legolas100
New member
been following this for a while so i think i should chime in and say nice job on everything, your the tank that has convinced me to go rimless if/when i upgrade to my dream tank ;p
mnml's rimless
- Thread starter mnml
- Start date
mnml
New member
The PM is a great fixture that put out a ton of par. I don't think you can go wrong with it.
It's going to be hard for me to have the AB 10K laying around and not trying them out. I'll give a few weeks or until the motivation to switch the bulbs.
How long were you running your MH when it was set up?
IMO, I think you're light colors were more due to the pellets and not the lighting. But, I hope you end up liking your decisino in the end, you certainly have a lot of $$ invested in lighting
I hope so too.
It'll be interesting to see how much my electricity bill goes up. I might be forced to go back to T5 if my wife see our bill sky rocket. :hammer:Thanks for the support. I'm glad my build has been helpful. I still have a long ways to go but I'm very grateful for the advice and encouragement of this community.
so what is the suggested par numbers for sps to thrive vs lps? Wow the PM puts out a ton of par. Maybe you can just try hanging the PM from your ceilings if you switch back Tran. I know your wife doesn't like the look but put your foot down! lol jk New light looks great though, Good luck. Hope your sps colors back up for you. Hoping mine will do the same lol.
ryanjiang
New member
Trans I have been running 150W for previous mixed reef, for my SPS I started with T5 and run 2 month 250W Radium and switched back to T5. I did not have much hand-on experience on MH, but I did LOT OF reading on the topic. What motivated me to read more on lighting is due to my experience with Radium, the Radium on Lumenmax elite brown out some of my SPS I was thinking my corals were used to full spectrum of T5 and Radium obviously do not have much spectrum spike on grean and red, after I did lot of reading, I realized the Radium/Galaxy/LumenMax elite combo put tons of light esp. I hang the reflector pretty low, my corals prob. brown out because they were getting much stronger light esp. directly under the reflector.
ryanjiang
New member
@Tran, never mind my comments on PAR,
check out this thread , this tank got amazing growth under 600 PAR at surface 200 at sandbed, (IMO that is certainly not qualified as high in SPS tanks) yous are higher.
Lesson learned for me, only speak for my own experience! This hobby is so deep and there is always something for surprise. Sorry if I mislead you.
check out this thread , this tank got amazing growth under 600 PAR at surface 200 at sandbed, (IMO that is certainly not qualified as high in SPS tanks) yous are higher.
Lesson learned for me, only speak for my own experience! This hobby is so deep and there is always something for surprise. Sorry if I mislead you.
mixer911
New member
mistacheese, I would love to, but its a little step for my budget :lol: The bottles look nice!
mnml
New member
I think the par numbers are okay for SPS. I like having a bit of lower part on the sand so I can keep some LPS. I'd be curious to see what your par readings are and how that might have affected your SPS. You're welcome to use my par meter if that's something you're interested in.
You're welcome Nick. I checked out those Vertex LED fixtures, very nice. Please let me know when you start your build thread.
No worries at all Ryan. You've provide some valuable information and I appreciate your advice.
So I'm dealing with another issue now that's driving me nuts. It seems that the IceCap ballast is emitting some crazy EMI that's causing my Apex temp probe to go haywire. When my MH comes on, the temp would rapidly drop to 30s then start climbing to the 60s. This causes my chiller to turn off and my heater to turn on. As a result, the water heats up and my lights turn off due to the programming. I posted in the Apex forum and got some good advice on how to fix this issue. So far I've moved the ballasts to the outside of the tank cabinet, away from the Apex. I've also purchased some ferrite RF chokes and placed them on the temp probe and ballasts cables but no luck so far. I've switched back to my T5s for the time being until I can figure out how to isolate the issue. Someone suggested I move the ballast 10 ft away but I know if that's possible since all the EB8s are located inside the cabinet. The idea to using an extension cord to reach the power strip isn't appealing to me. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to try and get it squared away. I hope I didn't anger the T5 gods by switching to MH. :lol:
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mnml
New member
I was wondering what your avatar was all about and now I know. Pretty crazy stuff but the bottle is definitely unique!
ryanjiang
New member
Sorry to hear the issue you were lucky in the sense that light went off not causing major overheat. I only connect heaters to my apex, chiller on it own. this way in case any temp probe go nuts , I have them hedge each other at least.
It is strange issue though, when I run mh my galaxy which is e.ballast as well just locate half foot away from apex temp prob and no issue at all.
It is strange issue though, when I run mh my galaxy which is e.ballast as well just locate half foot away from apex temp prob and no issue at all.
Thanks for the offer Tran, maybe one day when I'm in the neighborhood I'll hit you up. I'm sure your par numbers are higher than mines. Right now I have my fixture 15" above my water line. Feeding heavy, starting to see some improvements. I think, or maybe just my mind playing tricks on me.
Maybe you can find some emi shielding to wrap the ballast in. I think i read somewhere that copper tape will block emi.
mnml
New member
Thanks for the tip, I need to do some research and see what's up. A friend of mine is an electrician so I'm going to hit him up to see if the can help. If it's too much drama to get the light working, I'm just going to sell it and stick with the T5. :wildone:
Thanks SpencerGS, appreciate the nice feedback.
Anemone0524
New member
sorry to hear about the troubles but looks like your getting to the key issue related to PAR. Since the PAR numbers were better on the PM (very surprised about that), does that mean that all things being equal SPS growth will be better on the PM?
mnml
New member
That certainly seem to be the case but I had issues with SPS bleaching due to the high par on my 20" tank. Raising the PM 10" above the water seem to help a lot. This weekend was quite busy so I didn't have a chance to mess with the MH and the EMI issue. I talked to the Curt at Neptune and he offered to test the temp port on the base module if I send it in. However, I don't think there's any issue with it since it's working fine w/ the PM. Plus having the thought of going a week or so without a controller gives me too much anxiety. It sucks to have bought such a nice fixture and have to deal with this issue...I may end up selling it.
afernandez
Never Quit!!
I would be a little scared w/out one :/ everything should b ok though
rutz81
New member
I have mine running around 10" and I don't have my bleaching issues anymore, also helped my PE. 20" seems almost too shallow for the Powermodules.. I would love to be able to drop my light down to like 4-5", but, I can't see that ever being possible, therefore from the outside of my house, my basement looks like a dance club!:lolspin:
ryanjiang
New member
Tran maybe it is easy to change to different ballast which have no issue with Apex and sell the icecap?
I had no issue with Galaxy but I know the interface are not compatible you will need an adapter for cord.
In case you decide to sell the infinite shoot me a PM with price in mind, I might be interested to buy it for my upgrade, but I know I'd have to switch ballast for that.
I had no issue with Galaxy but I know the interface are not compatible you will need an adapter for cord.
In case you decide to sell the infinite shoot me a PM with price in mind, I might be interested to buy it for my upgrade, but I know I'd have to switch ballast for that.
mnml
New member
:lol that's funny....they're probably wondering if it's a club or if you're growing something illegal. :spin2:
That's definitely an option but I don't think I can justify spending more money on the fixture at the moment. I'm going out of town for 2 weeks so I plan tinker with it when I get back. If I end up selling it, you'll be the first to know.
