The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9994464#post9994464 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
looking really good. Nice that it only needs the Alita 40. That's pretty efficient. I run my airstone skimmer on an Alita 100 (but there's no recirc NW pump).

If and when you get the chance, can you take some macro pics of the bubbles near the bottom, middle, top, and riser? So far it looks very uniform!

Jonathan,

It is far from broken in, so the bubbles are varying sizes from small to very small (almost "fog", hard to make out the bubbles they are so small). I am hoping that once it all breaks in that the bubble sizes will all shrink to the "fog" size I also still need to tune the skimmer (adjust the water and air mictures through the recirc pump). I will work on that later this week, after it has hopefully slimed up a bit more . I did tune it a little, to bring the wattage draw on the dart down around 130w, but nothing more beyond that. I also have a different diffuser plate to try, if I can't get it to where I am "happy" with it, but to be honest, I don't think I will need to worry about it, from what I have seen so far

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9994486#post9994486 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mcurl98
Hey Tom- sorry to butt in but wanted to know how your LA Pink Panther was doing. I've had one for a while and haven't been able to get it to color up anywhere near what it is like in the LA pictures. I have it under 250w 14k Phoenix and thought it might be doing more under your 400w. Great thread BTW!

Matt,

Actually we were commenting about that coral just yesterday. Ours is quite dark pink now and has taken on a very deep, intense coloration. We actually ended up with 2 frags of it (when I took it off of it's original plug). The main, largest one is rather high up in the tank, but towards the front (the light is positioned more towards the back half than the front half of the tank). The second piece is on the sand bed, just off of center of one of the lights. Both have the same intense color.

Thanks for following along

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9994486#post9994486 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mcurl98
Hey Tom- sorry to butt in but wanted to know how your LA Pink Panther was doing. I've had one for a while and haven't been able to get it to color up anywhere near what it is like in the LA pictures. I have it under 250w 14k Phoenix and thought it might be doing more under your 400w. Great thread BTW!

Matt,

Actually we were commenting about that coral just yesterday. Ours is quite dark pink now and has taken on a very deep, intense coloration. We actually ended up with 2 frags of it (when I took it off of it's original plug). The main, largest one is rather high up in the tank, but towards the front (the light is positioned more towards the back half than the front half of the tank). The second piece is on the sand bed, just off of center of one of the lights. Both have the same intense color.

I will try to get a picture of it in our tank (that does it justice) later on and post it here.

Thanks for following along

 

[mcurl98]

Thanks, I'll look forward to it. I would say mine is a dark pink but in no way an intense color-more of a muted dark pink if that makes sense. I'm in the midst of a lighting change now. Picked up some mini Lumenarcs but haven't decided on bulbs and ballasts yet. I go back and forth between a 250w IC, 400W or overdriving a SE 250 with an HQI ballast. Sounds as if you are pretty happy with the 400s and it was nice to hear you didn't think they put much more of a dent in your electric bill. I might go for the 400s but, then again, I could change my mind again in about 15 minutes. Tough (and expensive) decision!

 

[raddogz]

Without getting too off track, I'm thinking along the same lines.

The 250w mh on Lumenarcs are plenty bright, but starting to wonder if 400 watters might be a better choice in coloration.

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9995609#post9995609 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by erics3000
Wow sweet setup..Everything looks great. If you did all that in about 6 months, it is incredible..

Eric,
Sorry for the delay in my response. RC flaked on me and I got tired of waiting and went to grab a late dinner . As you can see from my double post to Matt, RC was "not being my friend" this evening

Yes, 6 months, more or less, is what it took. Taking into account that we collapsed 2 working tanks, 1 and 2 yrs old each, into the new tank once we got it set up. With this thread I posted pictures and updates pretty much as they happened.. and caught a bit of flack from people for such a "slow lead in" (IE: only any real major updates every couple of days or weeks). So from the start of the thread, that pretty much outlines our start time.. and it is still on going.. not finished yet , but we are alot closer than we were last month, and the month before that, and so on . Aside from the stand, we did and built everything else ourselves. The stand was built by SoCal Creations and then trucked to a local freight yard where I had to rent a trailer to go pick it up . Everything else was done by us, so your kind words are very flatterring

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9996867#post9996867 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by raddogz
Without getting too off track, I'm thinking along the same lines.

The 250w mh on Lumenarcs are plenty bright, but starting to wonder if 400 watters might be a better choice in coloration.

