sfdan's 400 gallon SPS peninsula
- Thread starter sfdan
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For a tank that is ostensibly an SPS tank, I don't have many pictures of corals yet. I got 10 frags from jdm1114 here on the forum, and I got a few corals from the LFS. They all seem to be doing well, but I'm still not quite happy with the color of the tank and they are all tiny frags so not too interesting to photograph yet.
I'm still playing around with T5 combinations to get the right look. Right now each side has 4xActinic and 2xPurple Plus in combination with the 2 250 watt Radiums. This is the best combination I've tried thus far, but I still want more actinic, so I'm going to test out adding LED actinic strips to go along with the T5s and Halides. Maybe something like 2x LED actinic strip, 2xActinic, 2xPurple plus and 2xBlue plus in combination with the 250 watt Radiums.
I was hoping the T5s would be enough to dial in the color, but the Halides are so bright you really need a lot of actinic to get the corals glowing, and if I use all my T5s for actinic support then I can't put in the purple plus which I love the look of. At least while the quest for the perfect coloration for my eyes continue, I know the corals are loving the halides.
I'm still playing around with T5 combinations to get the right look. Right now each side has 4xActinic and 2xPurple Plus in combination with the 2 250 watt Radiums. This is the best combination I've tried thus far, but I still want more actinic, so I'm going to test out adding LED actinic strips to go along with the T5s and Halides. Maybe something like 2x LED actinic strip, 2xActinic, 2xPurple plus and 2xBlue plus in combination with the 250 watt Radiums.
I was hoping the T5s would be enough to dial in the color, but the Halides are so bright you really need a lot of actinic to get the corals glowing, and if I use all my T5s for actinic support then I can't put in the purple plus which I love the look of. At least while the quest for the perfect coloration for my eyes continue, I know the corals are loving the halides.
fixingstill
New member
sfdan:
Update? Fish in?
Enough flow to the far end? I would think you might need some close loop from the bottom if you want no wire on the 3 sides.
Update? Fish in?
Enough flow to the far end? I would think you might need some close loop from the bottom if you want no wire on the 3 sides.
Yes the flow question is a good one. I was noticing from looking at some of my SPS corals that they were getting a lot of flow only coming from one direction (the side with the MP60s) and basically no flow from the other side.
My original plan was to put matching MP60s on the other side that were placed under the overflow, but the way the tank worked out it seemed that would be too low and blow the sand around too much. So I pivoted and put a couple Tunze 6255 on the other side. Not only are they super powerful, but I could put the mounting magnets inside the overflow box and run the cables through the overflow, so they blend in very nicely and I don't have any issue with the cable interfering with my screens.
So now I have 2 MP60s on one side and 2 Tunze 6255s on the other side. Both of them are only running about 80% speed, and at this speed it doesn't kick the sand around too much and seems to move the corals around pretty well. I think in theory I'd like more flow but at the time being I think this is fine.
As for more general updates, I did decide to supplement the T5s and MHs with blue leds. I added 4 36" SB reef lights actinic bars.
And my goodness, what a difference! The way corals shimmer under these LEDs is electric compared to T5s, including 6 actinic T5s (I tried!).
So now I'm still playing around with the T5s but I'm getting pretty close to light I'm happy with. Each side is going to look like:
2 x 250k 14k Hamilton MHs
2 x 36" SB reef light actinic strips
2 x KZ Fiji Purple
2 x ATI Blue Plus
Then 2 more mystery T5s I'm still deciding on. I'm going to test out coral plus, KZ fiji purple and blue plus in this spot.
I did spend a while deciding between 14k Hamilton MHs vs Radiums, and when directly compared I felt like the 14k Hamiltons just looked brighter and made all the non-blue colors much more lively. I think it is easier to shift the 14k Hamiltons blue with supplementation then "brighten" the radiums and get reds to pop.
And my goodness, what a difference! The way corals shimmer under these LEDs is electric compared to T5s, including 6 actinic T5s (I tried!).
