Thanks. Bring your 20G tank back to life and you've got yourself a guaranteed champion right there!

I've been contemplating your crazy lighting setup and I'm wondering if I could somehow incorporate my Coralife Hang-On 150W 10,000K into the mix with my 20,000K 250W. Got any ideas for me?

You would have to make a custom pendant (out of wood or something) and run them both within the same housing an equal distance apart from eachother. It would be one helluva production, require you to mod a VERY decent reflector, and probably be slightly aggrivating... BUT it would be WELL worth the effort.

Something to this effect:

Looks like something I NEED to do. Why waste a 10K light when my new SPS stuff will be expecting to have it. I am assuming that I'll be using the two different ballasts for each light, yes? Having the ability to switch each one on and off at different times would be MINT.

Here's what my setup looks like now. If I build a ghetto fab one in the garage, it would completely kill the look. Perhaps there's a local shop that could take my existing aluminum pendant and have it modded for BOTH bulbs, using both ballasts. I believe your right on in having them both in ONE pendant, especially since it would be spot shining down on an 18" cube. This is the kind of shi! that keeps me up at night.

Yes, 2 ballasts, 2 switches/cords/plugs etc.

To be honest, I don't think the reflector inside a single pendant would be large enough. The idea is you want the bulbs to be spaced equal distances apart from eachother according to the width of the tank. At that point the style of the reflector plays a very important role in distributing the light from each bulb equally over the tank from their position (which is slightly left or right of the fixture). This way when both bulbs are on the light doesn't seem to meet in the middle, and rather meshes together creating one hue. Make sense? Not sure if this is possible in one small reflector. you can try though!

well i have a ton of zoas, i have xenia frogspawn, blastos, acans, a brain, a plate coral a ric, yuma, green star polyps...ill probably start my own thread lol...btw man your tank is killer. Your 14 bc inspired me to do more with it and make my tank look like the great barrier reef(never gunna happen)...i hope you win in the contest because it looks like youve put lots of work into it.

Based on your list of corals, it appears that you may not need to does too frequently. How often must you dose manually for alkalinity and calcium now? If it's only once or twice per week, you might make it easier and more cost effective to maintain your levels by doing weekly water changes. You should definitely start your own thread to track the progress of your tank. People in this community have helped me make many of the decisions for my own setup simply because I have one. Funny, I think I check my thread as often as my work email! As far as the contest goes, it's nice just to be in it. Each one of the tanks are so incredibly unique that I honestly don't think any one is better than the other.

Point well taken. I'm also wondering if the higher wattage of 250 vs 150 somewhat compensates for the higher kelvin rating. Perhaps I can still get some good growth and color with the higher light intensity, although I'm using a 20,000k bulb. I might leave well enough alone for a few months and see how things go. If my SPS don't color up or even lose color, I can bring in more yellow or simply change out the bulb. I'm like you though, I want it all 10, 20, 50k and throw in the actinics too! There's always the next tank.

Yep! Sounds like me alright! lol...
There is always the next tank, but you still got that one fore now! And if you don't trust your own craftsmanship, you could always see if Stoney can rig you up something PRO.

I think you are fine with the 250W 20k. Sure, it would be awesome if you had the 150W 10k in the mix too, but then you would have to raise the lights a little to keep your zoos and LPS happy, I think.

Mixing MH spectra does tend to create the best quality of light, IMO. Your SPS would love you for it. But, it might piss off your LPS and softies if you keep the fixture too close to the tank.

I have contemplated putting a 20k bulb I have laying around in the left of the two pendants over my tank. The corals on the left all are more shade-tolerant species, and the fading from white into blue might look neat. Or, it might look stupid, i'm not sure. I'll try it sometime when i'm bored and post a pic.

+1 With that kind of lighting you wouldn't need the lights to be as close to the water.

Although, the lps and softies tend not to mind the extra burst of light (for 4 hours or so) in the middle of the light cycle. It would only be an issue IMO if you had both bulbs on together for the entire cycle.

If we're talking only 4hrs mid light cycle, what I could do is mount my 150W 10,000K Hang On to a stand of sorts and put it in place (directly behind the overflow) sometime between 10am and 3pm. When the burst-of-light period is over, I can simply tuck it away in the closet. One extra chore to do, but I could liken it to walking the dog or taking out the trash. What do you guys think? Would it be worth the extra effort? I'd just need to figure out how to rig it up.

