Progress: my 1/2 anniversary of SPS addiction

[ryanjiang]

ALL-T5 v.s Radium, which color you like?

I have running 5 lamp T5 (3 ATI blue+, 1 ATI blue special, 1 Fiji purple) and just changed to 2 X 250 Radium for a month. While my coral are still acclimating to the lighting change, some of them already showed color shifting. Below are taken from same colony with about 1 month apart, the colony is located in same splot, the only difference for the tank is light change.

Can you guess which one is under T5 and which one is under Radium, tell me which color do you like more?

Pic 1:

Pic 2:

 

[john90009]

cant wait to get enough money to get the radiums for my galaxy to. Yours is one of the only pictures up with 250 radiums running on a gallaxy ballast. helps make me feal more safe that a radium will work well with the galaxy. i have a 75 gallon to pritty much a super close setup as yours and i used to use t-5 to but once u have halides theres no staying away from them. with halides you can change the color of the coral in ways that t-5 cant. in my t-5 the coral was the same color at different depths of the tank, with my junky 12k reefluxes over it now i managed to change a blue millie to green, steel blue, and purple at the different depths. im gona set some vhos up tomorrow and see how it works out. im guessing with your post on marks thread your searching for vhos or t-5 for actinic?

 

[john90009]

your system is gonan look nicer then mine you seem to be close to a premium source of the uber nice frags, im gonan have to get them shipped to me to have nice corals : /

 

[ryanjiang]

That is the advantage of living in high population area. But I would prefer to pay shipping for a nice frag pack rather than having a HUGE mortage that I have to work my rear end off in the whole life to pay it off.

The Radium looks sweet on Galaxy, after I looked at Tylor's tank in person , I know I am going to go for this combo, BTW Tylor's pictures are closer to real world color in person, my pictures are a little overblue, has figure out how to shoot better. The real color is crisp white with ice blue shiming, very sweet. To me it does look similar to radium on PFO, few people has ran radium on both also said so.
After I fire it up, to my surprise the Apex report 3AMP draw on each bulb so it is running on spec of 250W radium, which is way much higher than traditional e-ballast, that explains why it looks so similar to radium on PFO.

To be frankly I am pretty happy with growth and color from my previous all T5 setup, majority of color you see are obtained from T5, since I am only 1 month on Radium, just ramp up to 5 hours light period since yesterday. So far it is too early to tell, only very few corals started color shifting. Some coral has noticable more glowing, some are lighting up I guess they are still adjusting to new light. Only time will tell.

BTW I think you reeflux 12K is a decent bulb, I read lot of good words of it and saw it in person on my friend's tank , it looks similar to radium.

 

[ryanjiang]

Nobody would like to guess which one is which? OK I tell you pic 1 is ORA tri-color valida 1 month under Radium. Pic 2 is the same colony under T5 before I switch to Radium.

Now I want some opinion which one you like better?

 

[tmantaylor18]

Nobody would like to guess which one is which? OK I tell you pic 1 is ORA tri-color valida 1 month under Radium. Pic 2 is the same colony under T5 before I switch to Radium.

Now I want some opinion which one you like better?

Coming along great man. Thats pretty cool of you to link my thread in here too! Its hard to compare the two photos because one is from the top and the other from the side. Take one from the top now for us

 

[ryanjiang]

Don't give me hard time Tylor The top shot was when I do the water change, you can tell the tip is out of water. I need to pull out 10G of water and turn off my vortech to get the same shot, maybe next time.

I thought you can tell even they are from different angel, the base is more greenish under T5, but the polys are more brownish under Radium. Seem it is hard to get 'tri-color' on this one.

BTW, you need to tell me the trick to shoot a picture esp. FTS to get color closer to real world.

 

[tmantaylor18]

Don't give me hard time Tylor The top shot was when I do the water change, you can tell the tip is out of water. I need to pull out 10G of water and turn off my vortech to get the same shot, maybe next time.

I thought you can tell even they are from different angel, the base is more greenish under T5, but the polys are more brownish under Radium. Seem it is hard to get 'tri-color' on this one.

BTW, you need to tell me the trick to shoot a picture esp. FTS to get color closer to real world.

The trick is to get a nice crisp photo, and then take it into photoshop! Don't let people tell you photoshopping your pictures is a bad thing. It can be used for the wrong reason, but its extremely helpful in capturing the real color.

 

[rireuter]

my .02 is the t5 looks better even though the shot is not from the same angle, so kinda a hard call

 

[ganjero]

I was almost certain that the 2nd pic was the radium because the coral looks a lot nicer. When I switched from a powermodule to radiums my corals got insane colors, they went from your 1st pic to your 2nd.

