Mhucasey's SPS obsession

Nice PAR numbers, it's exciting to see visual improvements are mapping to the 400 and below PAR numbers.

As you know I reduced my light cycle at the same time but I also witnessed improved health and color when I lowered the par on all the acros to a max of around 400. I was 500+ on some of my highest acros and had too long a lighting cycle. I'm lucky anything did well. :)
 
nemodan said:
Matt...that red planet looks great !!!

Mine has the red and green but during the day it do not have that level of polyp extencion. Yours also have several tall branches. Mine is growing more like a plate with short branches. The 2 biggest were the starting frags.

Could be mine isn't a red planet ?

Zoom this picture. It is at the right of the green
20150828_145339_zpsv8kyylx3.jpg


It is under T5, but mine are in a hood so no way I change the distance of them.
Daniel
Click to expand...

It looks a little funky color-wise there but in the other pics from your tank it looks like a red planet. I have always had very good polyp extension in my reef, I would chalk it up to avoiding nippers, carbon dosing, and healthy sponge growth.
 
markalot said:
Nice PAR numbers, it's exciting to see visual improvements are mapping to the 400 and below PAR numbers.

As you know I reduced my light cycle at the same time but I also witnessed improved health and color when I lowered the par on all the acros to a max of around 400. I was 500+ on some of my highest acros and had too long a lighting cycle. I'm lucky anything did well. :)
Click to expand...
Im pretty happy that the numbers came in where they did, as I didn't want to raise the lights any more. The higher they are, the worse the glare in the room.
 
I present Kosmo, the Vermiculate Leopard Wrasse:

Kosmo%20090315_zpsfavq2vkh.jpg


The Purple Long tentacle is making a bid to take over the world:

IMG_8677_zpsxbgpgerk.jpg


I turned off the pumps in the SPS tank and took some above the water pics. i need to figure out how to do this without the glare of the bulbs on the water. Here are a couple of the best of what I got:

IMG_8678_zpsyqysakxh.jpg


IMG_8683_zpsjdqhqjpd.jpg
 
I have just Finished reading through your entire thread. It had been a good read if the past couple of days. I think you have done a fantastic job of making the tanks fit in to the space you gave them. I think the flubber tank and your SPS reef both look absolutely amazing. Thanks for sharing. Sorry for the fish losses you suffered.
 
Very nice pictures and the tank looks great. That Wrasse is sooo pretty !!! . Is it a jumper ?

Cheers
Daniel
 
Pife said:
I have just Finished reading through your entire thread. It had been a good read if the past couple of days. I think you have done a fantastic job of making the tanks fit in to the space you gave them. I think the flubber tank and your SPS reef both look absolutely amazing. Thanks for sharing. Sorry for the fish losses you suffered.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for both following the thread and for the compliments! As you saw, the two-tank setup happened as a bit of a surprise. Its turned out better than I could have imagined, and its awesome to have separate environments:dance:

I'm super excited to watch the corals develop and fill in, Ill make sure to keep posting lots of pictures:)
 
nemodan said:
Very nice pictures and the tank looks great. That Wrasse is sooo pretty !!! . Is it a jumper ?

Cheers
Daniel
Click to expand...


cFloor said:
Lovin your new wrasse! And those top downs are awesome.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm really happy with the wrasse. In my experience Leopards don't jump - they tend to dive toward the bottom when startled. The yellow coris wrasse can be chased to a jump but otherwise are pretty safe too.

I hope to get some better photos of the tank with the pumps off, it looks amazing in person but the glare from the lights is really hard to manage.
 
I did some more PAR testing today, and after all was said and done I ended up dropping the lights one inch to 11 inches off the water. This pushed all the PAR numbers for the edges up a bit and let me decrease the light spill and glare from the fixtures.

The PAR at the Red planet is now ~325. I also dropped the lights to 7" above the water to see how high the PAR was a while back. The Red planet was only about 400-420 but a little faster in Par was hitting almost 600 for a large number of corals. The spread and intensity is much better now at 11".
 
Very interesting to read of your findings in regards to the PAR levels you've been testing Matt. I love my T5's for covering the outside edges of my 400W Radium spread, they're a lot more powerful than your eye tells you. :)
 
Matt.... I have my 6 T5 on a fixed hood that is .... I have to measure it.... not far from the surface. A local reefer recommended me to change 1 of my white T5. (3 whites, 2 actinic, 1 purple) for super Actinic T5 . He said that it will reduce the PARs and increase the ciral color without affecting photosynthesis.

