Daleo Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 Hey. Can I get a frag of the pink zoas in the upper left corner. I can give you this frag in return. I've already had it on a disk for like 2 months and it has 2 large polyps w/ 2 babies. PS they are more vivid in person. The picture has too much white balance. Link to comment
nkUnleashed Posted March 30, 2010 Author Share Posted March 30, 2010 Hey. Can I get a frag of the pink zoas in the upper left corner. I can give you this frag in return. I've already had it on a disk for like 2 months and it has 2 large polyps w/ 2 babies. PS they are more vivid in person. The picture has too much white balance. Sure, I'm going to be out of town next week, but I'll PM you when I get back and we can hook it up! Link to comment
Daleo Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 K. I have spring break next week. It would be best to meet around star aquatics whenever you get back. Link to comment
treygarz Posted May 1, 2010 Share Posted May 1, 2010 shhhhhh..... im starting a 40B!!!!! Woot woot! Hows the tank lookin? Link to comment
treygarz Posted May 14, 2010 Share Posted May 14, 2010 scratch that.... i now have a 65 gal sitting in my possession! SCORE! Link to comment
nkUnleashed Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 It's been over a year since I've updated this thread, and I'm ashamed to say that the tank has gone downhill due in part to bad luck, but mostly due to my mistakes and negligence. Temp spikes last summer, tank-sitter catastrophe, and zoo eating 'branchs all hit right before some major lifestyle changes. The tank fell to the way-side and I gave away many corals, and lost others to stress or algae. But now I'm back into it, and I'm committed to saving this reef! I'll post an FTS soon, as a starting point. This might be an interesting exercise in nano-reef rehab. In the past 6 weeks: I've started a serious war against the thread algae and cyano. I've taken apart the hardware and cleaned the skimmer, hood, fans, and circ. pumps. I've scrubbed the LR and mechanically removed as much algae as possible. I've resumed water changes, carbon changes, and chem dosing...after about 6 months of sporadic dosing and maybe 1 water change every 6-8 weeks. Perhaps most exciting, I'm upgrading the T5s to dual aquabeam LED 600s (ordered). This hurt the wallet, but it will eliminate the summer heat problem, and make the tank look better. I'll post pics of the LED upgrade here for anybody interested, along with more regular updates of the tanks recovery. So glad to be active in the hobby again! Hope I can make up for past sins. Link to comment
nkUnleashed Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Aquabeam Dual 600's have ARRIVED! Hope to install them in the next day or two. I'll post unboxing pics and installation. I'm going to try running these instead of the T5s due to the overheating problem (instead of in-addition-to). I've heard/read that the light output with the two CRE-XRE 600 strips is nearly equal in useful light energy to the two T5s in the stock hood. We'll see... Any words of wisdom? Link to comment
nkUnleashed Posted January 11, 2012 Author Share Posted January 11, 2012 Installation complete! I basically followed the conversion so beautifully detailed on Matthew van Gessel's website. I don't know anything else about this guy other than I saw a photo courtesy of "StevieT" in the conversion images. Does anybody have any info about him? I would love to thank him for the conversion how-to! First some tech specs: -These are TMC AquaBeam DUAL 600s, with "High PUR" Cree XR-E emitters -I got the 2x12 watt Reef white and Marine blue combo -Total of 5 blue emitters, and 5 14K white emitters -The blue emitters are VERY blue - 465-485nm, 50,000K -I think the white emitters are around 670nm I'm hopefully going to add an additional 600 Reef white strip in the next few weeks. Anyway, here are some photos from the conversion: They came very well packed. Testing before install. Taking the hood apart. All assembled. Here is the BEFORE pic with the stock T5s And now...UNDER THE NEW LIGHTS! The overall effect is very blue, but the shimmer effect is incredible and the corals are all fluorescing like crazy. It looks great IMO. Link to comment
treygarz Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 nice lookin lights you got there! I just got the itch again to do a tank while in school. Just started up a 4 gallon! Link to comment
mikellini Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 I really like this! Might go with the two Reef White strips though, it sounds like with half and half, the tank is too blue for you. I don't want to have to add another white strip later just to balance the colour... Plus, I like the simplicity of a direct replacement of the PC bulbs, no real hood modifications... but the price! How will I talk my gf into this? lol Would you say the two strips are as bright as the stock bulbs, or brighter? Link to comment
