Floridiot's 157 Nano build

[Floridiot]

The switch has been made! I'm now running a 400W XM 10K lamp on a PFO HQI ballast. :smokin: According to Sanjay's charts, this lamp puts out 2.3 times the light as my 175 Iwasaki was. I'd have to say that by looking at it with human eyes, it seems more like 4 times as bright. The XM10K/HQI combo makes a very white looking light with a slight aqua-blue tint. I'm curious to see how it looks after 100 hours of burn in. I've raised the reflector about 4 inches higher, and have cut the photo period down from 8 hours to 3 hours per day. I'm really hoping I don't fry the corals.

After running for 3 hours, my tank's temp rose from 79.8F to 80.3F. With my 175W, my tank temp would normally rise to 80.8F after 8 hours, so it appears that I should not have any heat issues with the new fans installed in conjunction with the new bulb. I keep my house at 79F in the day, and 77 at night. I keep my heater set at around 79.5F. I'm pretty happy knowing I can run a 400W MH without a chiller.

I know I talk a lot about efficiency, but depending upon the tank's dimensions, it appears that T5s still don't really compete with MH. I ran an 8x54 TEK light fixture on my previous 150G tank, and it was nowhere near as bright as this. It also drew 532 watts as rated on my kill-a-watt meter. I haven't measured this HQI ballast yet, but Sanjay was recording 479 watts in his test.

This T5 vs MH thread shows how a single 175 Iwasaki was kicking the crap out of a 6x54 T5 combo. I'm not trying to bash T5s because I've seen that they can create beautiful results. I'm just saying that they don't quite deserve all the efficiency hoopla they've been getting. They also cost quite a bit more to replace each year than a single MH lamp.

I will post some pics in a couple of weeks of the new lighting and its effects on my corals.

 

[jnb]

now now - tame it down on T5s and pretend we are from the show me state

 

[gasman059]

yup yup- beautiful as far the the T5's well that horse has been beaten to death.

My answer to that is no t5's in my tank.

 

[jnb]

i feel small now - thanks

 

[jnb]

if you are ready or when you are - I would be happy to see your new light in person and also take pictures - I am a pretty good photographer

 

[Floridiot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15037353#post15037353 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnb
if you are ready or when you are - I would be happy to see your new light in person and also take pictures - I am a pretty good photographer

I'll definitely take you up on that offer, since I'm a horrible photographer. Right now I have new frags sitting on a piece of eggcrate on the sandbed. I plan on mounting them sometime next week. I'm also noticing a color shift in the XM's spectrum as it is burning in. It is slowly getting a bit blue-er than before. It went from white with a hint of aqua, to white with a hint of purplish-blue. It is almost the same color as the Iwasaki now, just much brighter. Once I get the frags mounted and my photoperiod up to 6 hours a day, I'll gladly invite you over. I'm guessing 2 to 3 weeks. Thanks.

 

[Elan L.]

i think we need some coral and tank pics This was my favorite build thread, but i need more pics!

 

[gasman059]

IDiot great ballast- but PFO is out of biss, so where to get CS if it happens.
Trust me I'm looking inot 3 of them too, meaning 3x400 pfo HQI for the best output but no CS is turning me off.

 

[Floridiot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15040543#post15040543 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gasman059
IDiot great ballast- but PFO is out of biss, so where to get CS if it happens.
Trust me I'm looking inot 3 of them too, meaning 3x400 pfo HQI for the best output but no CS is turning me off.

Before purchasing I verified that these use the Venture V90C2050 ballast kit inside. It is actually a 430W Son Agro ballast meant for High Pressure Sodium lamps. The kit consists of a transformer, a starter and a capacitor. These parts are all easily replaceable, and aren't hard to find. Had I not found a PFO HQI ballast, I was going to buy one of these kits and make my own enclosure for it. The only drawback would've been that my enclosure wouldn't have dissipated heat as well and would probably shorten the life of the ballast.

HiDirect is the official parts supplier for Venture. After talking to a few electricians and electronic techs I know, quality transformers normally last well over ten years of everday use, and some last as long as 20 years. The only parts that normally go bad are the starters and capacitors which are inexpensive. It would probably cost more to ship the ballast back to PFO for repair, then to replace a broken starter or capacitor.

 

[John_Auberry]

wow, The stand is great. I like the rimless look but a matching canopy would be incredible. How much did you spend on the stand?

 

[Floridiot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15041232#post15041232 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by John_Auberry
wow, The stand is great. I like the rimless look but a matching canopy would be incredible. How much did you spend on the stand?

Thanks for the compliment. I've got about $500 in materials.

 

[Floridiot]

Quick update.

I'm finding it quite difficult acclimating my corals to the new lighting. I raised the lamp so it is 10.75" off the surface of the water (instead of the 8" the Iwasaki was at), and cut the photo period down to 3 hours per day for the first week. I then increased the photo period to 4 hours, but after 2 days, two corals started bleaching. I kept the 4 hour period from 5/19 until 5/28. On 5/29 I increased it to 4.5 hours, and today I'm seeing bleaching on a third coral. At this rate, its going to take a couple of months to get up to a 6 hour photo period.

Most of the corals have lightened in color, and a couple are now showing serious growth. On Wednesday I mounted the six frags I got from Keith at the frag swap. These pretty much all turned brown from being at the bottom and then middle of my tank for the past two weeks. Most of these had nice color when I got them, so I'm looking forward to them coloring up again. Hopefully none of these bleach now that they're closer to the surface.

So far I'm pretty excited about the new lighting. On an efficiency standpoint, I'm really not doing to bad compared to the 175W Iwasaki.

