The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[jnarowe]

With your 1kW 20K bulbs, how many do you run and what are the dimensions of your tank ?

My tank is 8' x 5' x 35" and I am running three 1000W Ushio 20K lamps. Two of them are on movers front-to-back. As a comparison, Steve Weast's tank has the same perimeter dimensions and he is running twelve 400W MH lamps. I figured out I could save money by running the more powerful lamps!

And I think that blue light is "crisper" light and we perceive it as being brighter.

 

[Sparkss]

Thanks... we like the 14k also. We did notice a slight bit more "pop" on some zoas, with a few really showing a difference, but so far that is about all the difference that we have seen. No real PE difference that I have noticed (all corals have about the same PE as before the light swap on that side). The crocea clam that is on the sandbed just off center of the 400W light has been extending pretty much the same as before under the 250W. If there was not enough light, or it was unusable, I would have expected to see the clam over extending it's mantle to compensate. Since it seems pretty much the same, I think that we are looking good.

The way it looks right now I feel pretty confident that we will be ordering another 400W "set" for the other side of our tank. But I still want to give it through tomorrow and Monday morning before I commit to it. So long as I get the order in by 2 PM PST Monday, we will have the lights by Wednesday afternoon.

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9728711#post9728711 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
And I think that blue light is "crisper" light and we perceive it as being brighter.

Kind of what I was thinking also

 

[davidh202]

Sparkss,
I've read the entire thread over the past couple of days, kudos on all the work, looks great!
I have one question. You've mentioned adding new fish recently and it sounds like directly to the main tank.
No quarantine?

 

[Sparkss]

I am afraid not.. no QT on our fish. I know that it is a risk, but there are also some instances where QT can be more stressful on certain fish causing more illness than helping. Granted, that arguement doesn't really work in our instances so far since none of those fish that we have added recently would fall into that category (except maybe the mandarin). One other thing, not that it really has bearing on this topic, is that most of our fish came from either well established tanks or from an LFS that had these fish in a show tank for 3 - 6 months. Either way plenty of time for any internal parasites to have manifested themselves.. but again, that is still not enough to justify skipping the QT as we have.

I do advocate and applaud anyone that follows a good QT protocol. So please do not follow our bad example in that area.


On a different note, I ordered the other 400W setup this morning from MD, it alerady shipped and should be here Wednesday early afternoon.

I spoke to Scott today about our new skimmer and calcium reactor, and the ship date has been pushed out another week..but we are optimistic that they will be here by the end of the month, give or take .

I am going to try to get a picture or two of the mandarin pair.. and possibly of the orchid/indigo pairing that seems to continually change .

We lost a couple of frags recently, I suspect to an alk spike from a mal-adjusted calcium reactor (the users fault, not the reactors). Our alk hit 18+ *eek*. I have been bringing it down slowly, but it appears that the bringing it down is having more of a negative impact than having it that high in the first place . For the most part our deepwater acros took the brunt of it.. which really frustrates me as those were some of my favorites. Not to mention a nice $80 frag from Atlantis was one of the victims . It never recovered from the dip, which was odd and what prompted me to go checking parms, etc.

Hopefully more cheery news soon .

Oh, I did finish insulating and hanging rock on the back side of the wall that we put up to better definte the fish room. I am hopeful that with that insulation behind the sumps that the temperature will stablize even more and that it might take less to keep the temp up at night (when it can get quite cold here still).

 

[clekchau]

hey buddy how are you liking the volcano?

 

[Sparkss]

Won't ship until later this week, so I will have to delay our review of it

We also went ahead and commissioned Scott to build us a new calcium reactor. The new one is built on a similar design as some commercial brand reactors, but with some improvemnets . It will use the large Gen-X media that everyone seems to really like. You can see a picture of it here :

http://www.aquaticacrylics.com/reactors.php

Ours will be an 8" by 24" tall main body. I just couldn't manage the 10: model on our quickly shrinking tank budget .

Scott promised some pictures of the skimmer later this week, one I get them I will be sure to post them here

 

[jnarowe]

love the Gen-X media dude...it rocks!

 

[Sparkss]

in about 2 weeks I will get to find out first hand .

So, how long have you been using the Gen-X media Jonathan ? Any tips, advice, gotchas or observations (good or bad) ?

How does it do for keeping magnesium levels up ? Or is it no different from ARM for that ?

