Top down shots

[Big E]

Thank you Ed for your thorough answer and thank you for this thread. I think it's your systematic and consistent approach that gets me to read this thread over and over again. The coral photographs are extreme and of ooh aaah and wow quality.

Please.... more overview shots and FTS.

Thanks your comments are appreciated, I'll get a few shots posted. I've been busy hacking up my corals, reducing sizes, and in some cases I want to start with small pieces again as I think that what keeps me motivated. Once everything is grown up and there's no room to add anything the challenge and fun is gone.

Geez! If you can get these results with 4 bulbs over a 24" tank, then I should have no problem with 4 above an 18" wide tank. I must have got my threads confused, I thought yours was 18.

Do you have all your bulbs right close together in the center? Or spread apart across the top? If I remember right your bulbs are about 6" off the water, is that right?

Frankly I love the 2 Blue+ 2 coral+ look. That's what I started with, then I started adding all these LED's and such and things got complex. I'd rather just go back to simple. If it works so well for you then I can look elsewhere for any trouble I might have.

Your right! That LED tank is very nice. I'm flipping through the thread now.

Thanks so much for the help! Your tank and photography is gorgeous.
Whiskey

Thanks, keep in mind my overdriven bulbs produce a lot more par than standard driven. At 1/4" inch from bulb I get 1,100 and with standard ATI ballasts about 800 on a par meter. The diy reflectors are slightly wider than what's in commercial fixtures as well.

My bulbs are centered on the tank.

Instead of distance from the water surface use the distance from the tank floor to your lights as a starting point. The air or water interface isn't a factor worth caring about.

You can use the table I posted on post # 668 for reference.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Thanks, keep in mind my overdriven bulbs produce a lot more par than standard driven. At 1/4" inch from bulb I get 1,100 and with standard ATI ballasts about 800 on a par meter. The diy reflectors are slightly wider than what's in commercial fixtures as well.

My bulbs are centered on the tank.

Instead of distance from the water surface use the distance from the tank floor to your lights as a starting point. The air or water interface isn't a factor worth caring about.

You can use the table I posted on post # 668 for reference.

Hi Ed,

Is it also possible that your overdriven bulbs produce different spectrum compared to bulbs driven by standard ATI ballasts?

 

[Big E]

Yes. that's why I'm hesitant to get rid of them........I like the results I get. I can also visually see a difference............standard driven bulbs will show a overall slightly bluer look.

It's similar to what I referenced about a Radium MH being over driven vs how they perform on a standard ballast.

I'd prefer to use a nice looking fixture and the bulbs last longer if I can get the same results.
I could just switch my 6 bulb Sunpower from my frag tank to really get some good info, but right now I'm more interested in experimenting with adding some actinic bulbs to my 4 bulb setup.

I'll admit to dragging my feet on this......I've had two Geismann actinic bulbs for over a year to try this out. Every time I see my friend Tony he rips me on this and I deserve it in some way.

 

[PatrikD]

I have switched to eight bulb sunpower 50/50 coral+/blue+ from LED/T5 since nearly two weeks. Fixture is 6" above water.
My tank is 36" x 20" x 22". Height 20". The highest placed corals are in the middle. I run 12 hour with two bulbs and 4,5 h with 6 bulbs and 15 min with 8 bulbs I plan to ramp up in a month to 8 bulbs eight hours a day and 2 bulbs 12 hours a day. The corals have not responded either bad or good yet. Alk amount/day seems stable. My nutrition levels are high.
Any thoughts?

 

[Wiskey]

Thanks your comments are appreciated, I'll get a few shots posted. I've been busy hacking up my corals, reducing sizes, and in some cases I want to start with small pieces again as I think that what keeps me motivated. Once everything is grown up and there's no room to add anything the challenge and fun is gone.




Thanks, keep in mind my overdriven bulbs produce a lot more par than standard driven. At 1/4" inch from bulb I get 1,100 and with standard ATI ballasts about 800 on a par meter. The diy reflectors are slightly wider than what's in commercial fixtures as well.

My bulbs are centered on the tank.