The difference between the 250w HQI 10Ks and 400w E-ballast 14Ks in terms of brightness is visually not really noticeable. We had the them running side by side for 5 days or so and there is also a picture of them running like that a couple of pages back. From those that visi\ted it was speculated that the Blue spectrum carried further and "looked" brighter than the yellow spectrum. The corals actually appear to be responding better to the 14k in terms of coloring up, but that took a couple of weeks to start showing the "better" colors . And the wattage is darned near the same between the two (the Kill-a-Watt meter doesn't lie ).

I will say that the 14Ks took some getting used to. The 10Ks seemed more "natural" to me (and still does to a certain degree). The yellow light looked more like natural sunlight to me.. as if I were looking out onto the top of a real reef somewhere, watching the sun light filtering through the water. The 14ks seemed really blue at first, but now that they are burned in they seem more white, but the zoas and most of the corals still "pop" just enough to make us happy

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9996675#post9996675 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mcurl98
I go back and forth between a 250w IC, 400W or overdriving a SE 250 with an HQI ballast. Sounds as if you are pretty happy with the 400s and it was nice to hear you didn't think they put much more of a dent in your electric bill. I might go for the 400s but, then again, I could change my mind again in about 15 minutes. Tough (and expensive) decision!

tough and expensive, yes... you did see our FS thread for the 3 months old dual 250w PFO HQI ballasts, right ? . Taking a major hit on my "mind change" when we switched up to 400w on E-ballasts.. but we are very happy with the decision and the outcome. Best of luck in your decision

 

[raddogz]

Are you serious?

Are you serious?

I am running the (2) 250w Lumenarcs on IceCap EBallasts right now, and par is okay, but I can't seem to get the colors to really pop like I see on other tanks that run 400 watters.

The 400w are roughly the same as 250w as far as wattage pull???????

 

[Sparkss]

Let me clarify.

A 400w running on an E-Ballast (like your IC) is roughly equivalent, power consumption wise, to a 250W running on an HQI ballast.

Here is a comparison that we did a short time ago, between our 250W XM10K HQI and the Ushio/BLV Nepturion 400W on IC :

(as you can see the 400W only costs $3 per month more to run, and that calculated using the highest electrical tier of $0.36 per KWH, while we lost 30 points of PAR we gained quite a bit of blue/CCT).

HTH

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9713951#post9713951 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sparkss
We are looking to go from 250W XM 10k on an HQI ballast to 400W Ushio 14K on an Electronic ballast. Our photo period is currently 9 hours, we will likely be moving to 10 hours within the next mont or so.

Here are the numbers of our current lighting setup :

XM 10k 250W on HQI Ballast
PPFD: 182
CCT: 9921
Amps: 3.27
approx $$ per bulb per month @9 hours: $38
approx $$ per bulb per month @10 hours: $42

And the one we are thinking of moving to :

Ushio 14k 400W on E Ballast (Same as the BLV Nepturion 14K)
PPFD: 152
CCT: 13648
Amps: 3.5
approx $$ per bulb per month @9 hours: $41
approx $$ per bulb per month @10 hours: $45


Other bulbs we are considering :


Giesemann Coral (14.5k) 400W on E Ballast
PPFD: 157
CCT: 11354
Amps: 3.53
approx $$ per bulb per month @9 hours: $41
approx $$ per bulb per month @10 hours: $45


Right now Sanjay is using the 400W Giesemann Coral lamps on IC E ballasts over his tank that is almost the exact same dimensions as our (ours is 6" shorter in length and height than his) and he ran tests with a meter and says that pretty much all of his tank gets more than enough light for SPS. He has a pink milli 4" above the sand bed that has kept it's color and grown nicely (that was one real world example he used to support his findings with the meter)

Since our tank is 24" tall, versus his 30" tall tank, we should be able to enjoy similar results. Both he and we use LA III reflectors that are approx 9 1/2" off the waterline to the bottom of the reflector.

 

[mcurl98]

Good info. Thanks Tom! The only thing I don't get is that when I look at my watt meter my HQIs register at approximately 250 watts each. Presumably your ICs would register at about 400 watts. With a 60% increase in wattage draw I would expect a higher bill. Is it the amps that make the difference?

 

[Sparkss]

Matt, it sounds like you are comparing E-ballast to E-ballast, and we are comapring E-Ballast to HQI. Watts are a factor of Amps times Volts.. so unless your voltage changes (which it shouldn't significantly change, unless your area sustains a brown out) then the watts will follow the amps .

