Floridiot's 157 Nano build

[Floridiot]

Well, I got a new toy. I'm not sure if it is staying or not, but here are a few pics:

It is a Sfiligoi Infinity XR4 1 x 250 + 4 x 24W T5HO. It is a beautiful light fixture, and very well built. It also has a rectangular reflector which matches my tank's dimensions a little better than the Lumenarc. I'll post more of my observations on this when I get home from work later today.

 

[jnb]

Looks like things are popping now - why wouldn't you keep it?

What brand/color is the MH and t-5's

be nice if your camera shot - if the camera had the same shutter speed and f-stop for both pictures - if you email me the before picture I can tell you what to set the camera at for a new picture to truly compare.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13737017#post13737017 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Floridiot
Well, I got a new toy. I'm not sure if it is staying or not, but here are a few pics:
It is a Sfiligoi Infinity XR4 1 x 250 + 4 x 24W T5HO. It is a beautiful light fixture, and very well built. It also has a rectangular reflector which matches my tank's dimensions a little better than the Lumenarc. I'll post more of my observations on this when I get home from work later today.

 

[gasman059]

Its a great fixture prolly the best in the biss\.
I been torn for many moons between two of those vs one elos I went with the elos.

Truly a great reflector in there and AO has excellent customer service-Will and them guys are good.


That is one nice tank!

If its not staying pls contact me as we can do some biss.

 

[Jgoal55]

nice fixture! I love the color improvement, imo.

 

[Floridiot]

Here's some more information on this fixture. It came with a brand new Sfiligoi Seaglare 10K MH bulb, and 4 brand new Sfiligoi T5s. It also came with a brand new IceCap 250W MH ballast. The fixture is in excellent condition and even has built-in moonlights. As I mentioned before, it also has a rectangular reflector which casts the light matching my tank's dimensions a little better than the Lumenarc.

Now for a couple of the reasons I'm not completely sold on keeping this fixture just yet:

The UV shield greatly reduces the light coming from the MH bulb. It appears to me that this 250W bulb is giving off noticably less light than the 175 Iwasaki I was using before. This I find strange since the 175 bulb is a 15K while this 250 bulb is 10K. If I'm going to burn 250 watts on a MH bulb, I'd like to see it be considerably brighter than the 175 watt bulb I started with. This fixture also greatly diminishes the shimmer lines on the sand. I believe this could either be from the UV shield, or just the reflector design itself.

One of my main goals is to keep this tank as energy efficient as possible. This fixture is not helping me in this regard at all. It does, however give me the actinic pop that I was looking for and moonlights too. If I can find a more efficient MH lamp, I may be inclined to keep it, otherwise it will probably go back out for sale.

According to Sanjay's lighting chart: http://www.manhattanreefs.com/lighting there are only three 250W bulbs out of the 24 he tested that will give me more PPFD than the 175 Iwasaki when used on an IceCap ballast. Although he didn't test the Sfiligoi Seaglare bulb I got, I'm confident it ranks lower than 86 PPFD.

175 Iwasaki 15K - 86 PPFD
250 EVC 10K - 97 PPFD
250 XDE 10K - 95 PPFD
250 Geisemann 13K - 88 PPFD

Even if I go with the EVC 10K, I'll be burning 45% more power to gain 12.8% more light. The other option would be to get one of the 250W DE bulbs that has a built-in UV shield. I'm not sure who makes these, but I have read that there are a few that are available.

 

[jnb]

oh - darn; nuttins perfect, at that height off the water , can you take the shield off?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13740398#post13740398 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Floridiot
Here's some more information on this fixture. It came with a brand new Sfiligoi Seaglare 10K MH bulb, and 4 brand new Sfiligoi T5s. It also came with a brand new IceCap 250W MH ballast. The fixture is in excellent condition and even has built-in moonlights. As I mentioned before, it also has a rectangular reflector which casts the light matching my tank's dimensions a little better than the Lumenarc.

Now for a couple of the reasons I'm not completely sold on keeping this fixture just yet:

The UV shield greatly reduces the light coming from the MH bulb. It appears to me that this 250W bulb is giving off noticably less light than the 175 Iwasaki I was using before. This I find strange since the 175 bulb is a 15K while this 250 bulb is 10K. If I'm going to burn 250 watts on a MH bulb, I'd like to see it be considerably brighter than the 175 watt bulb I started with. This fixture also greatly diminishes the shimmer lines on the sand. I believe this could either be from the UV shield, or just the reflector design itself.

One of my main goals is to keep this tank as energy efficient as possible. This fixture is not helping me in this regard at all. It does, however give me the actinic pop that I was looking for and moonlights too. If I can find a more efficient MH lamp, I may be inclined to keep it, otherwise it will probably go back out for sale.

According to Sanjay's lighting chart: http://www.manhattanreefs.com/lighting there are only three 250W bulbs out of the 24 he tested that will give me more PPFD than the 175 Iwasaki when used on an IceCap ballast. Although he didn't test the Sfiligoi Seaglare bulb I got, I'm confident it ranks lower than 86 PPFD.