So now I'm still playing around with the T5s but I'm getting pretty close to light I'm happy with. Each side is going to look like:
2 x 250k 14k Hamilton MHs
2 x 36" SB reef light actinic strips
2 x KZ Fiji Purple
2 x ATI Blue Plus
Then 2 more mystery T5s I'm still deciding on. I'm going to test out coral plus, KZ fiji purple and blue plus in this spot.
I did spend a while deciding between 14k Hamilton MHs vs Radiums, and when directly compared I felt like the 14k Hamiltons just looked brighter and made all the non-blue colors much more lively. I think it is easier to shift the 14k Hamiltons blue with supplementation then "brighten" the radiums and get reds to pop.
And on the SPS side I'll post my first coral picture, a little frag of BC Bubblebath Unicorn I got in a battlebox.
Now that I've gotten the lighting figured out I really just need to be patient at this point. My calcium reactor is keeping the alkalinity dead stable, and I'm slowly getting the nutrient levels back where I want them. About a week ago I was at 0.15 ppm of phosphate and 0 ppm nitrates. I stopped dosing phosphates (I should have stopped long before that but just stopped testing and they got way too high) and started dosing ~2 ppm worth of nitrates per day, and as of today I'm at 0.05 ppm of phosphates and ~1 ppm nitrates. My long term targets are phosphates somewhere around 0.03 and nitrates around 5, so I'm getting there.
Hopefully the right nutrient levels will help with coral growth and coloration, but I also know that it is just going to take time for the tank to mature. Still though all the SPS corals I have are quite healthy and a few of them are slowly expanding their bases so maybe some upward growth will start happening soon.
On the fish front, I've decided my next addition will be 3 Dispar Anthias. I really don't have many fish that swim in the water column so they should have themselves a lot of room to hang out. If they work out well I might potentially add in more Anthias, but I want to get some first hand experience with a new type of fish.
In my long term fish plan I have 2 more tangs (the types of which I haven't decided on) and another wrasse or two, but both of those are going to require so much effort for the QT and TTM than I'm holding off of them for now.
I'm really enjoying the most recent addition, 2 orchid dottybacks, as they started out being very shy and hiding in their caves all the time but now they are basically out and about all day. Really stunning fish and I love any fish that are both captive bred and I can easily keep a pair of.
Now that I've gotten the lighting figured out I really just need to be patient at this point. My calcium reactor is keeping the alkalinity dead stable, and I'm slowly getting the nutrient levels back where I want them. About a week ago I was at 0.15 ppm of phosphate and 0 ppm nitrates. I stopped dosing phosphates (I should have stopped long before that but just stopped testing and they got way too high) and started dosing ~2 ppm worth of nitrates per day, and as of today I'm at 0.05 ppm of phosphates and ~1 ppm nitrates. My long term targets are phosphates somewhere around 0.03 and nitrates around 5, so I'm getting there.
Hopefully the right nutrient levels will help with coral growth and coloration, but I also know that it is just going to take time for the tank to mature. Still though all the SPS corals I have are quite healthy and a few of them are slowly expanding their bases so maybe some upward growth will start happening soon.
On the fish front, I've decided my next addition will be 3 Dispar Anthias. I really don't have many fish that swim in the water column so they should have themselves a lot of room to hang out. If they work out well I might potentially add in more Anthias, but I want to get some first hand experience with a new type of fish.
In my long term fish plan I have 2 more tangs (the types of which I haven't decided on) and another wrasse or two, but both of those are going to require so much effort for the QT and TTM than I'm holding off of them for now.
I'm really enjoying the most recent addition, 2 orchid dottybacks, as they started out being very shy and hiding in their caves all the time but now they are basically out and about all day. Really stunning fish and I love any fish that are both captive bred and I can easily keep a pair of.
Well I had decided on the 3 Dispar Anthias as the next addition, but then browsing around on Diver's Den I couldn't help but notice they had 3 captive bred Azure Damsels and 3 captive bred Rolland's Damsels. Since I love having groups of each type of fish and I love supporting captive bred fish, I did a little more research and to my surprise it seems like both types are only semi-aggressive and territorial, which shouldn't be a problem in my tank which has a lot of open real estate and every other fish is at least semi-aggressive (other than the dragonets which I assume will be completely ignored).
