Back into the Reefing Game (25 gallons at a time)

[ZKicka4000]

I finally decided on what changes I want to make to my lighting after reading about a billion articles. Last week I ordered (2) CREE XP-E2 Blue LEDs, (2) CREE 430nm Hyper Violet LED's and (1) 700mA Meanwell Driver. I intend to swap out 2 of my Royal Blue LEDs for the Blues and use the (2) 430nm for my moonlight channel. I had some spare time tonight so I reprogrammed my controller to allow me to use my moonlight channel as a third channel during the day, and then a moonlight at night. I also swapped out mu 1000mA driver on the moonlight channel for a 700mA driver as the 430nm LEDs have a max drive current of 700mA. Since I had it apart, I figured I'd post a picture of what it looks like inside the housing and what my display looks like.


Hopefully this weekend I'll have a chance to swap out the actual LEDs. I'm still slowly lowering my light intensity, so I am going to slowly mix in the 430nm Hyper Violets. I think it'll take some time before I have everything set to where I want it.

 

[ReefWreak]

Let me know how it goes. The next ideas on my LED list, after having recently added lime and cyan, are to maybe bump my 2 violet LEDs to the rapidLED 4xUV individual stars, which have like 1 deep UV, 1 regular UV, and 2 violet UVs all on the same PCB , and maybe swap out some RBs for the regular blue LEDs.

I still think that the broader spectrum is the best spectrum. If you're a technical/electronics person and would be interested in checking out an interesting google spreadsheet I've set up for calculating LED loads and combinations, let me know and I can PM you a link and share the spreadsheet. I'd be interested to get someone else's perspective on it as well.

 

[ZKicka4000]

I wish the company I bought my LEDs from had something similar to that 4 chip LED, for ease and cleanliness of the build, I decided to go with their solderless LEDs instead of RapidLED. I really struggled with what I wanted to go with between 400-430nm, ideally I wanted to cover that whole range but I can only fit so many in my fixture. Something that peaks at 420 would have been my preference but they didn't have anything that fit the bill.

I also believe that a broad spectrum of light is better. I get that it isn't entirely necessary, but I'm always trying to improve and learn. Whether the change improves the tank or I learn that it didn't matter, it's a win-win for me. I'd really like to have complete coverage between 400 and 500nm, but my fixture size is my limiting factor.

I will update this thread with any findings, I will have some soon regarding my current experiment. Please shoot me what you have, I'm always greatly interested in what others have to say.

And thanks again for the input and assistance!

 

[ReefWreak]

PM sent.

Rapid's multi-chip isn't solderless, but I can fanagele it into the solderless setup pretty easily. Here is a link to it. I was slightly off in my description, as this is what it is (from their website):

Two chips with 400-410nm wavelength and two chips with 410-420nm wavelength for full coverage!

It's effectively 4x700mA semiLED UV chips, 2 of each 400-410 and 410-420. But still, nice broader spectrum, plus a LOT of UV (which is usually under represented anyway) on one puck. That's what is interesting me about them, how underrepresented UV is in most DIY LED fixtures.

I'm thinking I could just buy a 6" solderless connector from them, cut it in the middle, solder the two pieces to two of the LEDs V+ and V-, and then hook up the other 2 LEDs in series right there on the chip, just a tiny 1/2" wire. That way instead of it being like the normal LEDs that have a female plug on each star, it would just have 2 male plugs to be plugged into the next LED.

 

[ZKicka4000]

I have a few updates here, and one happens to be a boneheaded rookie mistake. I'm trying to get into the habit of sharing all significant events, both good and bad. While cleaning my skimmer the other day, I forgot to plug back in my heater. I didn't notice until the next morning, and by that time the tank was down to 69 degrees, a full 10 degree drop. I've slowly been upping the temp by a degree or two every few hours, and haven't noticed any ill effects yet. It's been a few days now, but I'm cautiously optimistic at this point. I fully expected the worst but I guess all these critters are a bit tougher than we give them credit for. 25 years of fishkeeping and I've never done that.

Second, I replaced some of my LEDs. I say some because one of the 430nm ones was defective so I couldn't replace both. This allowed me to do a side by side comparison between the 430nm and the 450nm royal blue by covering one up. I was extremely surprised in that the 450nm RB produces WAY better fluorescence. I was making these changes only to diversify my spectrum, but I expected to get better fluorescence with the 430nm LED. As for the XP-E2 Blue LEDs, I can definitely say that they add a more blue appearance to the tank. So much so that I don't think that I would have wanted to add a third.

