Soulpatch's build thread (ongoing)
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\Clownfish/
Saltwater Beginner
I like the first hammer, has more color and stands out more. The second one looks like it could blend in with your rock. I could be wrong since they might look different in person.
I like all your new pieces
I like all your new pieces
soulpatch
New member
Man I will never use tapatalk to upload pics again. That is a messy post.
As for the hammers the metallic green one is stunning but the one head being all purple is throwing me off a bit. The Blue one is stunning in person and would be more expensive except he got it as a tank break down piece. It has some tinges of metallic green in it as well. It is a bit smaller though.
All that said I am still sitting here today trying to decide what to do with my current hammer. I want more pop of color but at the same time I have 10 heads starting to come in on the hammer so it could be one heck of colony in short order.
As for the pieces I got:
brain coral
purple stylo
supposed to be orange acro but I think he pulled a green out. Don't care either way need PE to know for sure
Orange and yellow ricordea.
I want the ricordea to grow on my center vertical rock work with my yellow mushroom. The sps went on my top shelf though I need to twitst them slightly so I don't see where they were fragged before and to get some more lighting to their underside for more polyp coverage.
The issue I am having is with my brain. I think I need to get asmall rubble piece of rock to glue him to as in the sand bed only the sand blows some with the Gyre and he shifts slightly before I can fix him. So I need to address that.
I will also say that as much as I am against an anemone it was very difficult to walk out last night without a rainbow bubble tip. It was stunning. I just cant see a place in my tank for him to go that would not **** off my corals so I made the call to walk out.
As for the hammers the metallic green one is stunning but the one head being all purple is throwing me off a bit. The Blue one is stunning in person and would be more expensive except he got it as a tank break down piece. It has some tinges of metallic green in it as well. It is a bit smaller though.
All that said I am still sitting here today trying to decide what to do with my current hammer. I want more pop of color but at the same time I have 10 heads starting to come in on the hammer so it could be one heck of colony in short order.
As for the pieces I got:
brain coral
purple stylo
supposed to be orange acro but I think he pulled a green out. Don't care either way need PE to know for sure
Orange and yellow ricordea.
I want the ricordea to grow on my center vertical rock work with my yellow mushroom. The sps went on my top shelf though I need to twitst them slightly so I don't see where they were fragged before and to get some more lighting to their underside for more polyp coverage.
The issue I am having is with my brain. I think I need to get asmall rubble piece of rock to glue him to as in the sand bed only the sand blows some with the Gyre and he shifts slightly before I can fix him. So I need to address that.
I will also say that as much as I am against an anemone it was very difficult to walk out last night without a rainbow bubble tip. It was stunning. I just cant see a place in my tank for him to go that would not **** off my corals so I made the call to walk out.
\Clownfish/
Saltwater Beginner
I know the feeling on the rainbow anenome! My local fish store had one and I really wanted it! They also had a rainbow hammer and octospawn.
soulpatch
New member
Well went with neither of those two corals in trade. Got this instead.
Pretty impressive frog spawn. Though my guy got a hell of a deal as my hammer had 10 heads started other then the three big ones it already had but this coal gives me colour.
Also granted a feather duster while I was at it for free.
Pretty impressive frog spawn. Though my guy got a hell of a deal as my hammer had 10 heads started other then the three big ones it already had but this coal gives me colour.
Also granted a feather duster while I was at it for free.
Nice additions. I always want an Anemone when I see a nice one pop up, but I've learned from others' mistakes. Anemones frequently go for "excursions" around the tank when they're first introduced. And sting and kill everything they touch along their path. It's not guaranteed, but it happens enough that I would be worried about losing all of my growing corals to one.
I couldn't help myself this weekend either. Someone locally has a spectacular SPS tank with all named LE beautiful corals, and I went a little crazy. Now I just have to get my RapidLEDs installed and running, and I'll be on my way. I've been having trouble with the Reefkeeper ALC module, so I think I'm going to use a 9V wall wart to drive the 0-10v dimming and it'll work out well.
With your RapidLED puck, what current are your LEDs running at? It looks like the nano drivers are 0-700mA. I set up a string of 10 Royal Blues running at 1300mA full power, and a mixed string of 6CW/2NW/4UV/1R/1G, and I'll add ghetto potentiometer dimmers on the 9v until I can get my ALC unit working.
I couldn't help myself this weekend either. Someone locally has a spectacular SPS tank with all named LE beautiful corals, and I went a little crazy. Now I just have to get my RapidLEDs installed and running, and I'll be on my way. I've been having trouble with the Reefkeeper ALC module, so I think I'm going to use a 9V wall wart to drive the 0-10v dimming and it'll work out well.
With your RapidLED puck, what current are your LEDs running at? It looks like the nano drivers are 0-700mA. I set up a string of 10 Royal Blues running at 1300mA full power, and a mixed string of 6CW/2NW/4UV/1R/1G, and I'll add ghetto potentiometer dimmers on the 9v until I can get my ALC unit working.
I assume they're the standard ones that came with the RapidLED retrofit kit for the aurora puck? (http://www.rapidled.com/0-10v-dimmable-nano-driver-with-potentiometer/)
That would be 700mA. What % for each color do you run them at?
I'm just trying to gauge what would be reasonable for me to run my lights at when I swap out my current to the new DIY retrofit of single LEDs. I have my multicolored string running at max 700mA, and the royal blues running at max 1300mA, which is what Rapid recommended.
So many customization with LED, it makes me nervous! I miss the days of my 250w MH and reflectors. Toss in a Radium and you're good to go! All things considered though, i did go with the DIY full spectrum so that I could tweak everything to the nth degree, for better or worse. We'll see!