EDIT : Just to explain it further, the 400W IC ballast acutally pulls closer to 420W of power, so there is a 20W or so overhead between the ballast and bulb. The 250W HQI pulls just shy of 400W. Since HQIs are known to be overdriven and run at approximately 350W (that is how they get the PPFD and other numbers that they do and also why bulbs run on HQI ballasts typically have shorter lifespans), the HQI bulb and ballast have roughly 50W of overhead.

EDIT 2 : let me explain my wattage numbers :

400W IC : 3.5 A

120 V X 3.5 A = 420 W
400W light - 420 W power consumption = 20 W overhead


250W HQI (really overdriven to 350W) : 3.27 A

120 V X 3.27 A = 392.4 W
350W light - 392 W power consumption = 42 W overhead


HTH more

 

[mcurl98]

My HQI ballast uses 250w per bulb as measured by my meter. I use DE bulbs. The HQI ballasts overdrive the SE bulbs up to about 350 but not the DE bulbs. So, yes, going from an HQI with SE bulbs at 250w to 400 w electronic would not be much of a difference. Thanks Tom and sorry for the hijacking!

 

[Sparkss]

no, not at all.. thanks for the additional info and clarification about DE vs SE power consumption. I had only dealth with SE for the last couple of years, so had not really kept up with how DEs did as far as power usage. You also pointed out that I should have indicated that my numbers were for SE bulbs and not for DEs. Thanks for correcting me .

BTW, which HQI ballast are you using ? If I understand my electronic theory correctly the "ballast pushes", not the "bulb pulls", so I would be interested in the HQI ballast you are using to collect your numbers from . I also need to go back and read up on ballasts versus transformers

 

[mcurl98]

Nope, I'm wrong. I've been researching SE bulbs on Sanjay's sight and noticed they were all running around 350w with a SE bulb and an HQI ballast. The electronic ballast were all around 250w. I assumed, incorrectly, that the SE bulbs allowed themselves to be overdriven by the HQI. I hadn't looked at the charts for the DE bulbs. The assumption was based on my measuring my own HQI at 250w with a DE bulb. I have now looked at all the DE bulbs and they are also at 350w with the HQI. I use a Coralife ballst that came with the fixture. Not sure who really makes it as I would imagine they contract with a generic supplier. They are obviously underdriven given the ratings of all the name brand (for ballast manufacturers) ballasts out there (at 350w). For all I know it may be a regular MH ballast running DE bulbs as opposed to a true HQI ballast. IMO Coralife skimps on just about everything. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for being patient!

 

[Sparkss]

No worries Matt. I am glad that we got that cleared up as I was starting to wonder if I had overlooked something (and anyone that knows me, and my obsessive nature knows how much that was driving me nuts ). At least I know that my understanding of ballasts and electrical theory was not way offbase

As a general rule I don't mind going "off topic" and talking about lighting, because as far as I am concerned, just about any reef tank build thread IS about lighting . So feel free to throw new ideas, questions or concerns at this thread. I don't pretend to know everything, nor that our lighting decision was the absolute best one to make.. just that with the info I had available, it was the right decision for us at the time. (but that was a whole month or more ago... hehehe )

 

[orientalexpress]

jesus freaking christ,that skimmer is bigger then most lfs have on their system ,hell even some whole seller.btw did u run any ozone or UV on your system at all?




lapsan

 

[Sparkss]

no zone or UV currently. We do have an ozone generator and separate ozone reactor to use, but at this time I am unsure if we will be using it or not. I don't plan to be dosing ozone into this new skimmer.

 

[Sparkss]

Managed to tune the skimmer down to a combined power consumption total of about 140w yesterday.. still playing around with it all to find the sweet spot

Outside of that, not much to report this morning. When I purposefully stir up a cloud the tank clears out in a matter of minutes now.. that is nice to see, especially in a tank our size. But I am still struggling with what I originally thought were small particulate matter, but now am starting to suspect micro-bubbles, in the display tank. I am going to double check over all of our plumbing to see if I have a fitting sucking air, or otherwise introducing the bubbles (ugghh, what a pain that will be).The chamber where the return pump picks up the return water is clear of bubbles (not to mention it would have to be one tough bubble to make it through our two 150g sumps), so the problem must be in the return lines. Anyone have any sage advice on an easy way to track down something like that ? (other than to reseal (or maybe silicone ?) every fitting connection ? If I have to start cutting connections and putting in new fittings, that will be a real bear.. but I may end up having to do just that.

Any advice on tracking down the possible leak in our return lines ?

 

[cbui2]

you dont think it might be from the skimmer?