Instead of distance from the water surface use the distance from the tank floor to your lights as a starting point. The air or water interface isn't a factor worth caring about.

You can use the table I posted on post # 668 for reference.

I have the Tek Retrofit kit from way back. I suspect it uses the same "W" shaped reflectors that yours does which clip onto the bulb. This was quite an innovation back then

Here is a picture of the light hood up:
LightHoodUp by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

That is 2 blue+ one coral+ and one purple+ (I needed the purple after adding the LED).

The par does give me pause though. One of my ballasts is the one that came with the kit, the other is a newer dimable one but they both drive the bulbs at normal outputs. I'm curious to test my PAR 1/4 inch away from a bulb.

My tank is 22" deep, and my bulbs are about 5-6" up (hard to measure with the hood closed) so the bottom of my tank is a little further away than yours, but at the top should still be plenty fine.

Whiskey

 

[fuzzyfred101]

The diy reflectors are slightly wider than what's in commercial fixtures as well.

Do you have a picture of your diy reflectors? Or are they just the normal retrofit reflectors? Thanks!

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

[PatrikD]

My tank is 24" wide with 4x54 over driven...........it does need two more bulbs. I may experiment with two actinics on the outside or just add more of the 50/50, but I probably won't run the outside two more than 4 hours a day.

Either way, I'm going to angle the reflectors slightly in.

I suppose your idea with the actinics is to get some fluorescence from LPS and other corals.

I must say that your idea of having a consistent spectrum over the whole tank so you can experiment with position more effectively because of of less variables in play was something that made me try more blue+/coral+ tubes and ditch the leds. Wouldn't it make more sense to add 2 to 4 c+/b+ t5 to your tank as you suggest?

My tank is 4" deeper than yours so probably to low par for acroporas (most of them) close to bottom. I use small egg crate shelves to elevate corals mounted on one piece of rock each, which is hard to camouflage but not impossible.

 

[Big E]

I have switched to eight bulb sunpower 50/50 coral+/blue+ from LED/T5 since nearly two weeks. Fixture is 6" above water.
My tank is 36" x 20" x 22". Height 20". The highest placed corals are in the middle. I run 12 hour with two bulbs and 4,5 h with 6 bulbs and 15 min with 8 bulbs I plan to ramp up in a month to 8 bulbs eight hours a day and 2 bulbs 12 hours a day. The corals have not responded either bad or good yet. Alk amount/day seems stable. My nutrition levels are high.
Any thoughts?

Give it some time......two weeks is nothing. Your final target for duration and time seem fine.

What do you mean by high nutrient levels?

 

[Big E]

I have the Tek Retrofit kit from way back. I suspect it uses the same "W" shaped reflectors that yours does which clip onto the bulb. This was quite an innovation back then

Here is a picture of the light hood up:
LightHoodUp by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

That is 2 blue+ one coral+ and one purple+ (I needed the purple after adding the LED).

The par does give me pause though. One of my ballasts is the one that came with the kit, the other is a newer dimable one but they both drive the bulbs at normal outputs. I'm curious to test my PAR 1/4 inch away from a bulb.

My tank is 22" deep, and my bulbs are about 5-6" up (hard to measure with the hood closed) so the bottom of my tank is a little further away than yours, but at the top should still be plenty fine.
Whiskey

That looks fine to me.....the only thing I would do differently is probably only use the blue leds with a dimmer and get my white from the T5's similar to the link I posted.

Tek fixtures were good performers back then, so if that is the same innerworkings I would think you'll get that same 800 or so reading.

Do you have a picture of your diy reflectors? Or are they just the normal retrofit reflectors? Thanks!

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Yes, they're the standard Diy reflectors.

 

[PatrikD]

Nutrition levels
Two weeks ago: PO4 0.22 and NO3 25 (I'm on vacation since one week now)
I will measure tomorrow. I believe it will be a little lower because I've been skimming more and dosing some carbon for a while.

 

[Big E]

I suppose your idea with the actinics is to get some fluorescence from LPS and other corals.

