The inwall 380 starfire reborn
- Thread starter JohnL
- Start date
Eilneed, yes, we definitely have seen a improvement in color, and not just a temporary color difference while the bulbs are running, but more permanent (or at least long term) color changes towards the more intense/better. Karl also put an AC bulb over his tank, maybe he will chime in about this colors, etc. I was there when he turned it on for the first time and from his initial comments he really liked it, but that was a couple of weeks ago and I have not touched base to see how it is doing for him (as it burns in more).
For us I see more "pop" with our chalices and a singular example is a blue tipped tenuis we had, that while nice, was nothing extraordinary before. Now it is such a deep royal blue on the tips and edges of it's coralites that I would not have known it was the same coral (but for having watched it change color over a couple of weeks time under the ACs).
I will try to take some picts of it now and find some older ones to compare it to. But things are rather hectic here so no promises as to when I can get that done
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chainsaw5vent
New member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11121935#post11121935 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
So true. My son shows me his, so I show you mine:
EEEYYYUUUCHGGGH!! :eek1: :eek1: :wildone: THAT'S NOT WHAT I THINK IT IS....OR IS IT.????!!
well, it's almost the weekend and the lights are not done yet and the WWDs still have not arrived. UPS has rescheduled and pushed out the delivery once so far, and from the looks of the tracking info it will probably happen again today and get rescheduled for tomorrow. *sigh*.
Aside from that I have been following a "tank scratch" thread here on the Large Reef Tanks forum. I managed to put a scratch on the front of our tank some time ago.. I probably forgot to take my belt off before working on the tank. I need to pick up a few small supplies for the lights from HD and will look for the glass polish stuff from that thread to try to buff out the scratch.
Other than that everything seems to be settled in and doing well. We had added 3 juvenile ocellaris to our tank las weekend in an attempt to create a "family group". We have 1 pair of spawning oce's and a single female perc (from a pair where the male jumped out). The perc hosts in a largish feather duster in the back of the tank. The 3 juvis came from the same family, so they were all siblings, but by the afternoon on the day of their introduction one of the 3 had established itself the alpha and had driven the other two off, out and away from the RBTA. Now it and hte spawning pair share the nem and the perc and other 2 juvis hang out around the feather duster. Since our RBTA split a couple of weeks ago we were going to see about moving the 2 nems further apart so that the 2 groups of clowns could host in them without being too close to fight it out. (the split didn't move more than maybe 4" away on the same rock, if that far. When they fully expand they touch/overlap).
Aside from that I have been following a "tank scratch" thread here on the Large Reef Tanks forum. I managed to put a scratch on the front of our tank some time ago.. I probably forgot to take my belt off before working on the tank. I need to pick up a few small supplies for the lights from HD and will look for the glass polish stuff from that thread to try to buff out the scratch.
Other than that everything seems to be settled in and doing well. We had added 3 juvenile ocellaris to our tank las weekend in an attempt to create a "family group". We have 1 pair of spawning oce's and a single female perc (from a pair where the male jumped out). The perc hosts in a largish feather duster in the back of the tank. The 3 juvis came from the same family, so they were all siblings, but by the afternoon on the day of their introduction one of the 3 had established itself the alpha and had driven the other two off, out and away from the RBTA. Now it and hte spawning pair share the nem and the perc and other 2 juvis hang out around the feather duster. Since our RBTA split a couple of weeks ago we were going to see about moving the 2 nems further apart so that the 2 groups of clowns could host in them without being too close to fight it out. (the split didn't move more than maybe 4" away on the same rock, if that far. When they fully expand they touch/overlap).
spazz
New member
just a couple of things to think about wehn polishing glass out. dont use a buffer to remove the scratch. it can creat heat which will make the glass expand in that area of the glass. your glass is under pressure already. you dont want to have it crack by adding more pressure in a small area. when you get your polishing kit do a test on the back of the tank with a good lighting so you can see if it makes the glass perfectly clear or not. if that works on the back of the tank then you can work on the scratch itself. be prepared for lots of elbo grease to get the scratch out. you will be there a while.
unfortunately testing on the back pane won't work (or wouldn't be a valid test). The front is starfire, the other 3 sides are not. The scratch has been there for months now.. so I am not sure how, when or if I am going to try to remove it , but it is something that we eventually want to take care of.
, but it is something that we eventually want to take care of.
polywise
OLD SCHOOL-ish
I haven't been following this issueexactly, but when I polished scratches from my tank, I created a 2" side walled frame with masking tape adhering to the glass itsself. about a few inches larger than the area that I wanted to polish the frame collected the splatter from the wheel. I used a fine mist of water during the process to keep the heat down... Make any sense?
