Oceanic 215 with Solaris Build

[bbehring]

Ditto on the moons, beautiful! Also thanks for you follow up answers on the fuge, sump, skimmer and WC info. I like your idea on the fuge return location and running the skimmer pump external for the reasons you listed. All great ideas.

 

[curthendrix]

How are the glitter lines under the LED compared to MH?

 

[bbehring]

I was wondering the same thing? I think that's one of the main issues with t5 and this fixture is you don't get the glitter? I think it's a worth while offset for heat and power consumption IMO vs the MH fixtures. Although, there may be some glitter with the solaris I?

 

[mflamb]

Marcye, does SITC sell the Pacific Coast Flow Accelerators? I have twenty 3/4" lockline returns and thought about replacing a few with the eductors.

 

[bbehring]

mflab I was actually wondering what the PC flow accelerators are? I've never head of or seen them before. How do they work exactly?

 

[mflamb]

They are eductors that are on the end of 3/4" loc-line. An eductor works by allowing water in motion to bring the water around it into motion also, creating almost twice as much moving water as was originally moved by the return or closed loop pump.

BTW, in the late 70's I was at March AFB and went to the your lake on a regular basis.

 

[bbehring]

mflamb, just googled pacific coast flow accelerator and MD was the first in line! http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~idproduct~FT0031.html Hum interesting and simple device. Are they really that great?

ah yes, good old lake perris. My old water sking grounds! Use to get up at the butt crack of dawn and drag my jet boat and 4 or 5 buddies out there every friday during the summer, ski, get breakfast and head to work around 11am. Oh the good old days! We'll alot has changed since the 70's here. Perris is now a suburb of Riverside which is a suburb of LA. There are several thousand 400k to 600k huge houses built just below the dam. Once the houses were built, the corps during inspection of the dam noticed a major crack with a small leak in the saddle dam. The lake is now 1/2 drained and has been for about a year and half. Not sure if they will repair or just leave 1/2 empty. Anyway, we have a new manmade lake called diamond valley lake http://www.dvlake.com/press14.html. It's touted as one of the best fishin lakes in the state and the largest next to Shasta. Anyway, great to hear from you. Sorry Marcye I didn't mean to hi-jack your thread. Now back on topic! Any more pics or info?

 

[Me No Nemo]

No problem with the mini hijack Always fun to read about places and activities.

So, I dumped two more bags of Reef Pods in my tank tonight. I like these particular pods because they seem to reproduce rapidly and also seem a lot less "hostile" than other species. My tank is currently swarming with pods in both the rock and refugium. I added two mangroves to the fuge tonight simply for looks. I'll use chaeto as a source of nutrient export as I don't believe the mangroves grow quickly enough to make a dent. But I do like the way they look. The inverts are all going strong and I added a few small corals and a small juvenile Chocolate Tang. After several hours he's doing very well...no signs of stress and moving well throughout the tank exploring. He's the only tang I"ll be adding to this tank. I'm going to watch how everything does over the next couple days, and then the next addition will have to be the anemone and clownfish, as I really need that anemone to settle in to one spot before I add the rest of my fish. In the past I've scooped out sand in the area I want the anemone to stay. My experience has been that if the anemone can get down to the glass to anchor itself and it has a rocky ledge or cove surrounding, it will stay put. I've moved this guy 3 times now and each time he's stayed right where I put him, so I have my fingers crossed it'll work this time as well. Only difference is I have a much deeper sand bed now than I usually do, so it's going to be harder to get his foot down to the glass. Wish me luck!

 

[Me No Nemo]

I have some glitter lines but not as many as with the MH. I'll be adding more surface movement once I get the Vortech pumps in (I'll move two of my returns more to the surface) and we'll see how that works. If I don't get enough shimmer, I'm thinking of adding two of the Current USA Powerbrite lights. I saw them at a recent show and they add incredible shimmer to the water.

 

[ReefArtist]

Mike, I saw those accelerators at MD but figured at least for me I already have maga flow so way waste the $. Do you feel you don't have enough flow with all your OM's and returns? The reason I'm saying this (Marcye, correct me if I'm wrong) is from what I understand you need pressure to make these things work properly. So, if you don't have a lot of flow coming from the pipe already, these are not going to help much - I could be wrong but I know the regular eductors work this way.

Marcye - great information on the anemone I'm going to try it when I place mine in the tank. Can't wait to see pics of it's location. With it's high light requirements I guess you'll need to make sure it's not in a "overhang" area to block any of the light - right?

Hey, I loved the glitter lines you are getting as I thought it was very calming and wasn't distracting - at least with the mooners on. How much turnover are you looking?

Please let us know what you find out about your waste water. I have the same problem (don't know what to do with it). I have a creek that runs beside my house and not that it would add that much to it, I also don't want to do any damage.

 

[curthendrix]

Thanks for the reply. I'm currently deciding between the Solaris with cooling fans for temperature control vs MH with a chiller on a 225. Solaris will be approx $1k more expensive once I buy the chiller for the MH.

 

[Me No Nemo]

Well, when I considered the cost of Solaris vs. MH, I figured the bulb replacement costs, electric savings from a) running the chiller, b) running the MH and c) the additional cost of A/C to cool down the room from the heat generated from the lights. We keep our house at about 75 degrees, so I based it on that. You really have to play with the numbers to get an individual picture.

 

[curthendrix]

Are there any things you prefered with MH over the Solaris?

 

[Me No Nemo]

Some pics from this morning:

Pink Vase Coral:

Chocolate Tang:

Australian Pagoda Cup

Most likely Suharsonoi...need a bit more growth to be sure (note the nice polyp extension):

 

[Me No Nemo]

Oh, and the corals aren't placed where they'll end up until I make sure where the anemone will settle.

 

[Me No Nemo]

Well, I haven't really had a chance yet to tell. There is definitely more shimmer with MH, but there is shimmer with these as well. I think I'll be happy with the amount these give off. With the G series I would say there is a big difference, but the I series gives off some serious light. I currently have the whites down to 65% and the tank is still very brightly lit. There is NO heat coming from the bottom of the lights. The tank is maintaining at about 77.5 to 78.6 according to the log on the Aquacontroller III.

 

[Me No Nemo]

Here's a short video that shows the shimmer on the rocks. Sorry for how blue the video is...the camera won't let me adjust white balance on the video...or if it does, I don't know how to do it. The pics show a truer representation of the color.

 

[curthendrix]

Looks good! As you adjust the color of the light does the unit tell you the actual "k" color of the light? If so, what K are you running?

 

[Me No Nemo]

It gives you the percentage of blue or white.

 

[Elliott]

that's a short video alright!

will be very interested to see that fixture turned all the way up, past models have been quite blue at 20K, yours should be much better at 15K

very nice, thanks for the updates