So instead of deciding between them I just got both trios, so I'll have those arriving next week to get into quarantine. I guess I'm about to become a "damsel guy".
So instead of deciding between them I just got both trios, so I'll have those arriving next week to get into quarantine. I guess I'm about to become a "damsel guy".
That is the size that i'm going to get for my new build. There is a guy locally who have a 72x48x24 peninsula tank and it's beautiful!
Working the Damsels through TTM and perhaps not surprisingly I'm having decently severe bullying issues. The 3 Azure Damsels are all quite tiny and seemingly getting along, but one of the Rolland's Damsels is twice the size of the others and makes sure they know who is boss. The smallest one is getting the brunt of it and has some damage to his tail and lower fins. When I was doing the 3rd tank transfer today he basically was just hovering in the upper corner of the tank and I just lifted him out with my hands. So I made him a little acclimation box and hopefully he'll be able to recover. Everybody else seems to be doing well. I'm not too worried about the bullying in the DT since there will be so much room for him to run away, but I guess we'll see how it all plays out. I also now have 3 days to build another acclimation box for the next transfer.
And while all of this was going on I got some new corals today from therman on the forum. Here are pictures of some of the pieces:
A big chunk of "therman's rainbow":
A little chunk of "SC Orange Passion". The picture doesn't do this one justice, the color of the tips on this are just an electric turquoise-blue:
A shaggy purple tipped acro. This one really looks cool in person, once again the picture doesn't capture the contrast and depth of the purple tips:
And while all of this was going on I got some new corals today from therman on the forum. Here are pictures of some of the pieces:
A big chunk of "therman's rainbow":
A little chunk of "SC Orange Passion". The picture doesn't do this one justice, the color of the tips on this are just an electric turquoise-blue:
A shaggy purple tipped acro. This one really looks cool in person, once again the picture doesn't capture the contrast and depth of the purple tips:
Fishkeeper01
New member
This is awesome! I'm following along
Well I re-learned a valuable lesson which is don't count your SPS until they are growing and encrusting.
Unfortunately that nice chunk of Orange Passion (and a not photographed Fox Flame) never acclimated to the tank and each of them RTNed after about a week in my tank. Around the same time as those corals were dying I got back an ATI ICP test results which showed extremely low levels of Iodine in the tank. So I started dosing Iodine to get back to normal levels and I saw the health of a lot of my SPS (especially the Montiporas) noticeably increase. I have no way to know if it was the low levels of iodine, or shipping stress, or bad luck or whatever but I'm going to have to give those a try again.
The ICP test also showed some low levels of Vanadium and Manganese. I have no idea how important these elements are, but I starting using Red Sea colors to see if I notice any difference. I'm dosing based on my calcium consumption which I calculated at about 2.5ppm per day. I'll send off a water sample for another ATI test in a few weeks so hopefully I'll be able to gauge if I'm horribly over or under-dosing something.
I'm also naturally doing about a 10-15% water change this month as I got a trio of Dispar Anthias and I'm going to use about 70-80 gallons of water getting them through the TTM method. Funny note about Dispar anthias... they do not like being trapped for the tank transfers, they absolutely freak out.
Also huge huge huge thumbs up on the Damsels. The 3 Azure damsels and 3 Rolland's damsels are awesome additions to the tank. They spend a ton of time in the the water column and also bring out the orchid dottybacks as they all jostle for space. They sometimes school together and sometimes chase each other around the tank. Constant action. The tank is at least twice as lively with them around. In QT I ended up having to use 2 acclimation boxes, one for the biggest one who was bullying everybody and one for the smallest one who was being bullied by everyone else. But in the full tank there is no problems at all as there is ample space and hiding spots for all of them.