Makes sense, more or less . Thanks for the tip Jim
On another note the Reefs Gods were smiling on us today. A knock on the door brought a box of ReefNutrition goodness to our tank. We were running low on roti-feast and arcti-pods... but not any more !!!. So our tank got an additional shot of the remainder of our older bottles and a goot dosing from the new ones
. The acans all looked like someone stuck an air hose in them (they are so "fluffy" right now !!)
The WWDs actually showed up today also, so I will be testing those out later on today
. Thanks for the tip Jim On another note the Reefs Gods were smiling on us today. A knock on the door brought a box of ReefNutrition goodness to our tank. We were running low on roti-feast and arcti-pods... but not any more !!!. So our tank got an additional shot of the remainder of our older bottles and a goot dosing from the new ones
. The acans all looked like someone stuck an air hose in them (they are so "fluffy" right now !!) The WWDs actually showed up today also, so I will be testing those out later on today
WWDs been running on the back 2 pumps since Thursday in lagoon mode. Even though I have it turned up to about the same max level that I had the original drivers, it seems to be "less" overall than the original drivers. I am sure that is just my timing in checking the flow, etc. Overall we are pretty happy with the WWDs. We still need to move those back 2 Vortecs to pair up on the side panes. That will likely be later this coming week, if not next weekend.
We finished the T5 installation this morning. It is amazing to me how much difference a coupe of 2' T5s can make. I have to say that I am much happier with the coverage. I still need to throw a watt meter on the T5s, but I estimate they should only cost us about $15 per month to run. I goofed and ordered one set of end caps too few, so we were not able to set up the dawn/dusk T5s. I will order some later on tonight, but doubt they will be here until Thursday (Monday being a Federal holiday, I don't know who is open, and what shipping companies are shipping). For now I just plugged the "daylight" T5s into the Dawn/Dusk outlet. That will suffice until I get everything installed and setup the way we want it next week/weekend. Once the endcaps arrive it should be a simple matter to getting them installed (the wiring is all run and the mounts drilled and ready for the endcaps).
By the time the endcaps get here and we get to installing them we should have a good idea if this new lighting setup is going to be too much, too little or just right. (can't be too little, since the tank was running w/o the supplemental ligting for the las several months), but I have concerns that it might end up being too much. With just the T5s or just the MH on the sides and front look weak, but when both are on those areas enjoy nice and even coverage. Timewill tell though.
We are slowly moving ever closer towards finishing our filtration/lighting updates for the year (thankfully... altough the year itself is running out fast).
We finished the T5 installation this morning. It is amazing to me how much difference a coupe of 2' T5s can make. I have to say that I am much happier with the coverage. I still need to throw a watt meter on the T5s, but I estimate they should only cost us about $15 per month to run. I goofed and ordered one set of end caps too few, so we were not able to set up the dawn/dusk T5s. I will order some later on tonight, but doubt they will be here until Thursday (Monday being a Federal holiday, I don't know who is open, and what shipping companies are shipping). For now I just plugged the "daylight" T5s into the Dawn/Dusk outlet. That will suffice until I get everything installed and setup the way we want it next week/weekend. Once the endcaps arrive it should be a simple matter to getting them installed (the wiring is all run and the mounts drilled and ready for the endcaps).
By the time the endcaps get here and we get to installing them we should have a good idea if this new lighting setup is going to be too much, too little or just right. (can't be too little, since the tank was running w/o the supplemental ligting for the las several months
), but I have concerns that it might end up being too much. With just the T5s or just the MH on the sides and front look weak, but when both are on those areas enjoy nice and even coverage. Timewill tell though.We are slowly moving ever closer towards finishing our filtration/lighting updates for the year
(thankfully... altough the year itself is running out fast).The lighting is working out well, but I think we are going to change it around a bit more. The two 24" T5s down the sides are pretty much perfect, but the ones across the front are not going to stay. We originally were putting the two 3' lamps end to end for the dawn/dusk lights so taht we could use an existing IC 660 ballast. But that is just not working out like I think we are going to go. So we will swap the two 3' and the 1 5' around, rewire the ballasts for it and just buy an IC 430 and set things up the way that I want to. The lighting rack that I hung for the front T5s will just need to be taken down and put back in essentially "backwards" to swap the 3'ers and 5'er. Since it is hanging from 2 rollers in the over head track this is very easilyu accomplished (but I won't both with it until the 430 comes in from Marine Depot later this week). At that time I will take some pictures of it all to post
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Here is a picture of the T5s that I put up over the weekend. I will be modifying it all further once the parts arrive later to week.