So far, I am please with the change as far as the way my eyes perceive the light. As far as any change to coral coloration, I don't really notice anything immediate, but I'll have to wait to see if there is any long term affect. Once I get the replacement LED and get them dialed in, I'll revisit this post. I just wanted to get my preliminary findings out there because the more time that elapses, the less evident the changes will seem.

 

[mav3rick478]

Wow I must keep my tank cold because I keep mine at 75! 69 degrees isn't to bad since it was just an overnight thing, I say everything should be fine.

 

[ReefWreak]

Fishes and corals can tolerate temps to the mid 50s for a reasonable period of time. The issue is that fishes and corals can NOT tolerate upswings in temperature of more than 5-10 degrees. I believe it is due to the dissolved oxygen content of the water, as colder water holds more oxygen and warmer water has less, so it becomes harder to breathe.

 

[ZKicka4000]

So I bought a few things today, and I'm sure glad I decided to dip and quarantine this time as I found an asterina star that I otherwise would have missed.


I'm pretty stoked about a few of these (notably a strawberry shortcake and blue stag), and as for the others I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised when I get them in my display tank.

I guess I'll leave them in quarantine for 2 weeks, then slowly move pieces over as I figure out where I want them.

 

[ReefWreak]

Place the stag in a back corner away from the rest of your frags. It'll outgrow everything else by 4 fold. Make sure to give them all growing room. They'll be big before you know it.

Nice looking haul though. What did you dip in? Also, they're going to look like crap for a month, so remember to be patient before you start playing around to make them look nicer (playing with lighting, nutrients, flow, etc.)

 

[ZKicka4000]

I dipped in Bayer for about 15 or so minutes, 20ml in about 16 oz of tank water. I gotta tell you, it made me nervous to do it, but it seems everything came out ok. I didn't want to buy anything super-expensive for this reason, but now I'm confident it works, so GAME ON.

I broke my golden rule of not buying anything that I can't see under white lights, you know how it is, everyone wants to show off the fluorescence under blues. Well I don't care much about that and I usually ask if they can change to whites. Well a few of the vendors were unable to switch, but curiousity got the best of me on a few pieces. I was looking for something yellowish/golden and it appears I may have something...

On another note, I began dosing acropower about a week ago, 1ml a day. As I started lowering my light intensity, I became concerned that my snails would start starving. I was at the point where I didn't have to clean my glass at all. However, I still have a bit of this brown tuft-like hair algae that I can't seem to get rid of, doesn't seem that anything eats it.

 

[ReefWreak]

Yea at the frag swaps, the vendors always are confused why I ask to turn their lights to a more white light. I think it's an old timer reefer trick to look for the most colorful coral in white light, as it will get more colorful under uv/blues, which is the easy one to make colorful. That way your corals will always be colorful.

 

[ZKicka4000]

I dipped my new frags again and moved them to my display tank. It's only been 2 weeks but I see no signs of any pests. So now the fun part starts, waiting to see how they color up in their new system.


On a side note, I'm still playing around with my light settings. I am pleased with the visual appearance of the lighting, I'm just trying to figure out what is best for coral coloration.

As far as the Acropower goes, I've been dosing 1-2ml per day. I haven't seen any increase in algae or phosphates/nitrates. Both still at 0. As a matter of fact, I have less algae than ever, and I only clean the glass every 10 days or so when I do a water change. I'm sure this has something to do with the decrease in light intensity, but I didn't expect that result. I guess I will be searching for a fish I like, and perhaps start feeding some frozen foods in attempt to raise phosphates/nitrates.

 

[ZKicka4000]

So.... its been over 2 months since my last post so I figured I'd do an update. Picture will come tomorrow since my light is dimming and it's a PITA to override the controller. I blame the engineer. :strange: I added another fish in attempt to raise nutrient levels... didn't happen. Tested today, here are the parameters:
Alk = 9.3
Calcium = 475
Mag = 1260
Phos = 0
Nitrate = 0

Dosing 10 ml acropower per week. Increased feeding.

Blues at 50%, Whites at 36% and Violets at 90%. I dialed back the lights slowly to the point of slight browning, then slowly increased intensity until color came back.

Everything is alive but still growing sloooowly. Well except the montipora and stylophora. I have less algae than ever and barely need to clean the glass, even after 2 weeks. I occasionally fight some weird macroalgaes that my CUC doesn't touch but that's about it.

So back to the drawing board. I am still assuming the low nutrient levels are the cause of the slow growth. May add another fish and try some different foods. I dunno. Comments/insight is welcome and encouraged.

 

[ZKicka4000]

As promised... here is a picture. Colors are better than they appear, but I know they can improve. I am a horrible photographer.