EATEN ALIVE. Serial killer cleaner shrimp.

Last night, I witnessed my cleaner shrimp make a nice meal out of my last surviving peppermint shrimp. Quite a interesting sight to see it attack the eyes first. See the pics and notice pepper's eyes have been extracted. What I've been wondering is if 1) he also killed and ate the other peppermint I had in the tank & 2) if this peppermint became a target only after it had fallen ill OR if the cleaner hunted a perfectly healthy shrimp as prey. Nonetheless, I see it as a good thing to have a clean up predator in the tank. Might prevent a dying fish from rotting in the cracks of live rock.





BTW: The cleaner shrimp is also suspected of eating not one but TWO HEADS of my coco worm.

THEY'RE HAPPY NOW
Patty, thanks again for the blue tubs! Looks like 12-13 polyps in all.


ORA FRAGS
Just monitoring steady growth and development of my Bird's Nest and Rosco's Blue Green Acro.

If you didn't mind the extra work then I think you should give it a shot. Just make sure you start the light off at least 12" off the water's surface. If you notice your corals reacting poorly to the extra light then discontinue the use of it. When I started adding the extra light, within a week my acros had responded via coloration.

IF you give this a go, take a before picture (decent macro and full coral shot) and then an after picture 2-3 weeks later. See if there is any noticeable difference (good or bad) and use your judgement to figure out if you should lower the light/discontinue use.

I would love to see it work out for you! I don't think you would experience any negative effects other then possible algae growth.

Let me know what you decide to do!

WILL DO and I'll follow these measures while I'm at it. Right now, I'm just contemplating exactly how my light-mounting apparatus will be built. It's gotta look appealing or at least be somewhat visually tolerable since it will be on and in place for 4-5 hours out of the day. Black pvc piping perhaps.

In the meantime, I thought I'd hook up this heavy duty gizmo I found in storage - a APC Smart-UPS 1500 USB. It was once used to provide emergency power for my computer network (before my mortgage office had to close ) As you can see, it's now powered up and hooked up to this reef system and now serving a higher purpose! Right now it's powering 100% of the system, pumps, heater, halide and all, with it's battery power ALONE. One important thing to note is that I do not see any visual decrease in light intensity. I'm currently testing it to see how long it will operate in the event of a power outage. I've seen sooooooo many reefers post tragic news of total reef annihilation caused by power outages. Perhaps this gadget will help to minimize this risk.

Good call - I have been looking at backup power (enough for the closed loop as to maintain circulation) as I have faced a 48hr power outage before...

My way of keeping everything alive was pretty barbaric (yet ingenious at the same time). My instinct was to run to the garage and get a bike pump and some 1/2" tubing. I spent the next 40 hours manually pumping air into the tank causing ALLOT of circulation, and in turn saved me from losing anything.

Moral of the story is POWER FAILURE = COFFEE / MANUAL LABOR & INSOMNIA

Just read this thread in it's entirety. what a great setup! One question I have is about the coral left center front. Looks like a purple cap with yellow dots. What is it?
Inquisitive minds need to know.........

Thanks for your intense interest. I hope that some of my good decisions and failures would help at least one or two dedicated reefers out there. The monti cap look-a-like is called a Yellow Turbinaria.

Hahaha. If that's not total dedication and personal sacrifice for your corals, then I don't know what is!

The APC lifeline won't last as long as I had hoped, but I'll take what I can get! On a full charge and my present power load, I'll have only about 45mins to 1hr at most before the battery backup runs out (before I bring out the bike pump). I would hope that would give PG&E enough time to restore down power plants, lines, and such. Most importantly, it will prevent having to "reboot" the filter/overflow.

Well, I couldn't wait. So I rigged something up with a triangular iron support thingy I had laying around the garage. The Coralife light is mounted so it angles from back to front, positioned directly behind the pendant. Turns out that I didn't have a 10k bulb but rather a 14k. I also raised my pendant to 10" from the water surface from 8.5". So here's what the lights look like with photo taken from the right side:

Not too shabby - don't forget to take those pictures of your corals (the sps) and post them up so we have a "Before" to reference in a couple weeks time!

Oh and also - how does it look with the extra light on there?

Here are 3 pics of the tank, showing varying degrees of light. No Photoshopping.

