TheDoogan's Shallow Rimless Reef

[thedoogan]

Beautiful Tank, loving the clean lines and scape, totally jealous

Thank you!

 

Nice undercarriage, loaded to the brim but well organized. As for the bleaching I don't really have much experience with radion's but I have experienced this with some DIY LED setups in the past. I ended up just cutting hours because turning down the power was a crap shoot in most cases. I'd go 3 hr's the first day and add an hour each day up until the 5 hr mark and then add 30 min after that to a full light cycle. Colors would still fade out here and there but I think it was more related to running a low nutrient system rather than the light after I started using that acclimation technique.

Interesting way of acclimating them to the LEDs. What color temp is your setup?

 

 

I don't have any experience with the Radion on a shallow, but I have read quite a few threads that people wished they would have started higher because there was not enough light and they actually lost some corals.

 

When I first got mine I started off low and planned on raising the intensity and hours gradually, but I figured my stock lighting was very good so after a week I just put it on natural mode at 100% for 12 hours a day......no problems.

Daaayyymmmm I kept hearing a lot of people starting their LEDs to high and toasting their coral. What color temperatures are you running yours at?

 

 

I'm a bit surprised to hear you're having troubles with the torch - typically they're pretty accepting of high light. I have mine off center but at the top of my tank under a Kessil a-350 on 80%. Have you been feeding the torch? I would expect it to be belching zooxanthellae were you hitting it with too much light. My suspicion is that your light isn't the culprit, or it's actually too low.

Maybe I'll bring up the intensity this week and see how it reacts.

Hmm I haven't been feeding it in the past few weeks as I had some nutrient problems building up in my QT. I'll make sure it gets some harty meals. Is this "poop" I'm seeing the purging of Zooxanthelle? Or just regular pooping? Do they expell Zooxanthelle in the same way?

 

Thanks.

[SDartifex]

Interesting way of acclimating them to the LEDs. What color temp is your setup?

 

Im still deciding on how I want to design my final setup. I reflow soldered some crees onto a par bulb I had laying around to use temporarily, its probably around 20-25,000K (3RB's, 1NW and 1CW). For the light I'm building I plan to use as full of a spectrum as possible and have each LED controlled individually so I can have full control over the color.

[Spirofucci]

I just have my Radion on "natural" mode for 12 hours/day, plus the stock RSM lights. Natural mode is supposed to mimmick the sun with a gradual sunrise and sunset so it is really at 100% only a few hours at the peak.

 

I certainly don't know nearly enough about lighting to mess with the sprectrums on this thing.

[Looselyhuman]

Hey where did you get those glass cruet things?

 

(Awesome build, btw)

[thedoogan]

I just have my Radion on "natural" mode for 12 hours/day, plus the stock RSM lights. Natural mode is supposed to mimmick the sun with a gradual sunrise and sunset so it is really at 100% only a few hours at the peak.

 

I certainly don't know nearly enough about lighting to mess with the sprectrums on this thing.

 

I just downloaded a saved program an ecotech guy was recommending on a forum. The idea was to provide 20k to help with coloration, ramping up to 10k to provide PAR and growth mid day and back down the temps to 20k again. who knows if it actually works.

It's not difficult to drop in color temps with the programming. There are 20k, 18k, 12k and 10k presets in the drop down box you can use in artificial mode.

[Deleted User 4]

Nice update man!

[Arkayology]

That is an impressive sump setup.

[aaron1987]

Maybe I'll bring up the intensity this week and see how it reacts.

Hmm I haven't been feeding it in the past few weeks as I had some nutrient problems building up in my QT. I'll make sure it gets some harty meals. Is this "poop" I'm seeing the purging of Zooxanthelle? Or just regular pooping? Do they expell Zooxanthelle in the same way?

 

Thanks.

 

Purging of Zooxanthellae certainly looks like 'poop' in my experience so it's possible that's what you're seeing. It's brown and stringy. Even if that's what's going on I'm surprised that it's visually paling out unless it's dumping a ton (and I've never seen it in such dramatic fashion). 30% on a Radion isn't really a ton of light by most measures. I'd give it some meat and see how it responds.

 

Edit: watched your vid, certainly looks like Zooxanthellae to me. Was the torch in truly low light recently? Generally strikes me as odd behavior.

[thedoogan]

Hey where did you get those glass cruet things?

(Awesome build, btw)

 

I got them from army and navy store. Pretty much a mix between a dollar store and walmart.

 

Purging of Zooxanthellae certainly looks like 'poop' in my experience so it's possible that's what you're seeing. It's brown and stringy. Even if that's what's going on I'm surprised that it's visually paling out unless it's dumping a ton (and I've never seen it in such dramatic fashion). 30% on a Radion isn't really a ton of light by most measures. I'd give it some meat and see how it responds.

 

Edit: watched your vid, certainly looks like Zooxanthellae to me. Was the torch in truly low light recently? Generally strikes me as odd behavior.

 

Hmm it's been doing this on a regular basis, It has been in some lower light conditions in the QT recently. I gave it some meaty foods today and more poop again tonight. It certainly looked healthy today, extended to the size of a large grape fruit, huge. The one side didn't look THAT pale today and looked very green when shrinking down to "poop" I also noticed one of the large heads is splitting and has two mouths close together.

 

[aaron1987]

I'm trying to think if my frogspawns or torches in tanks gone by have paled when splitting but I honestly don't remember.

 

LPS seem to go through phases in my experience, though. Occasionally look PO'd for no good reason. It is a little odd that it's doing this regularly cause you really aren't exposing it to that much light. You might try a prophylactic dip in iodine or coral rx if it takes a turn for the worse but there's something to be said for feeding it and leaving it alone, too. If it were me, I'd do the latter - torches are pretty hardy, on the whole.

