Ok, not alot of updates at this time. Livestock wise we had a coral fall over into several others. Our Paletta Blue never encrusted, even though it is 9+ months old and pretty large now (it was medium sized to begin with). So far no major damage from the stings, but only time will tell. And now I need to figure out where to relocate the coral to.
Planned updates :
AC bulbs (should arrive next Tuesday, according to UPS -- same day as Halo 3.. hhrrmmpphh)
More optimized skimmer body (no ETA yet from Scott, hopefully in a week or so, depending on his workload)
Add ozone to the skimmer (but not until after we get the new body installed and broken in)
Upgrade to the wireless Vortec drivers (no idea on eta here, maybe by the end of October ?)
We have high hopes that the cominbation of those modifications/upgrades will greatly improve the overall appearance and operation of our tank. Plus the general major maintenance that we will perform during those changes (IE: clean the reflectors when we change out the bulbs, wet vac the skimmer and possibly sump during the skimmer modifications, clean all Vortec wet ends when we upgrade drivers, etc).
On a related topic I was having a conversation with someone regarding the AC bulbs and their coloration. So me being me I went off and started studying spectral plots more in depth.
Keeping the wavelength data in mind :
There was an article a couple of years ago that proposed that UVA rays helped corals to a certain degree, even though it is widely accepted that the usable range for corals is 400 - 700 (the visible range), at least that is what I recall as being the usable spectrum by our corals. The possibility of using UVA is also why I exteneded the plots to cover from 350 to 750, as I was curious as to how the various bulbs fared in those areas. As for flourescing below 420 NM, there is significantly more "pop" between 450 and 470 than the whole of 350 through 420.
Here is a comparison between what we have now and what we should expect from the AquaConnect bulbs.
The power consumption should be pretty comparable as well as the PAR (within a few points either way on both). You can definitely see a much higher spike int he 450 NM (blue/actinic) range and a good bit less in the green (550 NM) and yellow (590 - 630 NM) ranges.
Now the big debate has been surrounding the ACs compared to Radiums. So I took a hard look at them also and here is what I came up with :
You can see that the AC bulb has a larger spike in the blue/actinic range and also has a larger spike down near the UVA range (320 - 400). Comparable through the green and yellow ranges with the AC bieng a little flat through the blue/green trasnition spectrum and lower in the reds than the Radium. Both have pretty comparable PAR (143 for AC and 147 for Radium). But the kicker is that the Radium takes 5.11 amps to push it while the AC uses only 3.56. That is a 43% increase to go from the AC to the Radium (to get comparable PAR). So if your electric bill to run the ACs was $100 per month, it would cost $143 to run the radiums. Not to mention that it is generally accepted (although never proven scientifically) that bulbs run off of HQIs burn out faster (need replacing sooner) than bulbs run off of Electronic Ballasts. So the clear choice to me is the AC, even though they cost a little more up front, they pay that back within the first 2 months (at least out here in Ca they do).
. I also need to determine the best next bulb to put over our tank. I will say that the growth has been adequate with the Ushios, but not phenomenal like it was with the 250W XM 10Ks. We do have more color than with the 10Ks now though, so there is always that trade off. Like you we wanted to get the good growth then switch over to a bluer bulb for color, but as with most people we want both, and we want it now !!!!! 
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