The inwall 380 starfire reborn
- Thread starter Sparkss
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Teething is set to start in 2 months.. not looking forward to that. This afternoon we are taking her to get her 2 month vaccinations.. really not looking forward to that event, and what this weekend may hold for us (and her) 
Well, the pictures I took of the tank last night mostly didn't come out good enough to post. So I will give a short tank update and post two that did come out.
Over the last 2 months the tank has been mostly on auto-pilot. Even the swapping out of the return pump was not a big deal (we have true union ball valves in inlet and output, so it was maybe 15 mins total to swap out the pumps). During that time we have had decent growth and a few deaths. We lost 2 clams, both of which had been fighting pinched mantle that I just didn't have time to dip/treat. They had it for quite a while, and I thought they might pull out of it (one other did), but they recently became progressively worse, and at a time when I couldn't focus on them to try to treat. We also appear to have lost one of our purple firefish, but that really shouldn't "count" for the last couple of months as we never saw it since it was introduced.
During the pump swapout one of the fairy wrasses actually jumped into the corner overflow. When I turned the pump back on I saw a flash of color out of the corner of my eye in the overflow... I almost ignored it since it is dark in the overflow and I thought I was seeing things... well, i got to spend the next 20 minutes fishing the little bugger out and putting him/her back into the tank. Another note on the blue side wrasses is that they stopped chasing each other around and are back to swimming/hanging out together again. I guess it was a seasonal/mating thing.
Our ocellaris had spawned, twice, and amidst all of that our female clown severely injured the left side of her mouth/gills. I suspect while trying to chase off the PBT tang, or one of the other larger fish that swam too close to her eggs. She is doing fine now, but cannot completely close her mouth. I have not seen her eat, but she seems to be holding her weight just fine (she has been like this for almost 2 weeks now, give or take)
I saw the golden angel eating pellet food earlier this week. Until now I had suspected that he was only eating microfauna and algae off of the rockwork. I was elated to see him eating the small pellets.
The orange shoulder tang has grown huge, in a very short time (or so it feels). He is like a shark swimming across the tank. When we got him he was smaller than the purple tang and magnificent rabbitfish.. now he easily eclipses both of them.
The longspined urchin has been doing a fantastic job of cleaning the rocks of the red turf algae. The only ones he has were the rocks crowded with acros (really only 1 rock that was too crowded). The cucumbers have been doing a great job keeping the sandbed clean. The flame scallop has been hanging out on the back of tank behind/under a cap for the last 3 weeks or more. It is still with us, far exceeding our expectations.. but unfortunately it has stayed in places that are not visible from the front of the tank. It has also moved quite a distance from it's original placement location at the diagonally opposite corner.
Most corals are starting to color up nicely and their growth is apparent to the point that I have had to thin out and relocate a few. But we still struggle with general tank clarity issues. The skimmer continues to pull out loads of muck, but lately it has pulled out alot more "weak tea" skimmate. Possibly because that is all there is to pull ? The Ca Rx has also done a great job in keeping the alk/Ca levels up. The Chauvet "remote power strip" has worked out wonderfully, and makes everday maintenance a breeze.
here is an FTS from last night. Hopefully there is enough detail to show the growth that I am talking about
Well, the pictures I took of the tank last night mostly didn't come out good enough to post
. So I will give a short tank update and post two that did come out.Over the last 2 months the tank has been mostly on auto-pilot. Even the swapping out of the return pump was not a big deal (we have true union ball valves in inlet and output, so it was maybe 15 mins total to swap out the pumps). During that time we have had decent growth and a few deaths. We lost 2 clams, both of which had been fighting pinched mantle that I just didn't have time to dip/treat. They had it for quite a while, and I thought they might pull out of it (one other did), but they recently became progressively worse, and at a time when I couldn't focus on them to try to treat. We also appear to have lost one of our purple firefish, but that really shouldn't "count" for the last couple of months as we never saw it since it was introduced.
During the pump swapout one of the fairy wrasses actually jumped into the corner overflow. When I turned the pump back on I saw a flash of color out of the corner of my eye in the overflow... I almost ignored it since it is dark in the overflow and I thought I was seeing things... well, i got to spend the next 20 minutes fishing the little bugger out and putting him/her back into the tank. Another note on the blue side wrasses is that they stopped chasing each other around and are back to swimming/hanging out together again. I guess it was a seasonal/mating thing.