1) 150W 14,000K Coralife DE


2) 250W 20,000K XM DE


3) BOTH 150W 14,000K Coralife DE & 250W 20,000K XM DE

Nice,

The coralife 14,000k seems pretty yellow for a 14k bulb. But in combination with the 20,000k it seems to look brighter and show off more color.

At least that is what I see from the pics lol.
(Center pic is showing up as X)

We're experiencing technical difficulties. LOL. Workin on it...

LoL - take your time

*EDIT*
It's Fixed!

You're so right about that. The Coralife 14,000k is really yellow. In fact, the 20,000k Coralife bulb (not shown) is not really that blue either. OMG, COMBINED with the 250W 20,000k XM it's 150% brighter in the tank! Now it's ALMOST as bright as the actual coral reefs I saw with my own eyes!@#! I feel pretty confident to say that I have some killer "sunshine" in my tank now. The pics really don't capture the true intensity of light. You can literally get a tan standing next to it. As far as my preference, personally I like viewing the tank with only the 20,000k bulb on. But growth and color up is critical to me, so the 14,000k bulb will be lit between 11-4pm for maximum daylight exposure. The 20,000k will be on from 8:30am to 7:30pm. What do you think?

Photoperiod sounds fine to me!
It is always a huge difference when you add that extra boost of wattage+higher Kelvin. I would suggest that when you are ready to change the 14,000K bulb, you use a nice 10,000K from a company other then Coralife (I am not a fan of their bulbs).

*cough* Before photos of individual SPS *cough cough*

A suggestion: plug only the heater, main circulation pump, and the aqua-lifter on the overflow into the UPS system. The rest, bypass the UPS. I say this because the lighting, skimmer, powerheads, etc, are not strictly neccessary to keep your corals alive, but will just decrease the amount of time you can run on battery backup. You will get alot longer out of your backup in the event of a power failure if you aren't trying to power 400 watts of metal halide light. I mean, its there for emergencies, may as well have it hooked up to only those devices which are totally neccessary for the survival of the tank. A day without light won't kill anything.

Just my 2 cents.

- Josh

That's the solution. I'll see how much more time that buys me after the lights go out tonight.

Okay, here are the test subjects. Purple acro has purple tips but the rest of it is brown. However, there has been noticeable growth after it having been in here for just about a month now.


Milli is severely struggling. Notice the bleached out branches at the bottom. Polyps are actually visible from most of the branches, but this wasn't the case 1wk after I transferred it from my BC14. NOTE: When I first purchased this coral (4mos ago?), it was bright bright purplish white. It's polyps extended but quickly browned out under a 150W 20k Coralife bulb.


On pg.19, you can see pics of 2 ORA frags recently placed in the tank. Additionally, 6-7 frags from Bluebastion will arrive within 2-3wks!

This should give us a good basis from which to compare the benefits of intense lighting. After these corals acclimate to the stronger light, I plan on changing the 14k Coralife bulb to a 10k of another brand.

One very noticeable issue from the addition of the extra light is the HEAT. At the time the light was switched off @ 4:30pm, the temp in the tank was 82.9 & 82.7! There are TWO digital thermometers used in the system: one in the external overflow and another in the sump. I typically go by an average of the two. 82.8º is definitely on the higher side. Already I can see it settling down. It should stabilize tonight @ 80º. Can anyone give their input as to whether this 5hr fluctuation in temp is tolerable? I'm already thinking to run a fan during the high lighting period between 11 and 4pm.

Nice,

This is a solid step towards great looking SPS. I hope this works well for you! Otherwise I may have to start doubting my own methods
Or just excuse the matter on some sort of f*** up on your end! lol.

On my old 20g my temp was around 81.3 on a constant with my Actinics & 250w Halide on, and during the 4 hours of 175w 10,000k it would rise to approx 83.1 - I never had any issues with it, I just set my heater to 81 so it would never drop more then 2 degrees at a time.

Randy,
I'm so sorry about your poor pepper Bad BAD cleaner shrimp. I am glad to see the tubs are looking good; I knew they would after they settled into your tank. The frag i got at AG that day is looking pretty nice (i still dont know the name) and showing signs of new growth! I will get pics to you as soon as i could.

Well, it's not always peaceful in the reef. We do our best to build a reef safe environment, but we can't stop nature. I remember that frag. One of the wildest palythoas I've ever seen! Maybe someday if I'm lucky, you can spare me a polyp or two. hehe.