Unfortunately that nice chunk of Orange Passion (and a not photographed Fox Flame) never acclimated to the tank and each of them RTNed after about a week in my tank. Around the same time as those corals were dying I got back an ATI ICP test results which showed extremely low levels of Iodine in the tank. So I started dosing Iodine to get back to normal levels and I saw the health of a lot of my SPS (especially the Montiporas) noticeably increase. I have no way to know if it was the low levels of iodine, or shipping stress, or bad luck or whatever but I'm going to have to give those a try again.
The ICP test also showed some low levels of Vanadium and Manganese. I have no idea how important these elements are, but I starting using Red Sea colors to see if I notice any difference. I'm dosing based on my calcium consumption which I calculated at about 2.5ppm per day. I'll send off a water sample for another ATI test in a few weeks so hopefully I'll be able to gauge if I'm horribly over or under-dosing something.
I'm also naturally doing about a 10-15% water change this month as I got a trio of Dispar Anthias and I'm going to use about 70-80 gallons of water getting them through the TTM method. Funny note about Dispar anthias... they do not like being trapped for the tank transfers, they absolutely freak out.
Also huge huge huge thumbs up on the Damsels. The 3 Azure damsels and 3 Rolland's damsels are awesome additions to the tank. They spend a ton of time in the the water column and also bring out the orchid dottybacks as they all jostle for space. They sometimes school together and sometimes chase each other around the tank. Constant action. The tank is at least twice as lively with them around. In QT I ended up having to use 2 acclimation boxes, one for the biggest one who was bullying everybody and one for the smallest one who was being bullied by everyone else. But in the full tank there is no problems at all as there is ample space and hiding spots for all of them.
Coral pictures for this update:
BC Bubblebath Unicorn. Probably the fastest growing coral in my tank at the moment, lots of encrusting in the last month. Completely changed colors from green with dark purple tips to a pink with green highlights and light purple tips.
Cali Tort I got as a little nub. Starting to grow out a little bit, but the most profound change is the coloration of this one. The neon green has really developed on the inside and the polyps with neon blue tips. Really excited for this to grow out.
This mini-colony came from my other tank, and I had no idea what it was. I'm now fairly sure it is the "ORA German Blue Polyp Acro". In addition to being damn near bulletproof, as it was the only acro that survived the dinos in the last tank, it's coloration is getting pretty nice these days. The polyps have developed a really deep blue, nicely contrasting against the very light yellow/green skin. I upgraded its location to a spot with a higher PAR so I'm interesting to see how that affects the coloration.
BC Bubblebath Unicorn. Probably the fastest growing coral in my tank at the moment, lots of encrusting in the last month. Completely changed colors from green with dark purple tips to a pink with green highlights and light purple tips.
Cali Tort I got as a little nub. Starting to grow out a little bit, but the most profound change is the coloration of this one. The neon green has really developed on the inside and the polyps with neon blue tips. Really excited for this to grow out.
This mini-colony came from my other tank, and I had no idea what it was. I'm now fairly sure it is the "ORA German Blue Polyp Acro". In addition to being damn near bulletproof, as it was the only acro that survived the dinos in the last tank, it's coloration is getting pretty nice these days. The polyps have developed a really deep blue, nicely contrasting against the very light yellow/green skin. I upgraded its location to a spot with a higher PAR so I'm interesting to see how that affects the coloration.
After my previous losses of the Fox Flame and Orange Passion, I really became concerned that maybe something was wrong in the tank and the ICP test showed the low levels of Iodine. I'm now very convinced that was the problem, as after I dosed it back to normal the overall tank health rapidly improved and things have been great for the past month.
I'm also now dosing Red Sea Colors A, B, C & D in the hopes that they will provide the necessary supplementation for whatever is missing. The only element of those I can test is potassium, and the rest of them I'm just going based on faith that the dosage is good. My current dose is 14ml/week of all of them, which I dose every Monday morning. I'll do an ICP test at some point in the next month or two, but things are going great right now so I'm just going to keep going.