Our ocellaris had spawned, twice, and amidst all of that our female clown severely injured the left side of her mouth/gills. I suspect while trying to chase off the PBT tang, or one of the other larger fish that swam too close to her eggs. She is doing fine now, but cannot completely close her mouth. I have not seen her eat, but she seems to be holding her weight just fine (she has been like this for almost 2 weeks now, give or take)
I saw the golden angel eating pellet food earlier this week. Until now I had suspected that he was only eating microfauna and algae off of the rockwork. I was elated to see him eating the small pellets.
The orange shoulder tang has grown huge, in a very short time (or so it feels). He is like a shark swimming across the tank. When we got him he was smaller than the purple tang and magnificent rabbitfish.. now he easily eclipses both of them.
The longspined urchin has been doing a fantastic job of cleaning the rocks of the red turf algae. The only ones he has were the rocks crowded with acros (really only 1 rock that was too crowded). The cucumbers have been doing a great job keeping the sandbed clean. The flame scallop has been hanging out on the back of tank behind/under a cap for the last 3 weeks or more. It is still with us, far exceeding our expectations.. but unfortunately it has stayed in places that are not visible from the front of the tank. It has also moved quite a distance from it's original placement location at the diagonally opposite corner.
Most corals are starting to color up nicely and their growth is apparent to the point that I have had to thin out and relocate a few. But we still struggle with general tank clarity issues. The skimmer continues to pull out loads of muck, but lately it has pulled out alot more "weak tea" skimmate. Possibly because that is all there is to pull ? The Ca Rx has also done a great job in keeping the alk/Ca levels up. The Chauvet "remote power strip" has worked out wonderfully, and makes everday maintenance a breeze.
here is an FTS from last night. Hopefully there is enough detail to show the growth that I am talking about
well, for those that wanted a update on the little one (as opposed to the tank), here are a couple from last week.
Do I look more or less tired than before Gresh ?
When this girl sleeps, she puts her all into it
And yes, my wife attacked me with a set of electric clippers while I slept on night, since I had majorly procrastinated on getting my hair cut
Do I look more or less tired than before Gresh ?
When this girl sleeps, she puts her all into it
And yes, my wife attacked me with a set of electric clippers while I slept on night, since I had majorly procrastinated on getting my hair cut
spazz
New member
the tank seems to be doing good on auto piolt. do you consider your coral groth average or above average? how about coral colors?
the baby should be slleping alot longer now. you should be able to get at least 3 hrs of sleep between feedings and changes....
i need to talk to you on the phone soon to find out about the expermintal stuff........
the baby should be slleping alot longer now. you should be able to get at least 3 hrs of sleep between feedings and changes....
i need to talk to you on the phone soon to find out about the expermintal stuff........
I attribute the auto-pilot success largely to the Vaolcano skimmer and Calcium Reactor. The other piece of it is the sump/fuge and ATO setup. The only maintenance that I perform now is to clean the skimmer 2 - 3 times a month (yea, I need to bump that up to weekly) and I dose sugar every M/W/F morning. We feed the fish a couple of times a day, on no particular schedule, occassionally frozen food (such as Rods food), but mostly just a combination of dried foods. Outside of that I haven't really touched anything. Oh, and pulling the mangavore magnet across the tank from time to time to clean the front glass
I would say that the growth was average, at least for us, but we have had people tell us that we seem to have a "green thumb" for certain corals (but a black thumb for others at times
). The colors are starting to pick up, but I really attribute the lack of "popping" colors to the water clarity issue that has plagued us from the get go. The more I thought about the tanks that i had seen with almost "invisible" water, they all had very littel water movement. So maybe that is the problem ? just too much water movement keeping everything suspended ? With the new Super Dart I have been able to bump up the water flow through the sump and am now considering trying a filter sock to see if it has any impact at all on our water clarity. With a tank and flow our size any filter won't last more than a day before clogging up. We have a bunch of old socks that I am going to clean and give this "experiment" a try.
