A Reef in the Sky...scaper

[Acrotrdco]

WOW, Just spent good part of the day reading the entire thread. Thanks for sharing your build, lot of time involved! Picked up a lot of info on your LEDs. Will make good use of it.
Thanks Bond

You're welcome

This is shaping up to be one of the nicest tanks getting around at the moment mate. Well done.

Thanks - I've submited a photo to the R2R Photo of the Month contest, let's see if I could win it LOL

 

[bagz727]

this is a great looking tank!! what do you dose for sps colors? thanks

 

[Acrotrdco]

this is a great looking tank!! what do you dose for sps colors? thanks

I dose the normal stuff:

Dosing pump:
Ca/KH/Mg/K/Sr/Br (KZ B-Balance)/Trace element

Manual dose:
KZ Xtra / Stylo-Pocci Glow / Sponge Power

Feeding:
ReefPearls once a week

 

[bagz727]

Do you test for potassium? Ty

 

[Acrotrdco]

I used to test for K with the KZ test kit, but it's nothing more than guess work so I've sold the test kit already.

There's another new test kit from Red Sea, but I don't plan to buy it because frankly I don't really see the need to test for K, I just dose the recommended dosage for the water volume in my tank and it seems to work just fine.

 

[Acrotrdco]

I used to test for K with the KZ test kit, but it's nothing more than guess work so I've sold the test kit already.

There's another new test kit from Red Sea, but I don't plan to buy it because frankly I don't really see the need to test for K, I just dose the recommended dosage for the water volume in my tank and it seems to work just fine.

 

[bagz727]

Hi, you said you also dose sponge power, do sps benefit from this also? By the way, you also dose kz stylo-pocci, do you think it really works with your birdsnest & other sps? Thanks

 

[Acrotrdco]

Hi, you said you also dose sponge power, do sps benefit from this also? By the way, you also dose kz stylo-pocci, do you think it really works with your birdsnest & other sps? Thanks

Well I think Sponge Power do help the growth of SPS, but there's no way I could quantifiy this.

My bird's nest and cat's paw are growing very rapidly even before I started to dose the KZ Stylo-Pocci-Glow, but after dosing I think they color up even better (or is that just my imagination haha).

Since it's only 2 drops a day, I'll continue to dose it.:celeb2:

 

[bagz727]

Well I think Sponge Power do help the growth of SPS, but there's no way I could quantifiy this.

My bird's nest and cat's paw are growing very rapidly even before I started to dose the KZ Stylo-Pocci-Glow, but after dosing I think they color up even better (or is that just my imagination haha).

Since it's only 2 drops a day, I'll continue to dose it.:celeb2:

yeah, 2 drops a day goes a long way!

 

[Acrotrdco]

Finally recorded a new video, here it is, enjoy!

p.s. watch it in HD 720p

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnQCMZs4SFw

 

[stina]

Finally recorded a new video, here it is, enjoy!

p.s. watch it in HD 720p

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnQCMZs4SFw

Thanx for the video, it showes your tank so much more...

I love the flow, the aquascape and I love how your slick LED light looks... to be honest I don't like how your corals look.. they are IMHO too pale.. maybe it's just white balance on the camera?!?!

thanx again
keep up the good work!

 

[sahin]

Howard that was beautiful to watch.

Stina; the colours are there, but I bet the White LEDs had to be turned up higher than the blues to get good White balance. Also, the since the light is coming from above, coral colour will look best when looking at top down coral photos. - look through most tank of month of the month articles, regardless of lighting used, the best looking and most colourful shots are ones of top down photos.

 

[Acrotrdco]

Thanx for the video, it showes your tank so much more...

I love the flow, the aquascape and I love how your slick LED light looks... to be honest I don't like how your corals look.. they are IMHO too pale.. maybe it's just white balance on the camera?!?!

thanx again
keep up the good work!

Read the bottom comment - I think it's the exposure, but my corals do look a little pastel due to running some of the KZ additives.

Howard that was beautiful to watch.

Stina; the colours are there, but I bet the White LEDs had to be turned up higher than the blues to get good White balance. Also, the since the light is coming from above, coral colour will look best when looking at top down coral photos. - look through most tank of month of the month articles, regardless of lighting used, the best looking and most colourful shots are ones of top down photos.

Thanks guys - DSLR isn't the ideal tool to capture HD video, I've already set the exposure at -1.0ev and it's still too bright. Adjusting aperture and ISO also didn't help much with the over-exposure when taking video.

Next time I'll try a even lower ev value to see if it'll make the color show better.

 

[Mandragen]

Yeah some of it does look like exposure, but I have seen some coloration differences in my tank as well the these maxspect units. I would say that this would be the only negative someone might be able to find about these lights. I have had mine going on a year now. The power cost is low, there is no heat, no bulb replacement so far, easily removable to clean, can adjust in any direction, but they are powerful as all get out, esp those brightest whites. As I understand it your has the 4 15w lights, my older version has the 30w lights. I can only run my brightest whites 30 min a day. When I get coral from other tanks it take a while for them to acclimate to this lighting and they do seem to either darken up or pale out, but never completely bleach. The growth is still amazing and even the new growth under the lighting is a different color which has a cool affect. To me it's a very small trade off for all the positives and it's not a bad thing, just different. Again, it's only some of the lower light corals that are having issue, and this can be helped wiht careful placement considerations, I've just chosen to let them adapt than to move. Overall I would still give this light a 5/5.

 

[Acrotrdco]

Some Updates

Just took a few more photos today, and recorded a video, I'm still editing the video so here're the photos first

My new tri-color sunset millie

The millie under arctinic

 

[westreef]

Howard,
You never cease to delight me with your awesome tank and your photo taking technique. Please keep the pics coming.:dance:

 

[Acrotrdco]

Howard,
You never cease to delight me with your awesome tank and your photo taking technique. Please keep the pics coming.:dance:

Thanks bud

 

[Acrotrdco]

HD Macro Video

Now the video

Remember to watch it in 720P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gGJBjoGXro

 

[sahin]

You have a beautiful reef Howard. And with LED's too. Man that new milli is soooo pretty. PLEASE do post more photos of it and maybe one or two closeups of a few branches.

 

[lilopop11]

You have a beautifull tank Acrotrdco