europe trip

[reefsahoy]

OK guys, I took my wife to europe as a valentines day gift and i stole time to see those guys tanks first hand with and without t5's with and without zeovit and i will say that they are pretty awesome tanks. i took pictures of the the tanks that i saw and had a few discussions with the owners. the pictures below are their tanks and there are absolutely no doctoring of photo's here. I will say the pictures don't do justice to the colors they had . they were nice enough to invite me to their homes and they also took me around to see their respective cities. here's a few pictures. everyone of them had awesome colors.

this tank is actually in the owners hotel. unfortunately he was all booked out when i tried to get a reservation there.

here's the 2 time dutch champion's tank! my favorite! love the aquascaping but you really cannot appreciate it until you see it live.

then the last one.

 

[djfrankie]

Hmmm...just like what we see here in Miami???

LOL,

I'll call you later today..I expect a full report mister!

djfrankie

 

[reefsahoy]

The colors that these guys have are unreal. these pictures are not giving them justice so i can see why they doctor up their pictures. i think when the touch up there pictures they represent a more true to life color representation of what they actually have.

the first tank uses t5's exclusively. dutch champ uses hqi 250 with 2 t12 bulbs. and the last guy used t5's exclusively then switched to hqi's because of shimmer. i ask him if the hqi made a difference to colors he stated no. the last guy does not use zeo products.

 

[reefsahoy]

the colors these guys have are real close as far as intensity. one tank might have nicer reds and orange while another had nicer purple and blues so it's hard to say which had better colors. my favorite one if i had to pick would be the dutch champ. loved his aquascaping which you can't appreciate because the picture is 2d and loved the fish selection he had. he had fish that i had never seen before. you couldn't see the fish in the tank when viewing the tank, however when he began to feed the tank a whole tank of fish appear out of nowhere and when the food was done they disappeared. i thought that was awesome. i couldn't get pictures of the fish because they were small and i'm not good at picture taking.

 

[ReefWreak]

those are indeed some nice tanks. Where did you find these people? I'm going to be in Germany/Austria/Netherlands/Switzerland/Italy this summer and wouldn't mind taking a peek myself... I've tried looking in the International RC clubs forum, but there isn't much activity over there.

 

[reefsahoy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11902576#post11902576 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefWreak
those are indeed some nice tanks. Where did you find these people? I'm going to be in Germany/Austria/Netherlands/Switzerland/Italy this summer and wouldn't mind taking a peek myself... I've tried looking in the International RC clubs forum, but there isn't much activity over there.

just surfing around reef central. got a couple contacts and email them. then they would offer to call their friends or club members and set up a tank hop of some sorts.

 

[ReefWreak]

Wow that's awesome... Maybe I'll start contacting people...

 

[Rogger Castells]

cool pics, how many watts worth of t5's are those tanks running?

 

[reefsahoy]

800 watts for the top tank. that tank is 8feet long by 2 feet wide. all t5's no halides. he uses zeovit products. the bottom tank uses 400 watts. thats a little bigger than a standard 120 gallon tank 4 feet by 2 feet but i think 28 inches high. he then switched to 2 hqi's for shimmer. he uses no zeovit, saw no notable difference in coral colors. these tanks are the most colorful tanks that i have ever seen with my eyes (not pictures, so no photoshop happening here). the dutch champ uses a combo of 2 250 watt hqi and 2 standard atinics his tank is same size as the last tank. the dutch champ guy said he just came back from vacation 2 months ago and the person who was taking care of the tank had problems so his tank had some effects from thant when i saw it. i can't imagine what it must had look like in it's glory.

 

[Rogger Castells]

What do they attribute to be the reason for such intense colors? what would you say are the advantages to running t5's vs MH?

 

[reefsahoy]

these guys use very little atinic lighting if any, which was a surprise to me. the tank on top used 10 whites and 6 figi purple lights, no atinics! the dutch champ used 2 - 250 watt hqi 10k and 2 - 40 watt atinics. the last guy did the used 2 - 250 watt 10k and 3 t5 atinic and 3- t5 whites.
i'm no expert and don't claim to be one but from what i can tell the t5's uses a heck of a less wattage and heat and it gave the same results as halides from what i can tell except the shimmering. personally i like the shimmering but the need for chillers, ac bill, and cost of running the light is not worth it to me but i say again, i DO like the shimmer.

 

[gasman059]

very very nice thx for the input.

There's certainly the possibility of t5 only but as noted there's a couple of MH's in there for a reason.

I'm in no way trying to stir the pot, but certainly there's a lil more to the tank than just the t5 lights issue here.

Any take on the husbandry and rest of equipment involved.

 

[ReefWreak]

Has anyone thought about running mostly T5s, then just having like a low-power 70-150-175w halide in the middle of the tank raised up high, to give the shimmer while not being used for PAR or the main lighting? Perhaps call it "MH supplementing"

 

[gasman059]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11912230#post11912230 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefWreak
Has anyone thought about running mostly T5s, then just having like a low-power 70-150-175w halide in the middle of the tank raised up high, to give the shimmer while not being used for PAR or the main lighting? Perhaps call it "MH supplementing"

I know someone that run's a solaris and mh's supps LOL

 

[reefsahoy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11911063#post11911063 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gasman059
very very nice thx for the input.

There's certainly the possibility of t5 only but as noted there's a couple of MH's in there for a reason.

I'm in no way trying to stir the pot, but certainly there's a lil more to the tank than just the t5 lights issue here.

Any take on the husbandry and rest of equipment involved.

here's the dutch champ's sump. I saw all the sumps and they were about the same. nothing special just a skimmer, ca reactor, phosphate remover. ect.

 

[gasman059]

tyvm

 

[ReefWreak]

Thx for the pics. Interesting sump. They use sch80 on all their plumbing... Interesting...

Is that a euro-reef skimmer or the real H&S/deltec? It looks like an ER to me. That would be quite ironic.

It's kinda funny to see them use all TropicMarin and D&D/Rowa products. I guess it makes sense since they're all european products, but it's funny because americans are so picky about the brands that they use and stuff. ::shrug::

thx again for the pics.

 

[reefsahoy]

i actually asked the owner of the last tank why he switched to hqi and he stated because of shimmer. i ask him if he saw a difference in his corals. he stated no and also stated he has friends using t5's with excellent colors. he then went to his computer and pulled up some awesome intense color coral tanks and said that was his friends. now i can't verify that those pics weren't touched up but he said his friend used mostly white lights and very little atinics. the reason this came up was due to comparing my tank to theirs. i said i was using more atinics than they were and he said to change to whites and i didn't believe him at first. now i'm definitely considering what he said. he said that at first the corals will look dull but then evcentually they will color up.

 

[ReefWreak]

That's why I use 10k for my main bulbs. Much more PAR being shone down on the corals, and they tend to color up (differently) than under higher K bulbs. I wish there were direct comparisons, but unfortunately in a hobby full of nothing but objective data, its very difficult

I do run 4x110w of VHO actinic, but because I don't think the actinic hurts, it just makes everything look better to my eyes.

 

[djfrankie]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11914945#post11914945 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefWreak

Is that a euro-reef skimmer or the real H&S/deltec? It looks like an ER to me. That would be quite ironic.

H & S skimmer and Calcium reactor.

djfrankie