I will try to give you a call this afternoon. I feel like I haven't spoken to you in forever
. Thank you very much for your kind words. And thanks for following our thread
. We look forward to your stopping out next weekend On a more general note, I had forgotten about a fish fatality a couple of weeks ago. The pipe fish got sucked into one of the Vortecs immediately following a power outage a couple of weeks ago. I had not yet received a replacement for the BB unit and I think that the pump going from zero to full speed caught the fish off guard. He had been doing great foraging around the tank up until then
On a brighter note there was one picture last night that did come out. And it was one that I really didn't expect to come out. Our geometeric hawkfish only comes out after main lights out. So this picture is taken under 100% actinics, and of course his home is in a rock at the back of the tank *sigh*. But you can see him in the middle of the picture peeking out of his home/cave at the back
. Bear in mind that the rock is roughly 40" from the front glass of the tank and likely over 4' from the camera lense (due to the tripod I was forced to use to get the picture). So forgive the photo quality 
earthboy17
New member
Wow, I didn't think it was possible, but I FINALLY read all 39 pages! Yikes! I'm worn out.
It was pretty amazing reading about your tank from bottom up. Seeing it in person was incredible, but I feel like I missed out on so many details that I would now know to look for.
Tank is beautiful, baby is beautiful, your wife is very nice to let strangers constantly barge around her and the baby (although the tank is hers too)... good stuff all around.
Look forward to crossing paths in the future.
Tom
It was pretty amazing reading about your tank from bottom up. Seeing it in person was incredible, but I feel like I missed out on so many details that I would now know to look for.
Tank is beautiful, baby is beautiful, your wife is very nice to let strangers constantly barge around her and the baby (although the tank is hers too)... good stuff all around.
Look forward to crossing paths in the future.
Tom
raddogz
Premium Member
My goodness, she has grown considerably hasn't she AND she can lift her head up. A strong little girl you have there Tom!
The tank is looking great as always. Are you still using the Ushio 14k bulbs? I will switching from 250w Reeflux 12k to 400w (still IC ballast) soon, but have not decided on bulb choice yet - liking the 12k Reeflux look, but not the par (no actiniic supplementation).
The tank is looking great as always. Are you still using the Ushio 14k bulbs? I will switching from 250w Reeflux 12k to 400w (still IC ballast) soon, but have not decided on bulb choice yet - liking the 12k Reeflux look, but not the par (no actiniic supplementation).
Actually I think it gets a tad less blue as it burns in. After your question I started paying more attention to the tank colors and I think that they are quite a bit more yellow now than they were when first fired. And they are only 6 or so months old (and on an IC ballast for that matter, which is supposed to extend their lifespan). You had me thinking of looking for a bluer bulb . I hoped there might be some more options in the 400w space in the next 6 months when it comes time for us to replace them.
. I hoped there might be some more options in the 400w space in the next 6 months when it comes time for us to replace them.Ok, all of this talk prompted me to take another look at Sanjay's data (you all know how much I love the charts )
So here is what we have now Eileen :
Plot BLV 400W Nepturion 14000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 152 13648 419 123 3.5 0.3649
The Ushio 14k is the same as the BLV 14k (just don't confuse them with the Ushio 10k). At 13.6 Kelvin, it is a much bluer bulb than the 10Ks that we switched from on our tank. But as time moves on I am thinking that they were not blue enough (*sigh*)
The next contender is the Aquaconnect (at over $125 a bulb the last time I looked. I could get 2 Ushios for what 1 AC cost, but it looks like they might be worth it). Ringing in with a PPFD just 9 points lower then the Ushio, but the CCT is off the charts (It has a huge spike in the 450 - 465 range).
Plot Aquaconnect 400W 14000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 143 0 418 121 3.56 0.3421
There were a few other SE bulbs that rang in with decent PPFD and CCT numbers (and some with not so great numbers)
Plot Hamilton 400W 10000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 143 8978 419 121 3.57 0.3427
Plot Ushio 400W 10000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 138 7191 419 120 3.59 0.3296
Plot Giesemann 400W Marine SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 132 7140 414 122 3.46 0.3191
Plot Krystal Star 400W 11000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 131 6909 422 121 3.59 0.3109
Plot Helios 400W 20000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 119 0 420 122 3.52 0.2855
Plot Helios 400W 12500K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 115 24427 412 123 3.45 0.2796
Both Reeflux (10K and 12K) came in with decent color when used on an IC ballast. The 10K edging out with high PPFD, as expected. But even with the higher PAR they still came in at 24 and 37 points (respectively) under the Ushio 14Ks (that is just under 16% and 25% of the Ushio's PAR less). Both had a big spike in the blue range and not much in the higher (more yellow) spectrums, so they both would be pretty blue.
