AI Sols are up

[Capt_Cully]

 

[rjmayes34]

you have halides and led's run at the same time?
What are the point of the AI sols? They look nice and fancy!
Sorry i don't know much about the leds or the halides for that matter, i run t5's (and still don't know much about them other than they light my reef and keep it happy and thriving!)
Do you have different corals under different lights for their different spectrum's?
Just came to my head so i thought i'd ask

 

[Capt_Cully]

Tank is 3 feet front to back. Halides don't cover front 12 inches or so. I have T5's in back of the halides. I had them in front, but when viewing the tank from the front, the rocks and corals were shaded and appeared dark. I don't have enough room nor did I want the added energy consumption that adding more halides would have accomplished. The LED's are a low energy alternative to getting a bright light affect with the shimmer of halides that T5's, IMO, do not provide.

 

[rjmayes34]

yeah i would agree to that, i like the shimmer look also but wanted to keep electric costs low so i have t5's.
Like i said just a random question, thanks!!
And 3 ft is a nice width!!!! thats awesome, adds some real depth to the tank,lots of room for rock and still have the 18" left over that my tank is total!!!

 

[NirvanaFan]

How about a shot of your rocks and stuff to see the colors?

 

[Capt_Cully]

I knew someone would ask. Stands to reason. Only problem is our current camera is a total POS. Santa is quite possibly maybe definitely bringing us a new camera for Commercemas. Ill get some quality photos up then and update my build thread too.

Meantime, cell phone photos will have to suffice. I have the units dialed WAY back to acclimate corals. I've read where people have bleached corals quickly by going full bore with LEDs. I've also started dosing vodka and vinegar, another risk factor for bleaching corals (or at least their tips). For that reason, I'm utilizing the ramp up option on the light's controller. I've got It set to about 2 hours for them to reach full strength (as I said though, full power is dialed way back too).

 

[Capt_Cully]

First pic is of TT with just the a sol on for actinic supplementation. White dialed back to 15%, blue @30%, royal blue @20% for acclimation period. I think you can appreciate the shimmer.

2nd pic is with Sol and 250w DE Phoenix 14k. Please disregard my son's babbling....

 

[Conesus_Kid]

No pics showing up. They look like video files from the URLs. Is that intentional?

 

[Capt_Cully]

Ah for Christmas sakes.......

 

[gary greguire]

 

[jeremyjoslin]

Are you using their controller, or did you tap into your current reef controller?

 

[jeremyjoslin]

Are you using their controller, or did you tap into your current reef controller?

Nevermind. Just read your other post. BTW, do you know if your AI's *could* be controlled in such a fine-tuned manner with 3rd party controllers like Apex?

 

[Capt_Cully]

You can run them with an apex, profilux, reefkeeper, or AIs proprietary controller. I run a Neptune AC Jr so I was obliged to upgrade or use theirs. I went of the cheaper option.

 

[Capt_Cully]

edit

 

[EllieSuz]

vodka AND vinegar?

 

[Capt_Cully]

vodka AND vinegar?

Compliments of Tom/TMZ:


Vinegar which is 95% water is 8x more dilute than 80 proof vodka . When calculating a dose, 1 ml of vokda equals 8 mls of vinegar. You can use the vodka dosing start up guidelines for vinegar if you mulitply them by 8 .

Cost isn't much different. Bartons vodka is $14 for 1.75 liters ; vinegar about $3 per gallon. (3.9 liters).In terms of carbon content and equivalent dosing amounts 1.75 x8 =14 liters of vodka or roughly3.6 gallons of vodka. So @ $3 per gallon , it's approximately $11 worth of vinegar to equal $14 of vodka.

They can both go in a kalk reservoir together or separately. Bacteria will begin to consume either of them when they are diluted in regular water but not in the high ph kalk water.Off the shelf the low ph in vinegar is outside the tolerable range for the bacteria and the alcohol in the vodka stops them but when either of them is heavily diluted in plain water the change in environment favors the bacteria.

Vinegar in a kalk solution will also allow more calcium hdroxide to go into solution as much as 2.72 tsps per gallon with a dose of 48ml vinegar to 1 gallon of top off water vs 2 tsps per gallon. Adding more vinegar beyonde that has no additional effect on solubility This allows a higher dose of kalk than otherwise. Vodka does not increase the amount of kalk that can be held in solution.

Vinegar is fine,perhaps even a better source for carbon than vodka , but needs to be dosed slowly or in relatively small amounts preferably during photosynthesis. It brings in CO2 which drops ph quickly when dosed in bulk.
Vodka reduces ph from the bacterial activity as well and over time and equivalent amount of carbon from vinegar or vodka would even out but vodka is a step or two behind vinegar in degradation and CO2 formation so it takes it's time and the change in ph is not precipitous allowing time for equilration with the surrounding air along the way.. Since I prefer to dose it in bulk , a high proportion of vodka works for me

Just vodka may cause some cyano based on anecdotal observations .
Using some vinegar or all vinegar seems to more effectively limit cyano but that's all anecdotal at this point.

Tom