I was running the Iwasaki (179 watts) @ 10 hours = 1.79 KWH per day
The XM10K (480 watts) @ 6 hours (hopefully soon) = 2.88 KWH per day

How long does it take for the bleached corals to regain pigment? They still have their polyps, just areas of white tissue.

 

[Floridiot]

The XM10K on 400W HQI is bright enough to bleach most all of my SPS. I never increased the photoperiod beyond 4.5 hours per day, and I'm pretty sure I won't be able to anytime soon. At first I started to see great growth and coloring, but that didn't last too long. After a couple of weeks, everything just started getting real lite in color. I cut the photoperiod back to 4 hours per day and am going to leave it at that until stuff starts coloring back up.

Here's a few pics to show what I mean. I'm sorry for their crappy quality, but I'm using a POS camera, and I'm not very good at photography:

From 4/26, Notice the brown stag in the top left of the photo, and the green acro in the front left:

Here's the brown stag now from a different angle. Notice there are new branches growing up from the mantle. These new branches are a baby blue in color, but the camera doesn't catch it too well because of the glare:

Here's the green acro from the first pic now. You can see it has clearly grown, but it has also lost most of its color:

Here's a picture of an 'Orange' monti that I got from jnb. You can see the fold that is shaded still has it's bright orange-red color. The top layers are ghost white. The white areas still have all their polyps, they just don't contain any color. The tan frag is a stag I got from Keith at the frag swap. I've been moving it up slowly, and just recently mounted it where it is at:

I'd love to know if there is anything I can do to help these corals regain their color faster. All still have their polyps. Right now I'm not currently feeding them anything other than the food I'm feeding my fish. I do feed my fish heavily, so I'm certain some of the food is making it to the corals. The SPS corals mounted lower in the water column are doing great, although they have lightened in color somewhat too.

 

[ReefWreak]

Yeah, go to a 20k bulb. 400w radium FTW.

Trust me. My corals turn the same colors as yours when I run 10k XMs (though mine is 250w). As soon as you put a 20k bulb on there, the corals will color up beautifully, and 400w will push enough PAR into the tank for them to get really nice growth too.

Only reason on gods green earth to use 10k XM is if you've got a 35+" deep tank. Short of that, it's very likely going to make your corals stark white from the PAR, especially if not acclimated properly.

GL

 

[jnb]

I agree 20k - I was never happier with 250 times 2 20K's just that I has trouble controlling heat and fan noise with the ficture I had

 

[rydr119]

I have a 20k radium 400w on my tank which is the same depth and I have great color and growth. Although when I first put it on the tank some corals started to bleach I just cut the photoperiod back abs everything has been doing great since.

 

[Floridiot]

Wow. Does anyone here like 20Ks? 3 posts in 15 minutes all praising the 20K lamps. :strange:

I'm going to stick with the 10K lamp for a while, but only if I continue to get the rapid growth. I don't mind the super light colors as long as the corals grow quickly. I can always switch to the radium once the corals grow from frags into respectable colonies. I've seen a few TOTM tanks using 10Ks with great coloration, so I know it can be done. I'm just thinking my corals need to get used to this brighter lighting.

I really do appreciate the quick responses from everyone, and I believe your answer of a 20K lamp is probably the best thing to do in order to get a good balance between color and growth. But I'm a bit stubborn, so let me rephrase my original question: I'd love to know if there is anything I can do to help these corals regain their color faster while sticking with the 10K lamp?

 

[gasman059]

PATIENCE!
BTW many many 10k tanks have great colors but they certainly have supplementation to achieve them.

EIther T5's/vho or even pc's.

 

[Floridiot]

10 months since my last post. I guess it is time for an update? Good news is the dinos never reappeared! It has been over a year now, so I'm feeling pretty good about whipping them.

Now for the not so good news. I lost almost all my corals from bleaching from the XM 10K. The XM 10K turned out to be a failed experiment. I'm guessing I should've went with the radiums like everyone suggested. One of my Tunzes also took a crap. I'll be sending it in for repair next week.

I also have about a dozen Aiptasia which appeared from under a rock, so I just purchased 4 berghia nudis from a guy in Boynton. I released them on the rock where the Aiptasia are at. We'll see how they work out. If they do not do the job, I may have to get a large Copperband butterfly. The butterfly may be a good idea anyways, since I have a group of zoas that are taking over the rock they are on.

Money is currently a bit tight, so I doubt I'll be restocking corals anytime soon. I do believe I will pick up a radium bulb though to see if the surviving corals color up some more. I still do my water changes monthly, and clean the skimmer cup every few days, but that's about it. After I get the radium up and running, I'll post some more pics. In the meantime, I'll try to stop by the board here a bit more to check things out.

 

[Floridiot]

I've all of a sudden starting losing fish about a month ago. I couldn't figure out why. All my water parameters check out fine, but they just kept dropping one by one. Last week I was out of town for three days, and my yellow tang died. He must have died on the first day, because he caused my water to foul and caused a partial tank crash. My skimmer was overflowing, the water was cloudy, and I lost most of my corals.

That's the bad news. The good news is that I finally found out why the fish were dying. It turns out that one of my heaters malfunctioned and was causing considerable electrical amperage to flow through the tank. The heater would only come on in the middle of the night when my house's AC was set to 76 degrees. I put my hand in the tank the other morning, and it lit me up pretty good. I'll never run a tank again without a grounding probe.

I've removed the bad heater, and the tank has now re-cycled and the water has cleared. After discussing the tank's future with my wife, we've decided to tear it down for about a year or so until we have the time and money to rebuild it the way we want. This means we're going to sell the remaining corals and a few of the pieces of hardware which we're not sure we'll use when we set it up again. As always, there are a few things we'd like to change with this setup, so we're deciding to start with a fresh palette.

I'll be posting a for sale listing of the remaining corals later today here in the FMAS section.