nkUnleashed Posted February 5, 2012 Author Share Posted February 5, 2012 3703667[/url]']I really like this! Might go with the two Reef White strips though, it sounds like with half and half, the tank is too blue for you. I don't want to have to add another white strip later just to balance the colour... Plus, I like the simplicity of a direct replacement of the PC bulbs, no real hood modifications... but the price! How will I talk my gf into this? lol Would you say the two strips are as bright as the stock bulbs, or brighter? Hey Mikellini! Yeah, the direct replacement of the stock T5s was really slick, and after a few weeks the coral is clearly liking the change. I have two new heads on my acans, a few cm of new growth on both my acros and several new shrooms. However, to the naked eye these are much less bright than the stock T5s. They have more photosynthetically active radiation, and produce much less heat than the stock lights, but they aren't as bright to the eye - though the shimmer effect alone is worth it IMHO. I just added a third reef white strip today which brightened the tank up a bunch and the extra 14k emitter was just enough white to balance out the aesthetic - but I really do like a blue tank - the coral just pops. I told my wife that we could keep replacing the lights every 6 months, or upgrade to LEDs and not worry about them for 10 years. She rolled her eyes and chuckled, but in the end, we ended up with LEDs. Link to comment
nkUnleashed Posted February 5, 2012 Author Share Posted February 5, 2012 New FTS showing coral growth in last few weeks (since LED upgrade). This was taken with just the Marine blue strip on (2 14K emitters and 3 actinic ~486nm emitters). I'm not a great photographer, and this is from my iPhone. I'll post a video in the next day or two with all three strips on for color ref. Still fighting some really aggressive algae at the top of the tank, but its getting better... Link to comment
mikellini Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 I decided to go with a nano box kit from DaveFason... a little more pricey but very high quality, 26 emitters with a full spectrum and dimmable drivers. Nice and compact too, will take up less space and allow for better airflow and cooling. Your tank is coming along nicely! I have a little hair algae grow at the top of the back wall too, I just siphon it off on every water change and it becomes less and less each time. Params are perfect, thinking of ditching the skimmer even... Link to comment
nkUnleashed Posted February 5, 2012 Author Share Posted February 5, 2012 I decided to go with a nano box kit from DaveFason... a little more pricey but very high quality, 26 emitters with a full spectrum and dimmable drivers. Nice and compact too, will take up less space and allow for better airflow and cooling. Your tank is coming along nicely! I have a little hair algae grow at the top of the back wall too, I just siphon it off on every water change and it becomes less and less each time. Params are perfect, thinking of ditching the skimmer even... That's awesome - the dimmable drivers are huge - that looks like a nice, compact hood. I can't wait to see it. The next thing on my list is an LED controller so I can simulate dawn/dusk and storms. Half the fun of LEDs is their dimming ability, and that's one thing the Aquaray 600s lack out of the box. Link to comment
mikellini Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 It's actually a little heat sink with LEDs on printed circuit boards and a fan attached. It will fit right in place of the stock lighting, so no real mods necessary. Pretty high density too, 26 LEDs in about 4.5 x 1.5 inches. I might upgrade to a nice controller in the future, but for now I'll be happy with on/off. I'll post pics when I get it Link to comment
nkUnleashed Posted February 6, 2012 Author Share Posted February 6, 2012 3723182[/url]']It's actually a little heat sink with LEDs on printed circuit boards and a fan attached. It will fit right in place of the stock lighting, so no real mods necessary. Pretty high density too, 26 LEDs in about 4.5 x 1.5 inches. I might upgrade to a nice controller in the future, but for now I'll be happy with on/off. I'll post pics when I get it Oh, I gotcha. I must have been looking at the wrong thing. Sounds cool. Do you know what kind of emitters they are? What color combo are you going to get? Link to comment
mikellini Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Two of these. Rebel and Rebel ES, Cool white, neutral white and deep red on one series, blue and royal blue on the other Link to comment
metrokat Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 Bump for updates. Are you running a sump on this tank? Link to comment
nkUnleashed Posted August 23, 2012 Author Share Posted August 23, 2012 Unfortunately, I had to move across the country (GA to IA) suddenly in August, so I had to tear down the tank. I'll set it up again soon in the new office, but this time I think I'll get a Tunze 9002 and StevieTs collection cup and media rack. Link to comment
hooligan_78 Posted August 23, 2012 Share Posted August 23, 2012 Where in Iowa? Have you found the GIRS club yet? Link to comment
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