Here is more of a closeup of one of the racks
With this setup we can move the T5 on all 3 axis. This will allow us to tune the light for the corals and rockwork below it. I even have it tilted a little to accomodate rising rockwork in the tank, so that the back of the rock that is taller than the front still gets the same amount of light reaching it (to avoid burning corals, etc). I also have it slanted a little to where the end at the front of the tank is more to the edge of the tank and the back of the T5 is pushed in more towards the LA III reflector. This puts more light where the rocks and corals are.
Once everything gets here we will also start trying different placements for the Vortecs. Here is our planned layout once it is all said and done (but that may change with the outcome of our testing of the different placements and flow settings).
Here is more of a closeup of one of the racks
With this setup we can move the T5 on all 3 axis. This will allow us to tune the light for the corals and rockwork below it. I even have it tilted a little to accomodate rising rockwork in the tank, so that the back of the rock that is taller than the front still gets the same amount of light reaching it (to avoid burning corals, etc). I also have it slanted a little to where the end at the front of the tank is more to the edge of the tank and the back of the T5 is pushed in more towards the LA III reflector. This puts more light where the rocks and corals are.
Once everything gets here we will also start trying different placements for the Vortecs. Here is our planned layout once it is all said and done (but that may change with the outcome of our testing of the different placements and flow settings).
stainless steel u-bolts are darned expensive too *sigh*, but it was a way to put them up with optimal configuration flexibilty and also without needing to fabricate an entirely new lighting rack .
Oh, and I forgot to mention in the list of this weekends plans : I desparately need to clen our Vortec wet ends
*oh joy!!*
.Oh, and I forgot to mention in the list of this weekends plans : I desparately need to clen our Vortec wet ends
*oh joy!!*Well the pieces parts showed up from MD yesterday so I decided to take some power reading before further reworking the lighting setup. The T5s running with two 2' bulbs and one 5' bulb comes in at 210 W. The odd things is that the amps is 2.45 and voltage 117, so the VoltAmps comes out to 290 or so... I know that the ballast will consume some wattage, but that should still be represented in the readings at the outlet. I tried 2 different Kill-a-Watt meters to see if the one I was using was bad or miscallibrated. All readings were within half a point between the two. I will say that this is the first time I have tried to check consumption on a flourescent ballast.
I have the meter set up on our halides so once they come on in an hour I will be able to see exactly what they are running at in our setup (instead of using the numbers off of Sanjay's site). Since ballasts and bulbs can differ from production run to production run, I really wanted to see exactly how much our lights wre costing us. Once I have those #s I can plug them into our Excel spreadsheet and let the formulas tell me just how much we are spending on lights.
I have the meter set up on our halides so once they come on in an hour I will be able to see exactly what they are running at in our setup (instead of using the numbers off of Sanjay's site). Since ballasts and bulbs can differ from production run to production run, I really wanted to see exactly how much our lights wre costing us. Once I have those #s I can plug them into our Excel spreadsheet and let the formulas tell me just how much we are spending on lights.
Well, the halides were more what I was expecting. Running both 400w ACs off of a single outlet here is what the readings were :
117v and 820 VA (around 815w). It rang in right at 7 amps, which is pretty much in line with the 3.56a per lamp that Sanjay's site had listed.
Here is a rough draft of the Excel Spreadsheet that you we use : power_cost.xls
We plugged in .37 for our KWH rate for a combination of two reasons. 1. That is our current tier 3 rate (over 300% baseline usage) and 2. We are always well into our 3rd tier each month (usually by the 3rd week). I find it interesting the people that like to average the costs of their tiers to use to calculate the cost of their tank/equipment. The way I look at it is if I didn't have a tank, how much would I save ? All of it would be from the 3rd tier, so that is how much the tank costs to keep.
117v and 820 VA (around 815w). It rang in right at 7 amps, which is pretty much in line with the 3.56a per lamp that Sanjay's site had listed.
Here is a rough draft of the Excel Spreadsheet that you we use : power_cost.xls
We plugged in .37 for our KWH rate for a combination of two reasons. 1. That is our current tier 3 rate (over 300% baseline usage) and 2. We are always well into our 3rd tier each month (usually by the 3rd week). I find it interesting the people that like to average the costs of their tiers to use to calculate the cost of their tank/equipment. The way I look at it is if I didn't have a tank, how much would I save ? All of it would be from the 3rd tier, so that is how much the tank costs to keep.
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