I must say that your idea of having a consistent spectrum over the whole tank so you can experiment with position more effectively because of of less variables in play was something that made me try more blue+/coral+ tubes and ditch the leds. Wouldn't it make more sense to add 2 to 4 c+/b+ t5 to your tank as you suggest?

My tank is 4" deeper than yours so probably to low par for acroporas (most of them) close to bottom. I use small egg crate shelves to elevate corals mounted on one piece of rock each, which is hard to camouflage but not impossible.

The actinics are for supplementation for some pop and I want to angle them in slightly. This is similar to what what was done with MH by adding some actinic bulbs.

I keep my corals mainly in that 16-18" width range. When the corals are small this works ok..........when they get larger you need more bulbs to eliminate shadows or if I want to expand my width coverage then I'll just add a Coral+ and blue +

Two weeks ago: PO4 0.22 and NO3 25 (I'm on vacation since one week now)
I will measure tomorrow. I believe it will be a little lower because I've been skimming more and dosing some carbon for a while.

That's higher than what would work for me. My rough ranges are P04-.02-.10--------N03-.75-5ppm...even up to 10ppm seems ok.

 

[PatrikD]

That's higher than what would work for me. My rough ranges are P04-.02-.10--------N03-.75-5ppm...even up to 10ppm seems ok.

I have had to low values for a couple of months ago and my tank wasn't doing very well. After dosing with KNO3, feeding more heavily and infact turning the skimmer off during nights the values started to climb very slowly. However algae didn't grow so I relaxed and did not measure very frequently. When I finally did measure I got those values I stated before. In the meantime my tank got healthier and I started to see growth. This is when I stumbled across your thread again and became convinced I should try a T5 only tank. Just when thing starts to look better I did a new major change of lighting . Perhaps not the wisest thing to do. However I have noticed before when adding T5 to my Kessil that the corals acclimatizes much quicker than when I added Kessils for the first time. Then I bleached corals.

 

[PatrikD]

I keep my corals mainly in that 16-18" width range. When the corals are small this works ok..........when they get larger you need more bulbs to eliminate shadows or if I want to expand my width coverage then I'll just add a Coral+ and blue +

I understand, but you have many more corals (and more beautiful!) than I do. Have you really places for all them in that width range? .

You have very colorful corals in the states to choose from obviously. So much that vendors in europe invents categories they call US-style frags which are colorful and raised with led and higher nutrition levels!!!

https://www.faunamarin.de/en/animals/us-style-primefrags/

 

[Big E]

I have had to low values for a couple of months ago and my tank wasn't doing very well. After dosing with KNO3, feeding more heavily and infact turning the skimmer off during nights the values started to climb very slowly. However algae didn't grow so I relaxed and did not measure very frequently. When I finally did measure I got those values I stated before. In the meantime my tank got healthier and I started to see growth. This is when I stumbled across your thread again and became convinced I should try a T5 only tank. Just when thing starts to look better I did a new major change of lighting . Perhaps not the wisest thing to do. However I have noticed before when adding T5 to my Kessil that the corals acclimatizes much quicker than when I added Kessils for the first time. Then I bleached corals.

If your corals are doing well at those levels then keep on keepin on.

I understand, but you have many more corals (and more beautiful!) than I do. Have you really places for all them in that width range? .

You have very colorful corals in the states to choose from obviously. So much that vendors in europe invents categories they call US-style frags which are colorful and raised with led and higher nutrition levels!!!

https://www.faunamarin.de/en/animals/us-style-primefrags/

I've split some of my large colonies more than once and also frag a lot to keep corals in check. I only have 4 large size pieces...the other "large" colonies are only about 3-4 inches.

I'm also taking pictures from two tanks at times.

That's funny about those prime US frags, gotta give them props for creative marketing. The only thing we may have that is different is aqua cultured frags that have a long history.

 

[Wiskey]

That looks fine to me.....the only thing I would do differently is probably only use the blue leds with a dimmer and get my white from the T5's similar to the link I posted.

Tek fixtures were good performers back then, so if that is the same innerworkings I would think you'll get that same 800 or so reading.

