Emergency tank breakdown-educated and or experienced lighting input wanted

[flyyyguy]

Heres the deal....short story

my 225 is leaking and needs replaced now. It is loaded to the brim with sps and polyps.

the tank is coming down in the next few days. All the polyps and other random stuff are going into my other tank.

It will be 3-4 weeks before I can have my new display here and ready for the corals to go in

For the sps, I am setting up a frag tank in the living room next to the 225....I am going to plumb it into the esisting 100 gallon sump so all life support will still be online and business as usual, along with rock from the display in the sump with some extra flow through it. Its 5 feet away to unload everything to the frag tank, and 5 feet back to put back in the new display. Luckily, every single coral in my reef is pegged, so this breakdown is a lot easier than it would be for most.

I feel as good as I could about the plan under the circumstances.

Heres where I would like som educated and or experienced input.

Lighting:

I can easily rig up a temp wood frame to hold one or two of my 250 watt halides. the tank is only 14" deep.

Right now I am thinking of two options. I am going to mount two of my lumenarc III's (250w 10k)about 24" above the tank. They are currently at 12 in a 24" deep tank.

OR...should I maybe mount just ONE of them in the center at 24", then I could put my corals that were at the top of the reef in the center, and the ones that were lower off to the sides??

this 48 x 24 x 14' frag tank will be packed, and I am in damage control mode for the next 3 weeks or so until the new tank is back online.

Whic option do you like?? Any input or better ideas??

thx

 

[jmaneyapanda]

The closer to your existing (and future) lighting scheme, the better. Dont try to eek by.

 

[flyyyguy]

The existing and future will be exactly the same

I dont have a choice but to "eek" by to some extent for he next month. Im trying to imitate how it is now as best as possible.

That is the entire point of my post. Do you think either of the two options I am thinking are a good plan to try to do this?

Or would you set up the temporary lighting orientation over the shallow tank differently??

erring on the side of a little less light is better than more. I can handle a little loss of color as long that is all that happens

 

[tgcreef]

I think your best choice is to send me all your corals, especially the OBT. lol


Yeah sounds like your doing the right thing. Just keep the lighting the same as it is now

 

[flyyyguy]

haha.

Ive had this 14" frag tank for a while...but have never used it or any other shallow tank like it. Some of these are fairly large colonies so Im really concerned with them being and inch or two from the surface, as well as corals that were at the bottom of the tank being only 8" under the surface all of a sudden

I just want to think this through as I am putting my entire sps collection in a very stressful situation as it is even without the lighting concerns

 

[nauticac4]

Do the exact same thing both lights a little higher than 12" above the surface of the water and then scale the photo period back for a couple days and gradually increase it over a week or so. That way tips close to the water wont get fried and everything can acclimate to the new setup. Just my $0.02. Best of Luck

 

[tgcreef]

then put the lights on for less hours each day and slowly inch them up to full strength. or put eggcrate across the top oft the tank(it reduces the par by like 20%)

 

[sjames]

Sounds like its time to invest in a PAR meter Fly, then you would be able to tune the height of your lights to mimic the old setup as close as possible.

 

[flyyyguy]

Good point there sjames.

Less of a photoperiod does nothing to reduce the lights intensity. Nor does eggcrate except for where it blocks the light in between the openings. The intensity of the light that goes through the squares is the exact same as if the eggcrate wasnt even there.

Any suggestions for a par meter?? Ive never even considered needing one. Anyone want to rent me one?? lol

I have no idea hwo much of a difference rasising the lights up to 24" will even help. does anyone know where there is any kind of bulb height par data??

 

[Puffdragon]

You could invest in some nylon screen door material to reduce the light. Then remove/ add layers as you see how your corals react to the light. I would err on the side of lower lighting to begin with.

 

[sjames]

I have this meter:

http://webtrolley.org/mivastore/mer...ogee&Product_Code=QMSS-ELEC&Category_Code=BQM

I would think doubleing the height of the lights would have a significant impact.

Ill take a reading here in a bit and see what doubleing my height does to par a few inches under the surface.

 

[nasotang]

Sorry to hear about the tank leak flyyyguy. How old is the tank or do you know why the leak started?

The PAR meter is a good idea, but in a pinch I'd do the 2 250 high above the water surface. You can always adjust it down if you don't think they're not getting enough light.

One of the main problems I had when I set up a temp tank was getting adequate flow when the tank is packed with SPS. What's your flow scheme going to be?

 

[flyyyguy]

sjames- Awesome. thank you. that will surely give me an idea anyway

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12662599#post12662599 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nasotang
Sorry to hear about the tank leak flyyyguy. How old is the tank or do you know why the leak started?