--
Here are a couple for shots of the new light addition snapped with the lights off. The black Coralife light is mounted to a triangular iron base, but it's black so it blends in nicely. If (my wife ever says) it looks too much like a science project, the extra light can easily be removed. It is now on a timer to blast supplemental 14,000k rays between 11am and 4pm. The 20,000k bulb will remain on from 8am to 8pm. Hopefully, the extra energy consumed will be worth it's price in colorful SPS corals!

Great advice once again, Josh. I ran the system on the battery backup with all EXCEPT the lighting and I got a good 3+hrs out of it. I figure I could squeeze out another 1.5-2hrs of emergency power if I route the 2 Koralias and the protein skimmer pump to a separate power strip. 5 hours would give me plenty of time to run to Home Depot for a gas powered generator! LOL.

Sleep will be easier tonight. ZZZzzzzz.

Wow, I can't stop scrolling up and down comparing those! Very interesting. (I like #3 best--but they're all fantastic, of course.)

--Diane

Agree with Diane, #1 too green, #2 too blue, #3 JUST RIGHT. (hmmmm sounds like Goldilocks and the three bears)

Beautiful tank. aren't you afraid that once the corals grow, they will start fighting with each other? My frogspawn grows so much after a year that it start kill all corals nearby.

For sure Randy! .... them Paly's are budding new ones, and of course i will share them with you!
I also vote for picture #3 the lighting seems perfect in that one.

Oh yeah, I worry about that all the time. I watch their behaviors and how they interact with each other. If I see any indication of distress, I either move em or cut em. My frogspawn now has 12+ heads and is located on the far back left of the tank, where no other coral can be bothered by it. Once my SPS come in, I'll probably end up taking it back to the LFS or moving it to another tank.

HA. Nice analogy. Here's a less blurry pic with default exposure settings and a shorter aperture. Gives a *better* (but not quite true-to-life) image of how very bright it is in there with both halides on. It's hard to hide all of that green algae with such bright lighting. It does give you an idea of how young the tank really is though. Needs more coralline!

Sorry to bore all of you with the same fts pics, but for those of you who do not already know, I work from home so I can do this experimental stuff ALL DAY LONG. (Don't feel sorry for me. I like it. hehe)

The clam looks stunning under the dual halides. looks too washed out under 14K alone, and doesn't stand out with the 20K since it all just looks dark blue. With both it looks super blue but doesn't fade into the rest of the tank's "blueness" lol.

Thats what fragging is for. Success in a reef tank creates its own set of problems, namely, you do have to "prune" things, much like you would in a garden. The bonus here is, the "clippings", so to speak, are actually worth something.

TJ, you've made a believer out of me, that's for certain. It's ultra nice to have different light tones to look at throughout the 12hr day, not to mention that the fish and coral gotta appreciate the extra light. Took care of the heat issue by bringing out my trustee $10 Honeywell fan from HD. Surprisingly, the temp didn't vary more than .5º from 80 all day. I think it's time to invest in an RK2 or an AC Jr, so I can simply set and forget. Right now, my eyes are glued to my tank like an ALL-IN hand for an open-ended straight flush draw.

I'm glad you like the results of my suggestion! Sometimes people just don't want to try it because it seems "overkill" or simply because it is not what the rest of the people (forum/lfs/friends) would consider proper/normal practice.

It is one of those things you have to see to believe/have appreciation for. When I first saw Marte's tank, I could not believe the breathtaking colors of his corals and outstanding illumination of the tank. The lights seemed so white and bright, yet the corals colors still popped as if the actinics were the only things on! Ever since that day I refuse to run a reef without multiple halides/Kelvin ratings.

Keep us posted with how your corals react to the new dose of intensity/PAR and spectrum.
Good Reefing mate!

P.s. I am looking forward to the "after 3-4 weeks" pictures of your acros!

CUC Smackdown!


Here's a better comparison snapshot for my ongoing "Double Halide Effect" experiment.
Day 3: Taken with only the 20k bulb on to show better coral coloration.

Your acros are going to love you for this. I have said it before, but i'll say it here again: It is almost impossible to over-illuminate shallow-water SPS species in a home aquarium. You simply cannot even come close to the amount of light they get in the wild using anything short of 1000W metal halides. As long as you acclimate them carefully, and observe them closely for stress during the transition period, they will reward you with faster growth and better coloration.

I have seen 20H aquariums with 1000W bulbs over them. You are nowhere near overkill.