Plot Coralvue ReefLux 400W 10000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 129 0 417 121 3.52 0.3098
Plot Coralvue ReefLux 400W 12000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 116 0 426 122 3.58 0.2723
I think that we will start looking around online to price out some AC bulbs, but last I recalled they were hard to come by and when found in stock they were not exactly cheap. So, if anyone has any leads on where to get them, please post here. I would love to try them out over our tank
)So here is what we have now Eileen :
Plot BLV 400W Nepturion 14000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 152 13648 419 123 3.5 0.3649
The Ushio 14k is the same as the BLV 14k (just don't confuse them with the Ushio 10k
). At 13.6 Kelvin, it is a much bluer bulb than the 10Ks that we switched from on our tank. But as time moves on I am thinking that they were not blue enough (*sigh*)The next contender is the Aquaconnect (at over $125 a bulb the last time I looked. I could get 2 Ushios for what 1 AC cost, but it looks like they might be worth it). Ringing in with a PPFD just 9 points lower then the Ushio, but the CCT is off the charts (It has a huge spike in the 450 - 465 range).
Plot Aquaconnect 400W 14000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 143 0 418 121 3.56 0.3421
There were a few other SE bulbs that rang in with decent PPFD and CCT numbers (and some with not so great numbers
)Plot Hamilton 400W 10000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 143 8978 419 121 3.57 0.3427
Plot Ushio 400W 10000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 138 7191 419 120 3.59 0.3296
Plot Giesemann 400W Marine SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 132 7140 414 122 3.46 0.3191
Plot Krystal Star 400W 11000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 131 6909 422 121 3.59 0.3109
Plot Helios 400W 20000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 119 0 420 122 3.52 0.2855
Plot Helios 400W 12500K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 115 24427 412 123 3.45 0.2796
Both Reeflux (10K and 12K) came in with decent color when used on an IC ballast. The 10K edging out with high PPFD, as expected. But even with the higher PAR they still came in at 24 and 37 points (respectively) under the Ushio 14Ks (that is just under 16% and 25% of the Ushio's PAR less). Both had a big spike in the blue range and not much in the higher (more yellow) spectrums, so they both would be pretty blue.
Plot Coralvue ReefLux 400W 10000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 129 0 417 121 3.52 0.3098
Plot Coralvue ReefLux 400W 12000K SE 1 Icecap 400W Electronic N 116 0 426 122 3.58 0.2723
I think that we will start looking around online to price out some AC bulbs, but last I recalled they were hard to come by and when found in stock they were not exactly cheap. So, if anyone has any leads on where to get them, please post here
. I would love to try them out over our tank
raddogz
Premium Member
I think I'll stick with the these 14k's for a bit, I now have to purchase another 400w IC ballast and another bulb. I will say I like the look of 12k which is reminescent of the Phoenix bulbs, the growth I had under 12k 250w Reeflux was so dismal, and the colors seemed blah (mind I do not run supplemental lighting).
I guess I'll suck it up for now, and see how it goes. It's not like it's awful, just a little whiter in appearance than what I'm used to
I believe Sanjay is running the Giesemann's on his tank. I heading towards the AC down the road, so let me know if you come across any good deals.
I guess I'll suck it up for now, and see how it goes. It's not like it's awful, just a little whiter in appearance than what I'm used to
I believe Sanjay is running the Giesemann's on his tank. I heading towards the AC down the road, so let me know if you come across any good deals.
mcurl98
Premium Member
FWIW, I ended up going with IC 400s and the Helios 20K. I have supps but they go off when the halides are on as they are not needed. I really like the combo and the corals are gowing much better than they were under my Phoenix 14k 250s. To my eye, the phoenixs appear more blue than the Helios. Phoenix was a bit too blue IMO. I've heard the ACs look a lot lot the phoenix.
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