Anyway, it's hard to compare because the 2 pictures are different because they are from different angles.

 

[john90009]

if the second pic is actually the t-5 then one thing was he had actinic bulbs in with the t-5 to helps give some pop int he coral another thing is the corals are probably at the same depths. if its up in the mid to high range f the tank its getting more par out of the halides and the coral will take time getting used to again. My reefluxes change color daily : / ones yellower and bluer each day my guess is the left will be white while the right will be bluer today.

 

[ryanjiang]

The trick is to get a nice crisp photo, and then take it into photoshop! Don't let people tell you photoshopping your pictures is a bad thing. It can be used for the wrong reason, but its extremely helpful in capturing the real color.

Got it! I am not good at photoshop, but I will certainly try ACDSee that I have, I guess there is similar feature to adjust white balance.

On the camera side, I tried custom white balance and use sand as reference but it does not quite work out, the color is even worse than auto. I tried change to 10K white balance setting instead of auto, it seems to get closer color. But FTS is still tough.

BTW, did you started 40G breeder yet? Any thread?

 

[ryanjiang]

my .02 is the t5 looks better even though the shot is not from the same angle, so kinda a hard call

Color under T5 seems to be vivid (some say pastel), that is no surprise since with a good combination of lamps you can achieve spike in all spectrum and the overall looking as you like.

But I thought the brown polyps get highlighted under radium, that is kind of cool, plus it is glowing much heavier than under T5. To me, the one under radium has more 'character', for lack of better word to describe. But I do lose the green base on this one.

 

[ryanjiang]

I was almost certain that the 2nd pic was the radium because the coral looks a lot nicer. When I switched from a powermodule to radiums my corals got insane colors, they went from your 1st pic to your 2nd.

Anyway, it's hard to compare because the 2 pictures are different because they are from different angles.

I think it really depends on corals, each of them react differently. Also which color looks better is about personal preference.

 

[ryanjiang]

if the second pic is actually the t-5 then one thing was he had actinic bulbs in with the t-5 to helps give some pop int he coral another thing is the corals are probably at the same depths. if its up in the mid to high range f the tank its getting more par out of the halides and the coral will take time getting used to again. My reefluxes change color daily : / ones yellower and bluer each day my guess is the left will be white while the right will be bluer today.

Make sense, par is changed spectrum is changed, corals are still adjusting.
Before tank upgrade, I will most likely run Radium without supplemental part of reason is lack of tank depth. My tank is 18" in depth and the reflector is 15" X 15". I also want to see what kind of color I can achieve with Radium alone.

Regarding color temp shifting, check your galaxy if the temp of the ballast get hot, if so it will shift the output to lower Kevin side. This happens to me, after I had a small fan blowing into ballast and keep it cool, the color temp output from my radium is very stable.

 

[john90009]

any pic is a good pic : ) keep em coming

 

[Logzor]

Very healthy looking corals with great color and pe, nice work and keep it up!

 

[tmantaylor18]

Got it! I am not good at photoshop, but I will certainly try ACDSee that I have, I guess there is similar feature to adjust white balance.

On the camera side, I tried custom white balance and use sand as reference but it does not quite work out, the color is even worse than auto. I tried change to 10K white balance setting instead of auto, it seems to get closer color. But FTS is still tough.

BTW, did you started 40G breeder yet? Any thread?

Yeah if you want to zip up a few, and send them my way, I would be glad to try to work them out.

Yeah the 40 is up and running I just havent taken to many shots because it is too packed with coral so it doesn't look how I want it to. I'll start a thread once I get it all cleaned up. :beer:

 

[ryanjiang]

any pic is a good pic : ) keep em coming

John, I saw you posted a question in Mark's thread. He is running VHO 420nm supplemental, I assume you are trying T5. 420nm is the segment that T5 is shy of VHO, the only T5 lamp providing comparable fluorescent 'POP' is GMAN pure actinic , but lot of folks report this lamp is dark (From Grimmers measurement it is half PAR of a ATI blue plus). But I have seen a local reefer's tank, he supplement 2 Gman pure actinic to 2X 250W ESV 20K on a 120 gallon heavy stock SPS tank. To me, the pure actinic is not that dark at all, he showed the tank lit with the 2 GMAN t5 only, to my surprise it is pretty bright, good enough for down/dust.
Another thing, Mark's tank is starfire, above local reefer's tank is starfire, if your tank is regular glass like mine, any light will not look as same nice. So my next tank will be starfire for sure.

 

[ryanjiang]

Very healthy looking corals with great color and pe, nice work and keep it up!

Thanks a lot for encouraging me! I promise more will come.