So I tried once again with the Orange Passion and Fox Flame, and so far, so good. Both of them have encrusted and seem to be very healthy:
SC Orange Passion, which I'm acclimating to higher light, right now living about mid-way through the tank on a frag rack:
Fox Flame, who is already epoxied into it's permanent home towards the bottom of the tank:
I'm also very excited about this Tyree Superman frag, which will also go right under the lights after I finish acclimating it. The picture does not do justice to the blue tips which are stunning. Great PE as well. This one is going to end up in a high light, high flow area to hopefully bring out as much blue as possible:
And how about a growth shot. The fuzzy purple tipped acro has got a lot of growth:
Sept 26th:
Dec 1st:
I put it relatively low in the tank, and because of that the purple tips have faded a little bit. I'll eventually move it higher to try to bring them back out, but for the moment as it seems to be very happy where it is so I'll let it keep growing.
I'm also now dosing Red Sea Colors A, B, C & D in the hopes that they will provide the necessary supplementation for whatever is missing. The only element of those I can test is potassium, and the rest of them I'm just going based on faith that the dosage is good. My current dose is 14ml/week of all of them, which I dose every Monday morning. I'll do an ICP test at some point in the next month or two, but things are going great right now so I'm just going to keep going.
So I tried once again with the Orange Passion and Fox Flame, and so far, so good. Both of them have encrusted and seem to be very healthy:
SC Orange Passion, which I'm acclimating to higher light, right now living about mid-way through the tank on a frag rack:
Fox Flame, who is already epoxied into it's permanent home towards the bottom of the tank:
I'm also very excited about this Tyree Superman frag, which will also go right under the lights after I finish acclimating it. The picture does not do justice to the blue tips which are stunning. Great PE as well. This one is going to end up in a high light, high flow area to hopefully bring out as much blue as possible:
And how about a growth shot. The fuzzy purple tipped acro has got a lot of growth:
Sept 26th:
Dec 1st:
I put it relatively low in the tank, and because of that the purple tips have faded a little bit. I'll eventually move it higher to try to bring them back out, but for the moment as it seems to be very happy where it is so I'll let it keep growing.
Yessss!! I agree. I have only 3 400 watt halides with some VHO actinics over a tank with a 10' x 4' footprint and am happy with the light spread. Looks just like your looking into the ocean. I started out with 5 and didn't like it, so went down to 4...still too much to look natural. So went to 3 and sat back and smiled. That was it. (corals are all doing great...sps, lps, softies, gorgonians)
And by the way, I tried LEDs that were supposed to compare to VHO actinics, but they didn't. Maybe they do on a shallower tank. So I had to reset the whole thing up for VHOs again.
4-5 hours per day for halides is what they are saying or your just feeding algae, so I have been running like that for a year. Only change is less algae.
Plus you can get halide fixtures for pennies in comparison. Bulbs not so much, but running them 4 hours a day will get you 2 years out of them.
So I say very wise choice on using halides. Smaller tanks I can understand LEDs. I do on mine, and love the. Makes sense to me there. But big tanks, unless you have a whole lot of cash to fork out up front, LED's can be the way to go. Or if you have no place for the heat to go. Not bashing LED's...just letting the guy know that I think he is being extremely smart for doing halides, and there many of us out there with big tanks still loving them.
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McPuff
New member
This is a good point. I thought about going back to halides (3 x 400) because of how many LED fixtures are required for really good coverage in my 300. I found some good used lights though and have it under control now. Going any bigger (and with SPS) it's just SO expensive to buy the LEDs. If you're only running halides 4 hours per day then I'm not sure the LEDs would ever pay off financially in comparison. If I ever get a larger tank, I'll simply stop growing SPS, go with softies only, and use fewer LED lights (that I already own). :0)
sfsuphysics
Active member
Just think you could get the same coverage with 10 Radion fixtures, at about 190 watts each that's only 1900 watts versus your 1200
I kid, I kid... or do I?
Btw didn't think they made VHOs any more.