Yep! That is one of the original Tek fixtures, the only thing I've had to change is the endcaps and bulbs. I used the same style endcap, if you ever need to look Dr. Fosters sells nearly identical endcaps that clip into the original screw base.

Your right, I wasn't happy with the LED's so I've removed them now. Now that I'm getting nutrients in better order they were making my coral light anyway. I will run with 4x54W T5 for a while, and if I decide I want more light I'll make the necessary hood modifications to use 6x54W.

Thank you!
Whiskey

 

[uncwba00]

Just want to add, this is an F'in Awesome thread.

 

[Ucantwin]

Hey Ed, I just read through your whole thread. I have a few questions about nutrients for you if you don't mind. Some of the things I ask will be from your tank many years ago but since I just it, it's something I want to ask about.

In the beginning of your thread you had pretty high po4 and 0 no3 and your corals looked amazing! Towards the end of your thread you have low po4 and a few ppm of no3 and everything still looks amazing. You recommend that people keep their no3 higher than po4? Why is that if your tank was beautiful when it wasn't that ratio?

I use chaeto for nutrient reduction (no carbon dosing) and my po4 is .03 and no3 stays undetectable with salifert. I raised no3 by dosing potassium nitrate to 2ppm and within a day or two my sand turned mostly brown and started getting a little brown algae on my powerheads. If it was your tank would you just ride out the brown sand and dirty powerheads to keep no3 detectable? Stop dosing no3 and have it go back to 0 through chaeto?

The tank is a 180 gallon with roughly 20 fish and 4 of them are tangs. I feed on average 4 cubes of frozen a day.

 

[Big E]

Just want to add, this is an F'in Awesome thread.

Thanks!

Hey Ed, I just read through your whole thread. I have a few questions about nutrients for you if you don't mind. Some of the things I ask will be from your tank many years ago but since I just it, it's something I want to ask about.

In the beginning of your thread you had pretty high po4 and 0 no3 and your corals looked amazing! Towards the end of your thread you have low po4 and a few ppm of no3 and everything still looks amazing. You recommend that people keep their no3 higher than po4? Why is that if your tank was beautiful when it wasn't that ratio?

When I had the high phosphates some pest algae and cyanos became issues and would slow down frag growth and also be unsightly. The NO3 was actually zero as I was dosing vinegar.

The PO4 levels above .30ppm started to also slow down overall growth.

Corals mainly grew faster at levels when PO4 was at or below .12 and pest algae became more manageable. Having detectable nitrates also helped.

I recommend the the nutrient range due to my experiences and also tracking other successful Sps systems. Most fall in that range area.

Some of this is also due to my experiences with my frag tank (plumbed separate)and the issues I had with low nitrates.


I use chaeto for nutrient reduction (no carbon dosing) and my po4 is .03 and no3 stays undetectable with salifert. I raised no3 by dosing potassium nitrate to 2ppm and within a day or two my sand turned mostly brown and started getting a little brown algae on my powerheads. If it was your tank would you just ride out the brown sand and dirty powerheads to keep no3 detectable? Stop dosing no3 and have it go back to 0 through chaeto?

I would ride it out.........diatoms seldon last and burn themselves out. You also have to give the "new" bacterial system time to adjust and balance out and then the corals will start to show the benefits. Sometimes overall results can take a few months.

The tank is a 180 gallon with roughly 20 fish and 4 of them are tangs. I feed on average 4 cubes of frozen a day.

 

[Big E]

A few new shots--

Pink Shortcake-- Late update on this...... I fragged it as it was touching other corals. It morphed in color since the last picture.
The branch skin got lighter and if you look close the polyps have a green center and red petals.

01-18-17

pink shortcake R 011817 by Big E 52, on Flickr

Exploded with new growth quickly--

03-04-17

pink shortcake R 030417 by Big E 52, on Flickr

BC Joker

Tierra del fuego

tierra 041017 R by Big E 52, on Flickr

SC Orange Passion

orange passion two R 0040317 by Big E 52, on Flickr

 

[reefmutt]

Stunning!
Absolutely amazing, Ed