mr.wilson
.Registered Member
189
Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)
- Thread starter nineball
- Start date
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189
ShipWreck2
New member
I agree that most threads I too just skip through just to get to the pictures, but I would highly recommend taking the time to go through the whole thread, or at least read the posts by the key members of the team. Peter, and his team have done an excellent job of posting not only what they are doing but the why and how so there is tonnes of info to gleam from this thread.
Or you could wait for Mr.Wilson's book but I haven't seen a release date on that one.
jestersix
New member
Agreed on the spectrum variation on the individual bulbs for the plasmas, I've heard similar feedback from a few others. My fixtures go through a dimming cycle in the evening (90 minutes dim from 100% to 20%), but run at 100% during the day - I've grown quite fond of the color rendition at full power.
I am seeing very interesting growth response from certain corals - especially my Acropora millipora. They seem to grow like crazy (even at comparable PAR readings). Of course, there could be factors other than the lights. I like the light output to heat ratio with the plasmas - my lights are 16 inches over the tank and no noticeable heat increase. 290 W plasma does deliver a lot more light than a 250 W MH.
I am anxious to see how the mangroves do under the plasmas - I think it will be very interesting to see the growth response.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Thanks jestersix. I'm really happy with the plasma over the refugium. The chaetomorpha is growing like crazy. Our refugium is small, so we have to go with quality rather than quantity. Sure, you can grow algae with a compact fluorescent twist bulb, but nowhere near the full potential. Everyone focuses on fine tuning and upgrading their protein skimmer at greta expense, but falls short of spending a few hundred dollars on a better lighting system for the refugium.
Hey Peter! Post the pics of our refugium harvest of two weeks.
I lean toward white light, over blue. We just installed the new Aqualine 10,000/13,000K 250 watt HQI bulbs and the PAR on the substrate is 350 vs. the 150 we get with Phoenix 14,000K. The light looks more vivid, bright and alive. I'n sure the corals will grow faster. We just need to bump up our actinic so the corals fluoresce a little more. There are diminished returns in chasing blue MHL bulbs. You get more bang for the buck with lower colour temperature bulbs like the Aqualine 13,000k or plasma, and supplement blue with T5 or LED.
I was disappointed with plasma when I set up the first fixture on the tank. Now that the other two fixtures appear to be more blue (higher colour temperature) I may look further into them. I haven't used a dimmer yet, so that may change everything. I am however concerned that the plasma may need to be dimmed below 70% to get the right colour temperature (12,000-14,000). LED doesn't work well near hot lights, as plasma are, but T5 is getting better with the new VHO line from Sunlight Supply. Speaking of which, we are looking into the new VHO T5 to retrofit our Aqua-Medic fixtures.
Hey Peter! Post the pics of our refugium harvest of two weeks.
I lean toward white light, over blue. We just installed the new Aqualine 10,000/13,000K 250 watt HQI bulbs and the PAR on the substrate is 350 vs. the 150 we get with Phoenix 14,000K. The light looks more vivid, bright and alive. I'n sure the corals will grow faster. We just need to bump up our actinic so the corals fluoresce a little more. There are diminished returns in chasing blue MHL bulbs. You get more bang for the buck with lower colour temperature bulbs like the Aqualine 13,000k or plasma, and supplement blue with T5 or LED.
I was disappointed with plasma when I set up the first fixture on the tank. Now that the other two fixtures appear to be more blue (higher colour temperature) I may look further into them. I haven't used a dimmer yet, so that may change everything. I am however concerned that the plasma may need to be dimmed below 70% to get the right colour temperature (12,000-14,000). LED doesn't work well near hot lights, as plasma are, but T5 is getting better with the new VHO line from Sunlight Supply. Speaking of which, we are looking into the new VHO T5 to retrofit our Aqua-Medic fixtures.
Briney Dave
New member
Mr. Wilson, I could not agree more with regards to lighting the refugium. I run a t-5 unit over mine. I use the same mix of bulbs one might use if they were only using that fixture over their reef. Great growth to say the least. I get why many go with sub par (pun intended LOL) fixtures but you are so right about needing to max out what the algae can do
nineball
Active member
aquaenthusiast
Member
I really wish there was some way to expand the entire thread into one page, of course it would take a longgg time to load, but then you could simply page up and down without interruption, I propose an idea to expand all pages with some sort of option button to the mods. Cheers! :beer:
nineball
Active member
You are welcome to as much as you can carry but to be honest I'm not sure what Mr. Wilson is doing with the excess.......he might be consuming it with balsamic oil......garlic.....
check with Mr. wilson on the next harvest and its yours!!!!!!!!
Peter
nineball
Active member
Hang in there SJ, we are about to take a quantum leap forward in the next couple of days as far as the fish room is concerned. Then things are really going to take off.
Peter
nineball
Active member
You are correct. The original spec called for and L shaped tank 10 X 20 ft which had to be reduced to 8 X 16 ft so that the flatbed would not be considered a wide load. I commend you on your attention to detail medicreefer, you certainly qualify as a well informed member of this community.......well done!!!
Peter
nineball
Active member
There is a video Sal but I'm pretty sure that the video does not do the tank justice after talking to folks who have seen the tank. I am going to do another with both the display tank as well as a detailed walk through of the fish room with Mr. Wilson's narration that I hope will honour this community effort. The link to the old video is somewhere deep in the history of this thread but I would have to a considerable amount of time to find it again. If you do find it I highly reccommend watching it in HD 1080P if possible.
Peter
nineball
Active member
Thank you. This gets you an autographed first edition of Mr. Wilson's book. All kidding aside that's good advice.
Peter
nineball
Active member
If I am the man ChingChai then you must be the Godfather which also must make Andy the consigliere. I think we are just going to have to settle this face to face. I just have a bit more work on the fish room and start the interviews for the fish room girl then we can vist you aand enjoy your coral masterpiece!!!
Peter
You got it!!
Waiting anxiously. You all have done such a fantastic job so far that I'm only prepping myself for some more wows...
Regards,
Sheldon
Back a couple of pages someone requested the ability to view / print this entire thread as a single page.
While I could not do that, I did manage to get it down to 118 pages (from 235) by setting up your thread view in User CP.
If you to go User CP ->
Edit Options (under Settings and Options on the left side)
Thread Display Options (3rd main box of the 6 main boxes)
"Number of Posts to Show Per Page" max it out to 50
and un-check "Show Signatures"
As this method is user controllable within vBulletin / ReefCentral , therefore should not put undue stress on the RC servers and/or offend the moderators.
While I could not do that, I did manage to get it down to 118 pages (from 235) by setting up your thread view in User CP.
If you to go User CP ->
Edit Options (under Settings and Options on the left side)
Thread Display Options (3rd main box of the 6 main boxes)
"Number of Posts to Show Per Page" max it out to 50
and un-check "Show Signatures"
As this method is user controllable within vBulletin / ReefCentral , therefore should not put undue stress on the RC servers and/or offend the moderators.
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
The best things in life are free, and this is one of them.
nineball
Active member
m_wonnacott
New member
what do you mean most of it shouldn't it all be there?
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