The PAR meter is a good idea, but in a pinch I'd do the 2 250 high above the water surface. You can always adjust it down if you don't think they're not getting enough light.

One of the main problems I had when I set up a temp tank was getting adequate flow when the tank is packed with SPS. What's your flow scheme going to be?

Its an odd leak.....its leaking through some severe crazing in the bottom of the tank...not near any seams. From the looks of the wood it its been leaking for a couple of months....i just noticed it late last week.

It is losing about 1-2 cups a day I would guess.....its losing so little its really hard for me to measure with the water volume I have and a 100 gallon sump. Ive taken my auto top off offline so I can guess between my average evap(which is like 7 gallons a day) and how much I have to manually add.

I can clearly see the crazing responsible looking into the acrylic base from the sides, as well as clearly see water outside and under the tank. I have the frag tank in place and am just letting the frag tank run with some tankwater in it for a coupel of days as it hasnt been used in years. then I will dump it and fill it back up with tankwater and tie it into the sump and all life support in doing so.

As far as flow scheme........im not too worried about that part. Im just going to throw in a couple of controllable 6100's on a controller and make it work. The tand currently has an OM 8 way powered by a hammerhead and 4-6100's.

The moron in me almost doesnt want to move anything over to the frag tank until I have to in order to get the new tank set up...then the corals will only be in the cramped frag tank situation for a few days.

Part of me thinks thats crazy talk....part of me thinks its reasonable considering the tiny amount it is leaking, as well as the fact that it isnt near any seams.

I caused this crazing a couple years ago with a mod I did when i didnt understand acrylic like I do now. Ill leave it at that as I dont really want to go into what I did to cause this at the moment. bottom line the tank is trash and is coming down. I jsut need to get through this

What do you think? should I do a poll??

here are the poll options:

Am I an idiot and should i have already emptied this leaking tank??

Or under the circumstances is it ok to just monitor closely and not even move the sps to the frag tank until I have to for the display changeout??

the second poll option will be less stressful to the corals for sure.....unless the tank blows :lol:

I will aslo add...........there is a whole lot of severe crazing in the bottom of this tank that isnt leaking as well.....yet

 

[Serioussnaps]

How about make sure the tank doesn't blow. This is easily a one day job. I wouldn't even worry about lighting. I would just put them in tubs and transfer the water from one tank to another. Bam

 

[sjames]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12661609#post12661609 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sjames
I have this meter:

http://webtrolley.org/mivastore/mer...ogee&Product_Code=QMSS-ELEC&Category_Code=BQM

I would think doubleing the height of the lights would have a significant impact.

Ill take a reading here in a bit and see what doubleing my height does to par a few inches under the surface.

Raising my lights up an additional 6" lost me about 150 par.

It also looks like I lose about 100par for every 6" of water depth.

Keep in mind i took no real care in exact depth measurements, so my numbers are probably not that great. All measurement were taken directly under the bulb.

 

[flyyyguy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12663646#post12663646 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Serioussnaps
How about make sure the tank doesn't blow. This is easily a one day job. I wouldn't even worry about lighting. I would just put them in tubs and transfer the water from one tank to another. Bam

I agree.....but there is a catch to this....my new custom tank wont e here for 3 weeks...and then I have to plumb and set it up. It will be BB....but still. we are looking at 3- 4 weeks before these corals will be in their permanent home.

I cant have my cake and eat it to. its either let it ride leaking a little until the new tank gets here and then a do The quickest changeout as possible, or dump the tank now and keep the corals alive in a less than ideal situation for a month.

 

[flyyyguy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12663690#post12663690 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sjames
Raising my lights up an additional 6" lost me about 150 par.

It also looks like I lose about 100par for every 6" of water depth.

Keep in mind i took no real care in exact depth measurements, so my numbers are probably not that great. All measurement were taken directly under the bulb.

thanks so much for checking on that.

hmmmm.....

It does seem odd to me that you are losing more par in 6" of air, than 6" of water.

 

[sjames]

Good point, the measurement was taken in the water, a couple inches below the surface.

I didnt kill the pumps so the surface ripples were causeing the meter to dance around quite a bit so that is probably the source of the error.

Either that or my less than scientific methods.

 

[johnnybravo234]

Use window screen over the reflectors or raise them up. Look up the inverse square law. If you double the distance, you reduce the intensity by a factor of 4.

 

[flyyyguy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12665453#post12665453 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by johnnybravo234
Use window screen over the reflectors or raise them up. Look up the inverse square law. If you double the distance, you reduce the intensity by a factor of 4.

Thanks. I actually just read about that on sanjays site a little while ago.

So with that being said.....my 24" bulb height and same photoperiod sounds like a pretty good plan I think. ?? you agree? or maybe even a little closer.