175 Iwasaki 15K - 86 PPFD
250 EVC 10K - 97 PPFD
250 XDE 10K - 95 PPFD
250 Geisemann 13K - 88 PPFD

Even if I go with the EVC 10K, I'll be burning 45% more power to gain 12.8% more light. The other option would be to get one of the 250W DE bulbs that has a built-in UV shield. I'm not sure who makes these, but I have read that there are a few that are available.

 

[Floridiot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13740589#post13740589 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnb
oh - darn; nuttins perfect, at that height off the water , can you take the shield off?

Most DE bulbs require a UV shield, or they will fry the fish and corals. The SE bulbs actually already have the UV shield which is the outer glass envelope surrounding the bulb.

 

[Floridiot]

My wife and I decided to try to sell the Sfiligoi fixture if we can without taking too much of a loss. If we are unable to, I have a couple of options to try:

One is to purchase and try the EVC 10000K DE bulb. This will surely give me more light than the Iwasaki.

The other option is to replace the reflector and DE socket with a SE reflector and mogul. This way I can use any SE bulb/ballast fixture I want without the UV shield, including the Iwasaki 175 & Icecap 175 ballast I already have.

I'll give it a few weeks on the Drygoods selling forum, and then may try fleabay. If it doesn't sell, I'll be trying one of the options listed above.

 

[Rogger Castells]

I heard that Manny's brother was looking for a Sfiligoi fixture for his new set up, send manny a PM, I will send him your way as well.
How are the corals doing? Post some pics when you get a chance.

Cheers

 

[Floridiot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13743964#post13743964 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rogger Castells
I heard that Manny's brother was looking for a Sfiligoi fixture for his new set up, send manny a PM, I will send him your way as well.
How are the corals doing? Post some pics when you get a chance.

Cheers

The corals are all doing well. I switched my light back today to the single Iwasaki 175 MH, and it definitely is brighter. Part of convincing my wife to let me buy the Sfiligoi was telling her that this fixture would be all inclusive with all the bulbs etc.. that I'd need to get the actinic pop I'm looking for. If I keep it, I'm at least going to have to buy another MH bulb, or I'd have to get the replacement SE reflector & mogul socket (which is what I'd rather do).

I have noticed that the corals are darkening up a little bit and that I'm growing a light green algae only on the dead rock pieces. I kinda doubt that a day and a half of weaker/different lighting could contribute to this too much. I'm starting to believe my dead rock is leaching phosphate into the water which would be a more likely cause, since the live rock has no sign of algae growth at all except for coralline.

I will be hooking up a reactor with rowaphos later today. I was hoping to avoid that scenario, but I had bought the stuff a while ago to keep on hand in case I got an algae outbreak, and here it is. My BK is skimming very well now that I changed my drain line configuration, and I also plan to try a larger return pump sometime this weekend.

I did PM Manny, but he decided to pass on the Sfiligoi. I'm listing it here: Sfiligoi XR4 in case anyone is interested in it.

In the event I do sell the Sfiligoi, I'll probably just continue with the Iwasaki 175 for a while, and then maybe in the future step up to the 400W Radium on a PFO HQI ballast like Rogger uses. The Radium running on the HQI does give quite a bit more 'color pop' than my Iwasaki 175 15K does. It would also give me plenty of light to grow anything at all I'd ever want to in there. Best of all, it would still draw less energy than the TEK light 8x54 T5 system I was running on my last tank (also about 150 gallons). When all bulbs were on, that used to draw 504 watts. A single Radium on an HQI draws 470 watts and gives off a PPFD of 147. This is of course dependent upon my selling the Sfiligoi.

 

[jnb]

I have about three 4 by 9'ish bare reflectors meant for 150 de and one for 250 de with some 20k bulbs and 14k's if you want to experiment with them (and ballasts)

somehow I keep visualizing a couple of jbj 150 vipers with 20k pointing at a couple of areas

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13745917#post13745917 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Floridiot
The corals are all doing well. I switched my light back today to the single Iwasaki 175 MH, and it definitely is brighter. Part of convincing my wife to let me buy the Sfiligoi was telling her that this fixture would be all inclusive with all the bulbs etc.. that I'd need to get the actinic pop I'm looking for. If I keep it, I'm at least going to have to buy another MH bulb, or I'd have to get the replacement SE reflector & mogul socket (which is what I'd rather do).

I have noticed that the corals are darkening up a little bit and that I'm growing a light green algae only on the dead rock pieces. I kinda doubt that a day and a half of weaker/different lighting could contribute to this too much. I'm starting to believe my dead rock is leaching phosphate into the water which would be a more likely cause, since the live rock has no sign of algae growth at all except for coralline.

I will be hooking up a reactor with rowaphos later today. I was hoping to avoid that scenario, but I had bought the stuff a while ago to keep on hand in case I got an algae outbreak, and here it is. My BK is skimming very well now that I changed my drain line configuration, and I also plan to try a larger return pump sometime this weekend.

I did PM Manny, but he decided to pass on the Sfiligoi. I'm listing it here: Sfiligoi XR4 in case anyone is interested in it.

