Sinistard's 68.8 Acrylic Tank Journal [Photo Intense]
- Thread starter Sinistard
- Start date
maxxII
Super Housemonkey!
Who makes your reflectors? I had a similar problem with my RO3 reflectors by Sunlight Supply. They wound up replacing the reflector that shorted out and fried my bulb.
Take pics of the sockets of your reflector without the bulb in. This only happened on one side right?
Nick
Take pics of the sockets of your reflector without the bulb in. This only happened on one side right?
Nick
Sinistard
New member
Here is a shot of the tank.
All of my SPS has started to color up under the new 14k Phoenix bulbs. My montis that had mostly browned under the old lights are getting back all there color and even becoming more colorful then when I first added them. The couple of acros I have are also getting more color, both the bodies and polyps. They also seem to be much more happy.
I am very happy with the new lights, they have revitalized my interest in the tank to some extent. Before I was just keeping up with it because it seemed no mater what I did I was not seeing changes in the SPS, now that I know that a major problem was the lighting I am excited to add some new more colorful SPS
Sinistard
New member
Thanks for the ideas.
The reflector is the stock Ocean light reflector.
The problem is worse on one side but it seems to be happening on both sides.
I posted in another forum and someone replied that they were had the same problem with a ocean light and they just replaced the sockets and it fixed the problem. I sent an e-mail to aqua medics and they might fix them under warranty. I just need to e-mail them my receipt.
robster
Premium Member
I would contact Aqua Medic directly about your problem. I purchased one of their new heater controllers and found a flaw with it when the power shut off during a storm or purposely during a sump water change. It was resetting the set temp to a higher temp. They ended up issuing a credit through the company I purchased it from. I believe they even sent me a UPS shipping label. Two email addresses I remember well are jason@aqua-medic.com & jeremy@aqua-medic.com
This is the link to their website. It sounds like the ballast is pushing too much juice to the bulb.
http://www.aqua-medic.com/contactus.php
This is the link to their website. It sounds like the ballast is pushing too much juice to the bulb.
http://www.aqua-medic.com/contactus.php
Sinistard
New member
Thanks for the info everyone.
I ended up calling Salty Critter to get a piece of replacement glass for on of my pendents and asked them about the sockets and was told that this was a problem they had heard of several of the aquamedic fixtures having so I called Aqua Medics to see about getting them fixed. Unfortunately one of my lights was just out of warranty and the other was bought from another reefer so I had to pay for the repair.
Basically I was told that the original socket had some issues with some bulbs and that they had since replaced the socket with a higher quality one. Both the old style and the newer one were availible to order with about a 10 dollor price difference per socket. I was a little disappointed that they would not cover the cost of repair since it was a known problem and in my case I used 2 different bulbs and had the same problem. Plus one was only a month outside the year warranty. I replaced the sockets in both fixtures with the new ones and they seem to be working fine now, time will tell.
Oh well I guess I have 2 working fixtures now.
I ended up calling Salty Critter to get a piece of replacement glass for on of my pendents and asked them about the sockets and was told that this was a problem they had heard of several of the aquamedic fixtures having so I called Aqua Medics to see about getting them fixed. Unfortunately one of my lights was just out of warranty and the other was bought from another reefer so I had to pay for the repair.
Basically I was told that the original socket had some issues with some bulbs and that they had since replaced the socket with a higher quality one. Both the old style and the newer one were availible to order with about a 10 dollor price difference per socket. I was a little disappointed that they would not cover the cost of repair since it was a known problem and in my case I used 2 different bulbs and had the same problem. Plus one was only a month outside the year warranty. I replaced the sockets in both fixtures with the new ones and they seem to be working fine now, time will tell.
Oh well I guess I have 2 working fixtures now.
Sinistard
New member
One other update, one of my male Bangi Cardinals is holding eggs. He has had them for around 3 weeks give or take a little now and I think they are probably about ready to be released.
I moved him down to the refugium and placed a long spined urchin in with him. I hope to be able to raise them and plan to get some baby brine shrimp to feed them for the first few days.
Here are a couple pictures of him, you can kind of make out a couple sets of eyes in one of the pictures
I moved him down to the refugium and placed a long spined urchin in with him. I hope to be able to raise them and plan to get some baby brine shrimp to feed them for the first few days.
Here are a couple pictures of him, you can kind of make out a couple sets of eyes in one of the pictures
Sinistard
New member
Thanks
Over night he finally let the rest of the babies out, it was funny when I watched him I would see 3 or 4 babies try to push there way out then he would gulp and suck them back in. Over the course of yesterday, every hour or so another would escape then this morning they were all out. Some of the babies had found there way past the baffle in the tank so i had to net them back into the main area and now they all seem to be hanging out in the urchin. I counted a total of 14 today.
I was trying to hatch brine shrimp but i'm not sure how effective my set up will be. I got one of the San Francisco bay hatching kits but it gets cold in my house over night so I don't think I will be able to keep the temperature constant enough. I suck in an old ebo heater but it's to big and the thermostat does not kick it off.
I do have a pretty good population of pods and other small critters in the fuge that they seem to be picking at. There are swarms of some type of shrimp or pod hatch-lings around the base of the rocks in the fuge that are smaller then a piece of cyclopeez. I also got some fry dry food that they seem to pick at when I put it in the tank. I hope the brine will hatch but if not I think there may be enough food to get them to the point they can eat cyclopeez.
Here are a couple more pictures. The urchin is camped on the back side of the fuge so the acrylic is pretty dirty.
Sinistard
New member
They are doing well. They are about 4-5 times the size when they hatched. I think they are mostly surviving on pods and such from the tank. I have been feeding cyclopeez but they don't seem to interested in it yet.
A few have managed to get sucked down the drain from the "baby tank" into the sump and are to fast for me to catch. They seem to be doing fine down there so I'm not to worried about it. It's hard to get an accurate count now but from what I can tell there are at least 12 and maybe all 14 left. I will probably end up with cardinals all over the place LOL.
I will try to get some updated pictures soon.
Thanks for the heads up on the magnesium, I'll check it.
Glad you liked the pictures. It's very cool to have babies hatch in your system and then see them grow up.
Sinistard
New member
Update on the babies:
Around 10 have survived to this point and have started to get there adult colors. They are spreed out between my sump and the refugium and are doing well eating what they can find in the live rock/water column with the addition of some brine and cyclopeez.
I had a second batch of babies hatch 3 days ago from a second dad so my tank is teaming with fry. This batch was closer to 40 babies. When I tried to move the male to the fuge he spit the babies out in the net so I was able to direct them all to the urchin where they spent the first few days. I think fewer got sucked down the drain due to this "mistake" while moving him.
I'm going to have to sell the originals soon to make room for the new batch to grow.
Around 10 have survived to this point and have started to get there adult colors. They are spreed out between my sump and the refugium and are doing well eating what they can find in the live rock/water column with the addition of some brine and cyclopeez.
I had a second batch of babies hatch 3 days ago from a second dad so my tank is teaming with fry. This batch was closer to 40 babies. When I tried to move the male to the fuge he spit the babies out in the net so I was able to direct them all to the urchin where they spent the first few days. I think fewer got sucked down the drain due to this "mistake" while moving him.
I'm going to have to sell the originals soon to make room for the new batch to grow.
