Finally went rimless. 57g starfire illuminata

[Ssteve]

I took the fans out.. No need for them the way I plan to set things up imo. Which is to add a fan to the end of the floating canopy to also help keep the kessil temps down. With the T5 bulbs spread out from each other they dont really heat things up much at all.

I could have used 4 bulbs, however I wanted to supplement my kessils with T5's, not supplement my T5's with kessils. I think with two 39w T5's and two kessil 350's over 57 gallons I should EASILY have enough light to grow whatever I want. As is the T5's already wash out more shimmer than I would like. I'm really not a big fan of the way T5's make tanks look. Very little contrast is my main hang up.

All I did was pull everything apart and take a jig saw and cut a couple holes in the fixture. Its a small step in the right direction, but still pretty ghetto at the moment. Once I get things mounted in the canopy and cleaned up, Ill post some more pics.

 

[Ssteve]

With just kalkwasser calcium is 460, mag about 1520, and alk 9.5. What side effects could I see from running my numbers high? Paticularly the mag.

 

[Dapg8gt]

The cal/alk are near perfect and fwiw kalk does nothing for mag it will come down on its own. It won't raise or lower it at all

If your salt mix has a high level of mag then it may just hover on the high side if you do a lot of water changes but Ime it will eventually stabilize. Mine has rarely ever moved and even when I raised it to 1800+ in my old tank it came back to normal in a month or 2. But some tanks consume mag and some don't so you will have to wait it out to see. Shouldn't be an issue at all at that level just don't dose any mag supplement.

Fixture looks great =).

 

[Ssteve]

Yeah the mag usually a bit high and it doesn't seem that the tank really uses any of it. I think I'll be switching salts when I'm done with this batch.

 

[Ssteve]

New pickups from Your Reef in Roseville. Not bad for $30 for all four.