He also suggested to leave only 1 white, 1 purple and rest actinics.

What do you think of the 2 options based on your experience ?

Will that be a lot of change ? Less PARs but correct wavelength for photosynthesis will be better for coral color ?

Thanks for your opinion !

Daniel
 
nemodan said:
Matt.... I have my 6 T5 on a fixed hood that is .... I have to measure it.... not far from the surface. A local reefer recommended me to change 1 of my white T5. (3 whites, 2 actinic, 1 purple) for super Actinic T5 . He said that it will reduce the PARs and increase the ciral color without affecting photosynthesis.

He also suggested to leave only 1 white, 1 purple and rest actinics.

What do you think of the 2 options based on your experience ?

Will that be a lot of change ? Less PARs but correct wavelength for photosynthesis will be better for coral color ?

Thanks for your opinion !

Daniel
Click to expand...
Im putting together my PAR test results but I can answer in relation to your question. I found out that the specific combination of bulbs had almost no effect on PAR at a given measuring spot. For the purposes of testing, a Blue+ was really no different than an ABS or a New Generation.

In your case there might be a small dip in PAR from using the Actinic, but that is mainly due to the difficulty in measuring PAR produced by 420nm light. The PUR is usually the same or higher compared with blue or white bulbs.

Among the mainstream bulbs by ATI, Giesemann, and KZ, your combination should be driven by the look you like. The differences between combinations have very little to do with changing the coral's coloration unless you go extreme like all blue or actinic bulbs. More white and red in the mix may result in the glass growing algae faster, at least thats what I've seen.
 
biggles said:
Very interesting to read of your findings in regards to the PAR levels you've been testing Matt. I love my T5's for covering the outside edges of my 400W Radium spread, they're a lot more powerful than your eye tells you. :)
Click to expand...

Yes and brightness to the eye doesn't have very much relationship to PAR, I knew that but it's hard to shake the idea that brighter = more light.
 
mhucasey said:
Im putting together my PAR test results but I can answer in relation to your question. I found out that the specific combination of bulbs had almost no effect on PAR at a given measuring spot. For the purposes of testing, a Blue+ was really no different than an ABS or a New Generation.

In your case there might be a small dip in PAR from using the Actinic, but that is mainly due to the difficulty in measuring PAR produced by 420nm light. The PUR is usually the same or higher compared with blue or white bulbs.

Among the mainstream bulbs by ATI, Giesemann, and KZ, your combination should be driven by the look you like. The differences between combinations have very little to do with changing the coral's coloration unless you go extreme like all blue or actinic bulbs. More white and red in the mix may result in the glass growing algae faster, at least thats what I've seen.
Click to expand...


Thank you very much Matt !!!!
I have Giesemann and KZ. I will remove only one of my 3 New Generation and see how the tank looks.
I have 3 New Generation (KZ), 2 Actinics (Giesemann) and 1 Fiji Purple (KZ)

Thanks again !!
Daniel
 
On the subject of lighting, I stumbled on this old article from 2008.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/3/aafeature1

I will quote what caught my attention, and I wonder if it's accurate.

With this arrangement, the tank temperature fluctuated from 76 oF (lights off) to 80 oF (lights on) over the course of 24 hours; the irradiation period lasted 8 hours/day. The height of each of the lights was adjusted to provide a constant amount of PAR at the coral level, measured by an Apogee Quantum Meter; the initial height settings of the lights delivered about 140 - 160 mE/m2 of light intensity, but unsatisfactory coloration in this nutrient poor environment prompted the elevation of these bulbs so that the PAR readings at the corals were about 80 - 100 mE/m2. These readings were taken at the center of the tanks, directly under the MH or T5 bulbs. Therefore, not every coral received the same amount of light, as the intensity drops off as distance from the center increases. Nevertheless, identical placement of each type of coral in the three tanks ensured, at the very least, that the light intensity for each type of coral was approximately equal between the two MH tanks, with some uncertainty in the amount of intensity variance between the MH tanks and the T5 tank. Note that this approach normalizes the PPFD, in contrast to the Schlacher experiment. The corals were grown under these conditions for 14 months. All bulbs were replaced after 12 months of continuous use. The experimental setup is illustrated in Figure 1.

k4SWZB.jpg


The corals colored up and grew at appreciable rates under this experimental regimen.

80 to 100 PAR?? Did I read that correctly? IS PAR mE/m2 or is there a conversion?
 
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