Maritimegod112
New member
Hey, my names Matt and i am a sophmore at Darien High School as well as a CTARS member, and I am starting a school project on how a special type of LED lights I have from a company named Solar Oasis affect coral growth compared to traditional lighting.
This is a school independent research project that runs for three years (I started researching this year and I will study coral reef topics until senior as extra school credit) and have finally done the research and gotten the space to start experimenting in Darien High School next year.
The LED light bars i will be trying out come in 22 inch units with 180 different colored 5mm LEDs (a long time ago I had a forum in the lighting section of reef central and was getting heavily criticized by lighting engineers saying it is not possible, but I have been growing coral in my 70gal reef tank for nearly 6 moths now, so they do work so far. I will post pictures of my reef tank below. The lights are different from metal hallides as each bar uses only 9 watts of electricity (I have 4 over my 70gal), they use no ballasts at all, and you can hook up to 4 to one power cord. The testing I have done so far shows they work, but these are adapted plant lights to grow corals, and have not yet had extensive testing. If your interested, here is solar Oasis's website with my article on my 70gal so far on the bottom of the page. The corals there were taken a while back, only being soft corals, but I have lps and am trying sps as we speak. However, my 70gal tank is not a good experimental area, as it has too much room for error. I also have no control to compare coral growth between my LEDs and tradition T-5s or Metal Halides, which is not very scientific. Next year I will be setting up 3 20gal reef tanks all hooked up to one 40gal sump and one pump, giving me the most scientific set-up possible that can fit in my schools class room. However, even though Bob from Cultured Aquatics in CT gave me a great price on these tanks, I no longer have any funding left from the LED company (won't give me more right now, they lights are expensive enough) and the school has no more funding for this project until a later date. I am currently working on trying to get fincial support from the Maritime scientific development center, but have not had any luck yet. This is where I need help.
I put an add on Craigslist asking for dry reef rock donations (I need 40-60 lbs) that I can put into the sump of my 70gal tank over the summer to cure. I need to make the live rock from dead rock (phosphate free would be nice) as living rock could carry unwanted things that could hurt my experiment. I was told by a person named Didier to post on this forum instead of the CTARs forum (by the way, how do you join this forum and where do you meet, I have yet to go to a CTARS meeting because they are too far away for me to go as I live in Darien and cannot drive). I also need a 2 ft control light to place over one of the 20gal tanks as a control. It needs to be pretty strong to be able to grow sps coral at a depth of 15in (probably 100watt T-5 or Metal Halide?). I could even borrow it for the project, however coral takes a long time to grow and it could be a long experiment. I really need rock soon and will work out the rest (the aqurium may be able to help me with coral as well as some other people I know) as I need to put the rock in my sump soon to cure it for about 2 months or more so I can set up my tanks at school as soon as I can. Also, I will be away for the firs thalf of the summer and want to get the rock curing before I leave if possible. If you have anything, please tell me. I will also be in need of pvc pipe to connect the tanks, but may be able to get this. Thank you for reading. Pics of my tank added soon.
This is a school independent research project that runs for three years (I started researching this year and I will study coral reef topics until senior as extra school credit) and have finally done the research and gotten the space to start experimenting in Darien High School next year.
The LED light bars i will be trying out come in 22 inch units with 180 different colored 5mm LEDs (a long time ago I had a forum in the lighting section of reef central and was getting heavily criticized by lighting engineers saying it is not possible, but I have been growing coral in my 70gal reef tank for nearly 6 moths now, so they do work so far. I will post pictures of my reef tank below. The lights are different from metal hallides as each bar uses only 9 watts of electricity (I have 4 over my 70gal), they use no ballasts at all, and you can hook up to 4 to one power cord. The testing I have done so far shows they work, but these are adapted plant lights to grow corals, and have not yet had extensive testing. If your interested, here is solar Oasis's website with my article on my 70gal so far on the bottom of the page. The corals there were taken a while back, only being soft corals, but I have lps and am trying sps as we speak. However, my 70gal tank is not a good experimental area, as it has too much room for error. I also have no control to compare coral growth between my LEDs and tradition T-5s or Metal Halides, which is not very scientific. Next year I will be setting up 3 20gal reef tanks all hooked up to one 40gal sump and one pump, giving me the most scientific set-up possible that can fit in my schools class room. However, even though Bob from Cultured Aquatics in CT gave me a great price on these tanks, I no longer have any funding left from the LED company (won't give me more right now, they lights are expensive enough) and the school has no more funding for this project until a later date. I am currently working on trying to get fincial support from the Maritime scientific development center, but have not had any luck yet. This is where I need help.
I put an add on Craigslist asking for dry reef rock donations (I need 40-60 lbs) that I can put into the sump of my 70gal tank over the summer to cure. I need to make the live rock from dead rock (phosphate free would be nice) as living rock could carry unwanted things that could hurt my experiment. I was told by a person named Didier to post on this forum instead of the CTARs forum (by the way, how do you join this forum and where do you meet, I have yet to go to a CTARS meeting because they are too far away for me to go as I live in Darien and cannot drive). I also need a 2 ft control light to place over one of the 20gal tanks as a control. It needs to be pretty strong to be able to grow sps coral at a depth of 15in (probably 100watt T-5 or Metal Halide?). I could even borrow it for the project, however coral takes a long time to grow and it could be a long experiment. I really need rock soon and will work out the rest (the aqurium may be able to help me with coral as well as some other people I know) as I need to put the rock in my sump soon to cure it for about 2 months or more so I can set up my tanks at school as soon as I can. Also, I will be away for the firs thalf of the summer and want to get the rock curing before I leave if possible. If you have anything, please tell me. I will also be in need of pvc pipe to connect the tanks, but may be able to get this. Thank you for reading. Pics of my tank added soon.
!
