Thanks for all the ideas - keep them coming! Look forward to seeing/meeting some of you at the BBQ!

Johara
 
I try to run my lights at off hours, not the peak times. Also since I get home late I like to view the tank as well. Lights MH come on from 3pm to midnight. I have a second 150 mh hqi That i turn on only when I get come at night so from 9pm till midnight. I have turned off the lights for a day once every two weeks. Maybe I will try once a week.
 
Good stuff guys!

[quote author=Apon link=topic=2557.msg26527#msg26527 date=1194461418]
I try to run my lights at off hours, not the peak times.
[/quote]

This one depends on who provides your power. In Alameda, we have our own power company - 80-90% renewable energy without doing anything ourselves) and running during peak times doesn't do much. :D
 
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