In the event I do sell the Sfiligoi, I'll probably just continue with the Iwasaki 175 for a while, and then maybe in the future step up to the 400W Radium on a PFO HQI ballast like Rogger uses. The Radium running on the HQI does give quite a bit more 'color pop' than my Iwasaki 175 15K does. It would also give me plenty of light to grow anything at all I'd ever want to in there. Best of all, it would still draw less energy than the TEK light 8x54 T5 system I was running on my last tank (also about 150 gallons). When all bulbs were on, that used to draw 504 watts. A single Radium on an HQI draws 470 watts and gives off a PPFD of 147. This is of course dependent upon my selling the Sfiligoi.

 

[Floridiot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13746055#post13746055 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnb
I have about three 4 by 9'ish bare reflectors meant for 150 de and one for 250 de with some 20k bulbs and 14k's if you want to experiment with them (and ballasts)

somehow I keep visualizing a couple of jbj 150 vipers with 20k pointing at a couple of areas

Thanks for the offer, but I'm pretty much decided to either modify the Sfiligoi or keep the Lumenarc.

 

[jnb]

yes, I know - I meant to invent supplemental lighting experimentation around your main fixture - sort of the same test as you did with the LED's - may give you ideas

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13746178#post13746178 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Floridiot
Thanks for the offer, but I'm pretty much decided to either modify the Sfiligoi or keep the Lumenarc.

 

[Floridiot]

Here's another idea I might try.

If I replace the IceCap MH ballast with a PFO HQI, I can get an EVC DE 10000K bulb which will give me 147 PPFD at only 365 watts. Add the four T5 actinics, and I'd end up with even more light than I would from the 400W Radium at about the same total wattage. I'd probably also end up getting more 'pop' factor from the actinics than I would from the Radium.

Hmmm... Decisions, Decisions...

 

[Floridiot]

Well it definitely looks like I had elevated phosphate levels. I hooked up the reactor with rowaphos yesterday evening, and I awoke this morning to find one of my acro frags from Rogger is STN'ing. All other frags are doing well, and have good polyp extension while the lights are still off. I'm a bit nervous now. I'm going to leave the rowaphos reactor running for now, but I will turn it off if I see any other adverse affects. I know SPS do not take sudden changes very well, and rowaphos is some powerful stuff. Hopefully all other corals will do OK.

I guess I'm going to have to run a rowaphos reactor 24/7 from now on. If I end up running a second return pump, I will tee off of it to feed my rowaphos and carbon reactors.

 

[gasman059]

rowa may do that if its ran too fast.
What reactor are u running and how fast?

The media should be just "dancing" at the bottom.

 

[Floridiot]

I'm running a Nextreef reactor (4" x 14" tall) fed by an eheim 1048 which is about 150GPH. I put in 500mL of rowa.

 

[Floridiot]

Things have taken a drastic turn. It looks like I have dinoflagellates. :eek2: The beginnings of it started about 11/12 when I started noticing a light film of algae growing everywhere. I now believe this was due to two large mexican turbo snails which died in the tank. I found their shells a few days later along with a third and fourth dead snail buried in the rockwork. The two more recently dead snails were emitting a very powerful stink. Because of their size, they were seriously polluting the tank.

I also now believe the SPS that started to RTN was most likely caused by the dead snails, and not the rowaphos. I did slow down the flow rate to the rowa to where it just percolates in the reactor. About a week ago, I noticed a brown stringy algae starting to grow everywhere. I have no detectable nitrates, nitrites, or ammonia. I do not have a colorimeter and do not trust any other phosphate test kit, so I do not know my phosphate levels, but the 500 mL of rowa is only a week and a half old.

This algae also reproduces extremely fast. I completely siphoned out every noticeable bit of it a few days ago, and it came back full force in 48 hours. I then turned the lights out for two days. I turned them on yesterday, and 90% of it has vanished. Amazingly, 5 hours after the lights came back on, I noticed the stuff starting to grow again everywhere. This stuff is definitely dinos.

I do not have any idea where I got it from. There are at least a dozen different possibilities. I'm going to try to fight it for a few weeks, but after reading so many of the horror stories here on RC about it, I'm almost more inclined to nuke the tank and start over. My corals and fish can be moved into separate holding tanks. I could then clorox the tank for a few days. Flush it out with fresh water a few times. And finally start over from scratch. I'm pretty good about catching fish in the fish trap, so I could probably do this without even removing the rockwork.

My biggest concern is how to make sure I do not reintroduce any dino cysts (spores?) back into the tank. I'll need to research whether or not the fish can carry these cysts on them. I'll also need to find out how I can make sure the corals do not carry any cysts back on them either. Yeah! The fun of reefkeeping.:rolleye1:

 

[Floridiot]

On a more positive note, the corals are for the most part doing very well. I'm seeing growth on many of them, and some are coloring up more, while others a darkening up a bit. The fish are all doing well too. It would be nice if we could find out what eradicates dinos, as they are the true nemesis of reefkeeping.

 

[gasman059]

any pics- sure they are not diatoms?
Anyways hard issue to take care off , the best known ways to treat dinos are to reduce nutrients and to raise pH.

HTH