[thedoogan]

Yeah I think I will leave it and gradually increase the light, It looked a lot better today. Does anyone prophylactic dip in Revive? or should you stick to iodine based dips?

[aaron1987]

Yeah I think I will leave it and gradually increase the light, It looked a lot better today. Does anyone prophylactic dip in Revive? or should you stick to iodine based dips?

 

Never tried revive. Iodine would help with infection, lesions or abrasions due to pests/physical contact/stress, coral rx (and it looks like revive) help with pests.

[Leatherneck3755]

Any new updates? How's the tank?

[urbaneks]

Outstanding job on your install, I love how clean it is. A also love the dimensions and aqua scape.

[Deleted User 4]

Any new updates? How's the tank?

 

+1

[james1990]

i just love this built.

[Thelizardkin]

Awesome tank man I'm defently going to be following it

[VeganBrian]

Holy cow, Amazing art! Following..

[thedoogan]

Any new updates? How's the tank?

The tank is doing well! No harsh break in period, no algae or cyano. The torch is looking happy now. I'm Just trying to dial in the dosing pump and waiting for the rest is the GU10 LEDs for the refugium.

 

I had a problem with my green birds nest in the QT tank a while ago. RTN and STN started to appear when I tried to switch from dripping two part to kalkwasser. I went back to two part and fragged off some pieces, superglued over some areas but saved the majority and it bounced back. I put some of those now brown frags in the display and they are doing good with one putting on nice growth. I'm hoping they color back up.

 

Some new corals are waiting in the QT now

I'll get some pictures up soon.

 

 

Outstanding job on your install, I love how clean it is. A also love the dimensions and aqua scape.

Thanks! I love your tank as well, I've peeped through your threads before and i'm sure I took inspiration from your well thought out design and organized sump.

 

i just love this built.

Thanks!

 

Awesome tank man I'm defently going to be following it

Thanks! I'll keep it updated!

 

Holy cow, Amazing art! Following..

 

Thank you for the kind words!

 

 

On another note, why is writing in a text field with iPhone such a sloppy frustrating ordeal???

[l2d4]

I'm setting up a similar tank. Can you explain your top off methods? I'm strongly considering the use of a 20" x 18" x 20" cube for my sump but wondering how to fit *everything* under the sump.

 

Could you share the dimensions of each section of the sump? That would be a huge help for me as it's really the last thing for me to do over the next month or so.

[jlbzixxer]

One word SEXY!!! Build man

 

I have being debating on purchasing the same dosing

Pump, i see you mention your still trying to dial it in

But how do you like it so far??

[thedoogan]

I'm setting up a similar tank. Can you explain your top off methods? I'm strongly considering the use of a 20" x 18" x 20" cube for my sump but wondering how to fit *everything* under the sump.

 

Could you share the dimensions of each section of the sump? That would be a huge help for me as it's really the last thing for me to do over the next month or so.

 

As you can see in the sump pictures I have a Tom's Aqualifter mounted to the side. The tubing runs out the back of the stand and behind my couch about 7 feet away to a container on the other side which holds the top off water. Its placed beside the couch and behind a plant.

 

I would design your sump based on your own exact needs. The depth of the water is going to be determined by the height of the baffles. The depth you need will depend on your skimmer requirements and how much water you need your sump to hold when the return pump is turned off or in case power outage.

 

I strongly recommend Google sketch-up for figuring out what can fit well into your cabinet and sump. It was important for my design because everything is SO packed in under there. I needed to check product dimensions and placement before I bought stuff to see if it was even possible.

[thedoogan]

One word SEXY!!! Build man

 

I have being debating on purchasing the same dosing

Pump, i see you mention your still trying to dial it in

But how do you like it so far??

 

It seems pretty awesome for the price but its still way to soon to tell. It seems to be dosing consistently on a regular basis but I'm still dialing in how much to dose each day to keep my levels up. I'm slowly bringing back up my alk from 7.7 to 9 and calcium from 400 to 425. Then I will see how steady I can keep it.

 

Calibration is a must with these, I found pump A to be much slower than B and C. It runs at similar speed when it's set to speed 3 while the others are on speed 2 setting. Ive been trying to calibrate it by 5ml at a time and it seems pretty accurate when dishing out 5ml all in one go (it took some attempts to figure out how much time for 5ml) when I divided this time into 16 separate doses and tested it over 24 hr. it pumped out maybe close to 8ml on one pump and 6-7ml on the other. I think it does dose out these numbers fairly consistently over 24 hours with 16 separate doses though. We will see with more practical usage.

 

Having 16 separate dosing times on each pump is a nice feature. It also stores all your programming if power is shut off or it's unplugged which is also nice. I doesn't store the time if power is shut off though, but that's no problem. The timer lock feature is a nice security for human error in programming. You can set a maximum time the pumps are allowed to run, even if the programming is over that time. So if timer lock is set to 30 seconds and you accidentally input 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds on a dose, it will only run for 30 seconds.

 

I think it may be a good deal. I've heard good results from other people, time will tell.

[thedoogan]

Click for a quick time lapse of a dendrophyllia waiting in my coral QT.

 

 

Switch to 1080p and check out all the life running around the rock. It's amazing how much life you can see in such a small area when things are sped up. Lots of worms and amphipods. Looks like there is some kind of worm or flatworm popping up and retreating between the top of the second largest head and the the rock

[rb1685]

That's pretty freaking cool.