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Cultivated Reef

HOB Refugium light spill/bulb questions


mrozdak

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I connected my HOB refugium to my tank today, I purchased a 6500K bulb from home depot and there is a lot of light spill into the tank. I know most people turn their refugium light on after the display light goes off to keep ph stable. The refuge is only holds one gallon of water and there isnt that much flow, I mainly want it to keep pods. Will this small amount of water keep PH stable? Because of the light spill should I just have the fuge light on during the same time as my main lights? Also I bought a sylvania micro-mini cfl bulb at 6500k will the grow chaeto efficiently? any help would be great thanks.

 

Here are pictures of the light spill, fuge, and bulb:

 

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photo2-2.jpg

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i would get the bulb a bit closer to the fuge, and angle it a bit more toward the wall... you would be surprised how much that little bit does for your PH. that bulb should work just fine, it is what i use over both my fuges... i run a 24h light cycle on my chaeto tho

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Yeah ill try to angle the fixture differently but i feel like their will still be a lot of spill. Didnt wanna paint the HOB black because id like to see inside of it. You think a cover on the back of the tank will help?

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I had a similar problem and I ended up just adding a JBJ led light and pointed it sideways so there is little to no light spill. I keep the big top light and cycled it off at night, but run the jbj all the time.

 

My caleurpa is growing very well but my chaeto is dying off.. I think the caleurpa is just strangling it..

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Go to Home depot, buy a 3 or 4 gang , plastic gangbox, old construction style (meant for existiing homes). Then either cut up the fixture you have, or buy a light socket base, and a ~2$ extension cord.

 

If you want to use a 60W equivlent CFL, buy the 3 gang box, or a 4 gang box for the 100W cfl equivlent. Test fit the bulb and socket in the store, and make sure you leave room to unscrew the bulb. ;)

 

Cut the electrical sockets off the cord, pull the cord into the gang box and wire to the light socket base. Attach the light socket base to the gang box via glue, or if you get the right one, it's got a screw to a bracket, you can remove the bracket and use the screw to screw into the plastic gang box.

 

Attach velcro to your gang box and to the back of your HOB. Make sure the hooks are on the HOB side, so you don't scratch up your HOB fuge. ;) If you care, send me a PM and I'll try to send you some pictures.

 

It WILL increase make the space required behind HOB to the wall by 3"ish so be aware.

 

However, it'll leave almost NO light spilling into the tank or the room.

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Yeah, I started with something like the OP's which was 10$ and went to what I did which cost like 15$ with the velcro and everything. Soooo much nicer, and no spillage to the tank or the room. Strange how we will spend so much money on corals or dodads but we'll try to skimp a couple of bucks on out fuge lighting.

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