That would be 700mA. What % for each color do you run them at?
I'm just trying to gauge what would be reasonable for me to run my lights at when I swap out my current to the new DIY retrofit of single LEDs. I have my multicolored string running at max 700mA, and the royal blues running at max 1300mA, which is what Rapid recommended.
So many customization with LED, it makes me nervous! I miss the days of my 250w MH and reflectors. Toss in a Radium and you're good to go! All things considered though, i did go with the DIY full spectrum so that I could tweak everything to the nth degree, for better or worse. We'll see!
soulpatch
New member
Yes you are right in the 700ma as those the are drivers I have.
Blues/UV hit 100%
Whites hit 85%
Mixed hits 78%
When I eventually build the bigger tank I am pretty sold on it being a MH/t8 tank. Sure costs a bit more to run them and dont get all the cool sunrise and sunset types of things but then again it is proven its worth in SPS tanks. Seeing D2Mini's thread with his large tank and converting back to MH/T8 kind of sold me.
Blues/UV hit 100%
Whites hit 85%
Mixed hits 78%
When I eventually build the bigger tank I am pretty sold on it being a MH/t8 tank. Sure costs a bit more to run them and dont get all the cool sunrise and sunset types of things but then again it is proven its worth in SPS tanks. Seeing D2Mini's thread with his large tank and converting back to MH/T8 kind of sold me.
Thanks for providing those numbers!
Yea, Mh + T5 is always a solid choice. BTW, you can do the cool sunrise and sunset effects with T5s. If you get a dimmable T5 ballast, you can just dim it the same way that we dim LEDs, with a 0-10v dimmer channel in a controller. Also, you said T8, I said T5. I guess you could do T8, but I'm not sure that there are broadly available T8s for reefing. I'm only familiar with T5s and VHOs which I thought were T12?
With the 180 you can't go wrong with 250w x 3 + 4 72" T5s, two on each side. Just make sure to get nice reflectors for your 250w, and you're golden.
If I did a 6' tank though, I'd probably try out a 400w or 10k XM on a moving light rail and just T5s/LEDs the entire length. There is some good evidence that you'll hit photosaturation and still get great MH coloration with a setup like this. Might be worth looking into.
Yea, Mh + T5 is always a solid choice. BTW, you can do the cool sunrise and sunset effects with T5s. If you get a dimmable T5 ballast, you can just dim it the same way that we dim LEDs, with a 0-10v dimmer channel in a controller. Also, you said T8, I said T5. I guess you could do T8, but I'm not sure that there are broadly available T8s for reefing. I'm only familiar with T5s and VHOs which I thought were T12?
With the 180 you can't go wrong with 250w x 3 + 4 72" T5s, two on each side. Just make sure to get nice reflectors for your 250w, and you're golden.
If I did a 6' tank though, I'd probably try out a 400w or 10k XM on a moving light rail and just T5s/LEDs the entire length. There is some good evidence that you'll hit photosaturation and still get great MH coloration with a setup like this. Might be worth looking into.
soulpatch
New member
Amazon Homer. Always Amazon. HA HA
The link is in this thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2489375
Honestly the compartments on the top are what made me go with this one. They contain a spill should I tip over a testing vial and for me more importantly they contain the chemicals from my toddler. The four drawers allow me to keep all of my testing supplies, medications, spare media, fragging supplies, and more which fred up quite a bit of room in my stand.
I still need to find a nice looking shelf option to use for the fish food and such that I use daily and do not want to put in the wheeled tote.
The link is in this thread: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2489375
Honestly the compartments on the top are what made me go with this one. They contain a spill should I tip over a testing vial and for me more importantly they contain the chemicals from my toddler. The four drawers allow me to keep all of my testing supplies, medications, spare media, fragging supplies, and more which fred up quite a bit of room in my stand.
I still need to find a nice looking shelf option to use for the fish food and such that I use daily and do not want to put in the wheeled tote.
\Clownfish/
Saltwater Beginner
Yay! At first I thought it was a dead fish, I didn't even see the claw.
Good luck finding both of those stupid crabs. I would get rid of them asap.
Just wanted to drop in and let you know, I finished the retrofit of the RapidLED full-spectrum individual LED solderless kit, and wholy moley my tank looks FANTASTIC on day 1...
Sorry, I had to. Thanks for your help talking through the lighting stuff though! FYI I'm running the lights at 35%, but I dialed 100% on the drivers to equal 700mA on the whites and colors, and 1300mA on the RoyalBlues. RoyalBlues look like the old VHO SuperActinics I used to use to supplement my 10k XM bulbs on my big tank. Really great color pop out of them.
The nice thing about the kit you have, is that if you ever get bored with the puck (which is unlikely) you still have the drilled heatsink and the entireless solderless system, so you could DIY whatever custom combo you would want.
Just wanted to drop in and let you know, I finished the retrofit of the RapidLED full-spectrum individual LED solderless kit, and wholy moley my tank looks FANTASTIC on day 1...
Sorry, I had to. Thanks for your help talking through the lighting stuff though! FYI I'm running the lights at 35%, but I dialed 100% on the drivers to equal 700mA on the whites and colors, and 1300mA on the RoyalBlues. RoyalBlues look like the old VHO SuperActinics I used to use to supplement my 10k XM bulbs on my big tank. Really great color pop out of them.
The nice thing about the kit you have, is that if you ever get bored with the puck (which is unlikely) you still have the drilled heatsink and the entireless solderless system, so you could DIY whatever custom combo you would want.
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