We ordered 5 of the 9 lb containers last week (We found a place with a great price on them - Premiumaquatics-, once we paid for the initial shipping, it only made sense to stock up ). Scott calculated approx 4 containers to fill the reactor, give or take, so I went one extra, just to be sure, and ordered 5 . They should be here the day after tomorrow (we originally thought the new reactor would be here by this weekend, but it got unavoidably delayed). So I get to dream about the new reactor for another week .

I forgot to mention that Scott is also making new overflow teeth for us, that will be less restrictive and offer more flow options (different teeth to mix n match and tune to our optimal flow and water height.). He charges so little for the level and quality of service that he provides. I can't wait to get all of his handi-work up and running on our tank

 

[jnarowe]

ssshhhhh...don't tell Scott he isn't charging enough!

I put 4 - 6 containers in my reactor and it lasts a long time. It's great stuff in that it doesn't tumble. It just slowly melts away. I guess the only advice is to be careful how you set your CO2. I had understood from much reading that this media required a lower pH to work properly but that led to some trouble.

After much discussion with Steve Weast about it, his advice is as follows. I don't think he will be upset if I post it.

"As for your Ca reactor. As you know, each tank will have its requirements for alk usage. You have two parameters that you can adjust...flow and pH. I chose to keep an unbroken stream of effluent out of the reactor and adjust the CO2. I do not use my controller to adjust the CO2....the effluent stream is too notorious for slowing over time and messing up things. I chose a steady effluent stream because it fouls less over time....and the CO2 needs should be consistant over time....I see no need to have the CO2 on a controller....in fact...I think there is more risk with their being on a controller. Once you have a constant effluent stream....it's just finding the amount of CO2 that maintains your tank's needs....I use pH rather than bubble count. My reactor's pH sweetspot is 6.45."

I was keeping mine between 6.20 and 6.25 and it was just too much. I now have adjusted it to 6.45 - 6.50 and it seems to be much better and my alk is staying in a better range. I don't buy into not using a controller though. My CO2 regulator changes shape because of temp. I believe and needs to be adjusted periodically. Because of that, I don't want to accidentally OD on CO2, so I do use a controller. Besides, I really don't want CO2 running and driving the tank pH down when the lights are out. I have my CO2 controlled by both the tank pH probe and the reactor pH probe. If the tank pH goes below 8.15, it shuts down the CO2.

If you want to see my ACIII Pro code, LMK.

 

[Je®vis]

Wow! That's a very stunning Rabbit Fish... pink fins?

 

[Sparkss]

Lo Magnifica (I think it is spelled ). The Magnificent Rabgit fish... and yea, it has some subtle, but beautiful colors. The fins are really more red, but when he fans them out the color turns more pinkish as the light shines through the fins.

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9747746#post9747746 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
I put 4 - 6 containers in my reactor and it lasts a long time. It's great stuff in that it doesn't tumble. It just slowly melts away. I guess the only advice is to be careful how you set your CO2. I had understood from much reading that this media required a lower pH to work properly but that led to some trouble.

After much discussion with Steve Weast about it, his advice is as follows. I don't think he will be upset if I post it.

"As for your Ca reactor. As you know, each tank will have its requirements for alk usage. You have two parameters that you can adjust...flow and pH. I chose to keep an unbroken stream of effluent out of the reactor and adjust the CO2. I do not use my controller to adjust the CO2....the effluent stream is too notorious for slowing over time and messing up things. I chose a steady effluent stream because it fouls less over time....and the CO2 needs should be consistant over time....I see no need to have the CO2 on a controller....in fact...I think there is more risk with their being on a controller. Once you have a constant effluent stream....it's just finding the amount of CO2 that maintains your tank's needs....I use pH rather than bubble count. My reactor's pH sweetspot is 6.45."

I was keeping mine between 6.20 and 6.25 and it was just too much. I now have adjusted it to 6.45 - 6.50 and it seems to be much better and my alk is staying in a better range. I don't buy into not using a controller though. My CO2 regulator changes shape because of temp. I believe and needs to be adjusted periodically. Because of that, I don't want to accidentally OD on CO2, so I do use a controller. Besides, I really don't want CO2 running and driving the tank pH down when the lights are out. I have my CO2 controlled by both the tank pH probe and the reactor pH probe. If the tank pH goes below 8.15, it shuts down the CO2.

