dmorel's 220 Round & Shallow reef build
- Thread starter dmorel
- Start date
graveyardworm
Premium Member
Beautiful tank, and awesome growth for one year. Do you have any top down shots?
dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
Thanks Stunreefer!Elliott, you know you're welcome anytime. Sadly, things aren't as nice as they were two months ago. I had some pretty major setbacks with that weird STN event that went on for what felt like forever. Still doing OK though. Hopefully this time next year it will really be filled out. Still so much space...
Thank you eric
:thumbsup: Thanks Bax, means a lot that you dig it.
Thanks much David. I took a few top downs a few months ago, most didn't come out well. I'm still working on becoming even a moderately capable photographer. One day I'll get some winners and post them up.
NaClH20NMYVEIN
Red Dragons!
The pictures are amazing..... Seeing this setup in real life is awesome! Great Job Dave!
nahham
New member
Just realized after posting something in the SPS forum I should have done this here too...
One year ago:
Today:
I love the industrial look of the lights above. Also the fact that no other equipment shows. The growth is phenomenal.
Posts on RC keep on blowing my mind away
roktsintst
New member
WOW!
Incredible Setup and execution of a dunting task!!!
Very Well Done
Incredible Setup and execution of a dunting task!!!
Very Well Done
dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
Thanks guys, appreciate the kind words.
I just ordered a few new corals from divers den, should be here on friday and I am thinking of doing a complete restack this weekend. Time to get my flow better and my aquascaping back to where I want it. Have had a little bit too much move this here and move that there over the last year. Gonna hit the reset button on this rock stack and try to group corals in a particular fashion and light them specifically.
We will see....
I just ordered a few new corals from divers den, should be here on friday and I am thinking of doing a complete restack this weekend. Time to get my flow better and my aquascaping back to where I want it. Have had a little bit too much move this here and move that there over the last year. Gonna hit the reset button on this rock stack and try to group corals in a particular fashion and light them specifically.
We will see....
Thanks for posting in the FTS thread. Your build should see some new action. There is nothing I can say that hasnt already been said, stunning. Congrats.
BTW, I am thinking of experimenting with some of these. Thoughts?
http://www.cheaplights.com/cart/page15.html
http://www.cheaplights.com/cart/page15.html
Really fun for me to have just stumbled upon this build thread; I'm considering "poor man's Japanese spotlighting" (e.g., 5 x 3w Par38 LED spots) for a new tank myself. This is a spectacular tank, with obvious attention to detail from start to finish. A question on the lighting: what do you feel you are able to accomplish through spotlights that you would not have been able to have achieved with more conventional MH options? (This tank seems very brightly lit everywhere, and doesn't seem to have the "looking through shadow into bright light" effect that I have seen with some other spotlit tanks.)
dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
Thanks Micheal. That's a super fun thread, so many amazing tanks in there already!
I see no reason they wouldn't work for adding some color. With the LED spots I use, they really just add some color, not enough juice to effect growth or anything, just highlighting. If that's your expectation you should be good.
The aesthetic of the entire tank had a lot to do with my choice of going with the spots versus traditional lighting. While I would agree that it appears the entire tank is under a lot of light, even when I have everything running there are still some more shaded areas. My acans for instance are never under any direct heavy light (just a little MX LED spotlight) -- Plus, you can't get bulbs in the 40-50K spectrum here, and the deep blues I'm running now are in that range.
I think those new LED spots that are being done by EVILC over at nanocustoms are going to start showing up a lot of places. I'm already seeing them on more and more tanks. I'm hopeful they will have the juice to really grow out nice tanks and we see more and more people using them.
As mentioned above, the LED spots I use (MX spotlights) are not intended to provide anything more than color, they don't pack enough punch to be meaningful to growth, so from that end I don't have a lot of experience. I will say I do like the focus-ability of the MH spots I have and I think with using a series of the LED's you should get the same benefits.
Thank you so much, a tremendous compliment.
dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
just went through the whole thread
tank looks great
how many total spotslights/watts do you have now?
Thanks!
Hopefully tomorrow it will look even better, going to do spend the day restacking the whole tank and redoing the lighting (moving spots around to take advantage of new stack)
Right now I have 5 superKaru spotlights which are 150 watts each all running the deep blue bulbs (~ 40-50K).
I have three MT 150 fixtures, those are the DE fixtures, running the coral grow bulbs, (~12-14K)
and I have four of the won brothers spots, but I've only been running three of those. Also 150 watt fixtures with 15 or 20K G12 base MH bulbs in them.
So, at the peak of my light cycle I'm running 11 fixtures at 150 watts each or 1650 watts.
Just realized after posting something in the SPS forum I should have done this here too...
One year ago:
Today:
Stunning :thumbsup:
You may have already discussed this and if so I apologize, but how ofter do you change out your lighting with the spot lights?
Thanks
dmorel
Can I borrow your towel
The SuperKaru's are giving me about 6 months each, which sadly is to be expected. I just replaced all 5 at the one year mark in fact and only have two spares left. I'll be starting the process of getting a new shipment in shortly
The DE bulbs are about normal, I replaced them at 1 year too, but they could probably have gone a few more months. The G12 bulbs (in the won brothers spots) I haven't replaced yet, but I also don't run them but for a few hours a day. They probably should get swapped out soon though.
