Hi Guys, hopefully this thread is in the right spot - i did run up part of this thread over in the equipment section too.
My aim is to run frags under different lighting and review the results after a year, depending if one type takes a turn for the worse or shows no promise. Corals are mirrored so they can be compared, where possible.
I'm running a 150w 14k SMG halide from guppies (in shop fitter fitting with UV glass added) vs a 120w full spectrum ebay led, the 120w is pulling about 50w from the wall, its sitting too close to the corals to run at full power. I have also pulled off the lenses from the ebay unit, After running leds for 5 years or so, I'm convinced wide angle and lots of coverage is best, no spotlighting and nice mix of color.
Ive also setup my new sunlight tank, a 2ft cube tank well 24x24x18. While i would not call this tank a full sunlight tank. it does get daylight for the entire day and receives about 4 hours of direct sun, some of those four hours are direct sunlight some are filtered through lattice work and some is actually reflected back from my DIY reflector. Ive noticed most sunlight tanks need protection from too much direct sun, so I hope this works well.
I was amazed by how much the mirror on the top of the tank reflects back into the tank, in daylight conditions its almost double (did a quick lux meter check), i doubt its double due to losses but its impressive, plus it sends light directly down rather than just the window side. The mirror sits at a 45 degree angle. Outside i actually have a large mirror that catches the 10am to 11am bracket, the tank gets full sun, all be it reflected two times, but hard to see any loss of light, the sun just hammers for PAR.
To my shock, i looked over at my current tanks and thought YUK, they are wayyyy tooo blue! nothing beats sunlight for color, theres just something about it, even if the corals are brown, they are beautiful to look at, polyp extension is the first thing i noticed, these guys love MR SUN.
These tanks share my sump with my main tank, I have the flow in the tank setup fairly equal as this could impact on results.
Running undetectable No3 and No4, on salifert kits anyway, need to get myself a hanna. Vinegar dosing keeps these at zero and i run a fairly small skimmer- alk at 7 to 8, some say this is the best when dosing vingar, calc is around 420, mag 1350. Temp around 24.5 to 26. on max swing. I dose amino as my readings are so low.
and the LED side - this setup has been up for a few weeks, the LED side is looking much nicer at this stage,and not just because its under 20k lighting, if i move the coral under halide you can see its far more colourful from being under led, so the led is really driving pigmentation on certain corals.
Halide Side.
As you can see im going all in cheap here, SMG globes are not the bottom of the barrel but not far off, tempted to throw a 10k Ushio in. But as Im also pitching this against a cheap ebay unit it kinda makes some sense.
So Ive had some of these corals under the LED for a few months, and I have to say im pretty impressed with this ebay unit, i was so skeptical to start with, but my bargain basement acro I picked up has turned electric blue from a terrible brown, I also fragged a bit off and threw it in my main tank, it actually just stayed brown with tiny blue tips, but it grew twice as fast.
hope you enjoy the ride, Im going to do a range of close shots of each coral an see how we go.
a quick shot of my main tank, 3x2x2 running for a few years, recently under T5 and halide, DIY led before that. Yep i know tang is now asking for bigger tank, dont worry buddy i hear ya!
oh and check out the 3m return pipes from the 2ft, this was a pain but had to be done. Im a little worried about temperature loss or gain along the long returns. See how it goes.
My aim is to run frags under different lighting and review the results after a year, depending if one type takes a turn for the worse or shows no promise. Corals are mirrored so they can be compared, where possible.
I'm running a 150w 14k SMG halide from guppies (in shop fitter fitting with UV glass added) vs a 120w full spectrum ebay led, the 120w is pulling about 50w from the wall, its sitting too close to the corals to run at full power. I have also pulled off the lenses from the ebay unit, After running leds for 5 years or so, I'm convinced wide angle and lots of coverage is best, no spotlighting and nice mix of color.
Ive also setup my new sunlight tank, a 2ft cube tank well 24x24x18. While i would not call this tank a full sunlight tank. it does get daylight for the entire day and receives about 4 hours of direct sun, some of those four hours are direct sunlight some are filtered through lattice work and some is actually reflected back from my DIY reflector. Ive noticed most sunlight tanks need protection from too much direct sun, so I hope this works well.
I was amazed by how much the mirror on the top of the tank reflects back into the tank, in daylight conditions its almost double (did a quick lux meter check), i doubt its double due to losses but its impressive, plus it sends light directly down rather than just the window side. The mirror sits at a 45 degree angle. Outside i actually have a large mirror that catches the 10am to 11am bracket, the tank gets full sun, all be it reflected two times, but hard to see any loss of light, the sun just hammers for PAR.
To my shock, i looked over at my current tanks and thought YUK, they are wayyyy tooo blue! nothing beats sunlight for color, theres just something about it, even if the corals are brown, they are beautiful to look at, polyp extension is the first thing i noticed, these guys love MR SUN.
These tanks share my sump with my main tank, I have the flow in the tank setup fairly equal as this could impact on results.
Running undetectable No3 and No4, on salifert kits anyway, need to get myself a hanna. Vinegar dosing keeps these at zero and i run a fairly small skimmer- alk at 7 to 8, some say this is the best when dosing vingar, calc is around 420, mag 1350. Temp around 24.5 to 26. on max swing. I dose amino as my readings are so low.
and the LED side - this setup has been up for a few weeks, the LED side is looking much nicer at this stage,and not just because its under 20k lighting, if i move the coral under halide you can see its far more colourful from being under led, so the led is really driving pigmentation on certain corals.
Halide Side.
As you can see im going all in cheap here, SMG globes are not the bottom of the barrel but not far off, tempted to throw a 10k Ushio in. But as Im also pitching this against a cheap ebay unit it kinda makes some sense.
So Ive had some of these corals under the LED for a few months, and I have to say im pretty impressed with this ebay unit, i was so skeptical to start with, but my bargain basement acro I picked up has turned electric blue from a terrible brown, I also fragged a bit off and threw it in my main tank, it actually just stayed brown with tiny blue tips, but it grew twice as fast.
hope you enjoy the ride, Im going to do a range of close shots of each coral an see how we go.
a quick shot of my main tank, 3x2x2 running for a few years, recently under T5 and halide, DIY led before that. Yep i know tang is now asking for bigger tank, dont worry buddy i hear ya!
oh and check out the 3m return pipes from the 2ft, this was a pain but had to be done. Im a little worried about temperature loss or gain along the long returns. See how it goes.