I agree with most of what Steve said, but like you, I still firmly believe in a controller. Our regulator has the same "challenges" that yours does. I could spend an hour "dialing it in" and getting it just right, and by tomorrow morning it would either be just flat out off, or blowing too much CO2 into our reactor. And like you I also turn off the CO2 at night, to help stabilize the tank PH

I do have the flow at a steady stream and adjust the PH in the reactor to control the ca/alk output. I feel that it is a much more controlled and precise manner of adjusting the output than to play with the flow. The only downside being to find the highest PH possible that will still melt the media and working down from there. That is doubly important on oversized reactors and/or tanks that are still growing and have not reached a consumption level to use all of the lowest amount of ca/alk that a reactor could provide. In those instances removing a portion of media is usually required, until the tank cathes up to the output.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9747746#post9747746 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
If you want to see my ACIII Pro code, LMK.

Hehehe, I just want your ACIII Pro . I keep toying with the idea of finally upgrading our AC Jr to a III or III Pro. I really want to get the ATO functions on there so that I can start tracking how often and for how long the ATO is topping off, along with a fe other, more minor, things I want to track and control.

 

[jnarowe]

get a LiterMeterII first. you bring up a good point about using too much media. I hadn't thought of that. I just found my dKh up at 11.6 so I am still having fluctuations. I may remove some media and see how that goes. Thanks!

 

[Sparkss]

np.. just something that I already had to deal with on our old reactor.. and one I am sure will be a challenge in the beginning with our new one.

 

[Sparkss]

no real updates... everything running and generally growing well. We really like the new lamp/ballast combo. So far it has improved the color on a good portion of our corals. We are going to a swap this weekend and so far we have a good handufl of LEs coming our way via side trades. So possibly some nice pictures after this weekend.

Ran into an issue with the mesh top, so we are in a holding pattern waiting on more mesh material. This also put some of our fish puirchases on hold (need the mesh top to house them safely). Hopefully we will have an update on that shortly.

We are considering a couple of tangs to add to our tank. Or more sepcifically we are adding 1 or 2 more tangs, to be selected from a pool of several. Here are our options :

Goldrim
Tomini
Mimic Eibli

We already have :

Purple
Sailfin (not desjardini)
Orange Shoulder

And only 1 other "large" fish, a Magnificent Rabbitfish

So far all fish get along fine, the last 2 (rabbitfish and orange shoulder) added quite somet time ago.

Any thoughts on which one, or ones, to choose from that list ? The Goldrim was my first choise for a second acanthurus, but then I saw a Mimic Eibli tang and now I am not so sure. I still love the coloration and striking contrasts on the goldrim, but am undecided.

These tangs were chosen as much for their temprament as for their coloration. . Thanks for any feedback and/or suggestions

 

[GreshamH]

The mimic won't be in the mimic stage much longer Tom, go with the Goldrim Some people think the mimic adult stage is ugly (not me).

 

[Sparkss]

I read that the mimic eibli kept it's mimic colors through adulthood, but I double checked and they all are the same species/genus (Acanthurus pyroferus), so I will definitely stay away from that one.. Thanks for pointing that out Gresh

So I am back to my original two.. the Goldrim and Tomini. Now the question is should I add both ? or just the Goldrim (really my preference if I had to choose between the two of them ). At least the Tomini has a smaller typical maximum length, for a tang. if we do go with adding them both

 

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9814875#post9814875 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sparkss
I read that the mimic eibli kept it's mimic colors through adulthood, but I double checked and they all are the same species/genus (Acanthurus pyroferus), so I will definitely stay away from that one.. Thanks for pointing that out Gresh

So I am back to my original two.. the Goldrim and Tomini. Now the question is should I add both ? or just the Goldrim (really my preference if I had to choose between the two of them ). At least the Tomini has a smaller typical maximum length, for a tang. if we do go with adding them both

I question that author then as I have never seen any mimic keep it's mimic colors though even mid teenage years.

The surgeonfish grows much larger then the pygmy angelfish and changes its look to a more typical Acanthurus species when it out grows its model, changing clour as well as the shape of it's tail from a rounded to strongly lunate. IN the case of Acanathurus pyroferus all the different mimics change into the same adult.

quote taken from page 35 of "Surgenfishes, Rabbitfishes and their ralatives" by Kuiter and Debelius

Juviniles of this species mimic Eibl's Angelfish

quote taken from page 382 of "Marine Fishes 500 essential to know aquarium species" by S. Michael.

 

[Sparkss]

I believed you Gresh.. especially since all of those listed for sale were the same A. pyroferus. Thanks for further reinforcing your statements. . It is amazing how the same fish can mimic, almost so completely, another fish's color and to a certain degeree even shape. I know that they typically do it as a defense... too bad they don't feel just a little bit more threatened as they get older, so that they might feel the need to keep their mimic colors.