I think it is clear that halides are just a simpler and cheaper option for larger tanks. I don't think I've gone into the pricing in the thread, but all the lighting equipment, brand new, was:
Halides:
4 Reflectors: $330
4 Ballasts: $550
4 MH Bulbs: $240
Halide Total: $1120
T5s:
6 T5 Retro kits: $600
12 T5 bulbs: ~$300
T5 Total: $900
I don't think there is any LED system that could even come close to this pricing, and half the cost was on T5s which I'd probably still have in an LED system anyways. So I think at minimum an LED system would be an extra $2000, and maybe more depending on how fancy I wanted to go. And I doubt if you counted up all the wattage the LEDs would end up saving any energy either.
On the other hand... LEDs look different than halides. My aquarium has 3 distinct looks: Bright daylight with halides, crisp blue with T5s + LEDs and electric blue when only the LED actinics are on. The corals all look different in the 3 lights, and I prefer the look of some corals in certain lights than others. I think the LED actinics in particular bring out a lot of wacky patterns in the corals, often patterns that aren't even visible under the other lighting conditions. So I do understand why people like the look of LEDs, and especially why people like the controllability of LEDs to dial in exactly how they want their tank to look. But it clearly comes with (a lot) more upfront expense, and probably a higher degree of difficulty in terms of keeping the corals happy. I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer, which is probably why I've got all 3 types of lights on my tank, but I'm still quite happy with the halides being the primary light source.
Halides:
4 Reflectors: $330
4 Ballasts: $550
4 MH Bulbs: $240
Halide Total: $1120
T5s:
6 T5 Retro kits: $600
12 T5 bulbs: ~$300
T5 Total: $900
I don't think there is any LED system that could even come close to this pricing, and half the cost was on T5s which I'd probably still have in an LED system anyways. So I think at minimum an LED system would be an extra $2000, and maybe more depending on how fancy I wanted to go. And I doubt if you counted up all the wattage the LEDs would end up saving any energy either.
On the other hand... LEDs look different than halides. My aquarium has 3 distinct looks: Bright daylight with halides, crisp blue with T5s + LEDs and electric blue when only the LED actinics are on. The corals all look different in the 3 lights, and I prefer the look of some corals in certain lights than others. I think the LED actinics in particular bring out a lot of wacky patterns in the corals, often patterns that aren't even visible under the other lighting conditions. So I do understand why people like the look of LEDs, and especially why people like the controllability of LEDs to dial in exactly how they want their tank to look. But it clearly comes with (a lot) more upfront expense, and probably a higher degree of difficulty in terms of keeping the corals happy. I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer, which is probably why I've got all 3 types of lights on my tank, but I'm still quite happy with the halides being the primary light source.
sfsuphysics
Active member
Absolutely know what you mean, way back when I had a 375g tank with a 5' x 6' foot print and wrapping my mind around how to light it was a bit frustrating, I did end up making some DIY LEDs which kind of did the trick without any sort of lenses so that they would spread wide, but nothing was simpler than a 250W metal halide in lumenarc reflector just lit up so much it wasn't funny, and I didn't even go with high end bulbs either. Granted the tank did fail but for other reasons than lighting.
Don't get me wrong I love the idea behind LEDs where you can have the slow ramp up and ramp down, but yeah covering a lot of square footage is definitely pricey... especially when you already own the reflectors and the ballasts (with plenty of extras too!). My 200g will be MHs, at least from the start, we'll see how well it works as time goes on, but I don't have any fancy corals anymore so I can screw around with the light, but my 180 from days of reefing past did absolutely fantastic with MHs (with these same bulbs) and T5s.
but for other reasons than lighting.Don't get me wrong I love the idea behind LEDs where you can have the slow ramp up and ramp down, but yeah covering a lot of square footage is definitely pricey... especially when you already own the reflectors and the ballasts (with plenty of extras too!). My 200g will be MHs, at least from the start, we'll see how well it works as time goes on, but I don't have any fancy corals anymore so I can screw around with the light, but my 180 from days of reefing past did absolutely fantastic with MHs (with these same bulbs) and T5s.
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