A Reef in the Sky

Hey Andrew great tank like always. Just a couple of critique points. The photos of when you had the ATI the coral colors looked darker and more vibrant. Not that it looks bad with leds but the t5s made your corals pop more at least in pictures. Is this obvious to you or does it still look the same? By the way that was a great video that you posted. Thank you for posting pictures and video of the tank we wish we had. Happy anniversary that this may be one of many.
 
Reef_Noob said:
Pretty awesomeeeee :D
One more lighting unit....that's awesome too!!

So you have drastically reduced the amount of live rock in ya system. Any reason in particular?

Extremely beautiful pictures as always. :thumbsup:
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Thanks noob... I will address the questions in my next post

tahiriqbal said:
Very nice Andrew, you tank looks amazing as always.

Tahir
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Thank you Tahir

Crazy_Beaver said:
So one unit wasn't enough?
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No, the spread wasn't wide enough and when I raised the light unit the PAR dropped off too much

foxrazr said:
Hey Andrew great tank like always. Just a couple of critique points. The photos of when you had the ATI the coral colors looked darker and more vibrant. Not that it looks bad with leds but the t5s made your corals pop more at least in pictures. Is this obvious to you or does it still look the same? By the way that was a great video that you posted. Thank you for posting pictures and video of the tank we wish we had. Happy anniversary that this may be one of many.
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Thanks foxrazr and no problem at all.

Yes, the colours are not the same. The main reason is that I went from T5 to LED (for 3weeks) then back to T5 (for 4 weeks while I had another unit made) and now I am back to LED for only 1 week so far. I also stopped dosing Phol's Xtra back at the end of May which assisted in making the corals pop. What will be interesting is if the LEDs can bring the corals back to a popping appearance.

Another area which may be causing a difference is the white balance. I am having some difficultly trying to adjust it.

newe70 said:
Amazingly beautiful...I like your pair of LED fixtures :)
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Thank you
 
Update

Live Rock and Fragging

A piece of rock that was on the island was removed over a month ago. It all came unexpected as I was doing my water change. I was cleaning the glass when my arm knocked the large coral on the island and the this caused a mini avalanche which could be rebuilt.

Therefore the coral and rock were removed. I had been thinking about trimming the coral for some time but never did.

The size of it was amazing
IMG_9919.jpg


Fragging began, again this was unexpected. The end result was a bucket and half of frags (well large frags)
IMG_9925.jpg


I am glad the coral was removed as it has opened up a lot more space for corals, fish and water movement. You can see some of the frags in my previous pictures.


Pests

I had been watching one of my corals for a while as the polyps were retracted or damaged. There appeared to be two hairy crabs in the coral so I gave them some time before I decided to remove them.

Munching away
IMG_0101.jpg


The easiest way to remove a crab
IMG_0104.jpg


Removed
IMG_0107.jpg



Fish problem

My beloved Achilles tang start to get a bacterial infection on his face. It developed rather quickly over a few days and I was really worried. I decided to leave him in the tank as he was still swimming and eating well. Within a week he got better and is again fighting fit!! I got lucky

A poor picture showing him 3days into his problem. I posted in the fish disease section but no one could help.
Achillesblacktangsick.jpg



Another LED unit

From my previous post it can be seen I bought another unit. This was because my tank was just too wide have one unit. The PAR itself was fine but the spread wasn't enough as some of you noticed in an earlier picture. I raised the light unit to increase the light spread but the PAR dropped off too much for my liking. The decision was then to get another unit.

I've done PAR tests and have posted the results. The tests were conducted at 100% White, 100% Blue and 100% Moon to see what the max this unit pumps out!!

Now of course I don't run all modes at 100% but it simply shows the output that is available.

IMG_0109.jpg


An example
IMG_0114.jpg


Front View Summary
The results were taken under the center of the unit at 4 different levels.
PARReadings.jpg


Side View Summary
Again the results were taken under the center of the units at 4 levels. You can see that once you move away from directly underneath the PAR drops but otherwise I am still happy with the results.
PARReadings2.jpg
 
Hi Andrew,
Beautiful tank and pictures as always. :thumbsup: Thanks for sharing the PAR measurement.
With less live rock, can you place more corals in the tank or it is about the same?

Bernie
 
Unbelievably beautiful and clean setup. One airman to another, that there is a "greaser" captain. Nicely done.

Your livestock collection is almost identical to mine. What's your feeding regimen like?
 
Hi Andrew.

It is great to see everything is going well, save for a few minor problems.

I must say, I am not sure about your switch to LEDs. The colours you achieved in your system with t5s have been nothing short of world class, and to see you change a winning formula leaves me a little confused about the reasons.

What made you switch?

As always I wish you continued success and I will be following this closely as I have done since the start.

Ps. More Ryan Farish music on the next video please! :-) which I hope will be soon so we can see more of the led's in action
 
As reefers many of us are like scientists, having a thirst for knowledge and an open mindset to try out new things and technology. I would commend Andrew on that very reason for switching to LED lighting from something that was working well for him...
That is a brave choice!! Most us will stick to a regimen and won't change anything. But if it werent for people like Andrew a lot of things would have remained the same and nothing new and innovative wouldv ever seen the light of day.
I wouldn't judge anything at this moment coz photography under LEDs is a "science" in itself. It's quite hard to get the true to life colours in photos under LEDs. The colours we get under LEDs and when viewed live are just mind blowing. Capturing them on photos is very hard. The pictures of the corals under LEDs that Andrew has dished out are just superb and believe me it's not easy.

Hats off to Andrew for documenting his journey for us.
Each and every change or addition he makes will help us all learn something.

So far so good and the future looks LED bright!! :thumbsup:
 
Andrew: I know you've not had the LED's long enough; but since I consider you to be a very experienced reefer, I think I can ask this question now:

What are your current thoughts regarding LED's for SPS coral colour? We all know LED's can grow SPS, so I'm not concerned about coral growth, but rather, how you feel about SPS coral colours?

I really like my T5/LED hybrid ATI Sunpower...but I am coming up to bulb replacement time and I am really wondering whether I ought to make the switch to full LED: either the Radion or the GHL Mitras.
 
Looking great!

One question thou: How do you like the light spread of the leads?

By the photos it looks like you dont have the same blend of colors as you had with T5.

It looks like you could see the different color projections over the sand.
 
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