Mark's 150 (NanoBox Retro)

[markalot]

It will be interesting to see how you like the new lights long term- so they do not have any ramp up / down capabilities ? That's a tough one-I see some do- do you just run multiple timers. Now you got me researching T5's more for a future build- I was thinking radion- I could get away with one on a 80cube-(32x24x24) it will be good to see how things go for you

 

It has a single cord from the light that goes to a junction box where two power cords come out. One cord for 2 lamps, the other for the remaining 4. No ramp, but I can run blue only to simulate it. I will also be running my BML strips for some shimmer that can ramp.

 

It's really to bad my frigging Apex has been bugged since coming off DST! All ramps an hour behind so when they start they immediately go to max or min, depending on the ramp direction. From what I've read you have to physically unplug each connected box to fix it. Grrr.

[jedimasterben]

There is also the 12v adapter for the fans, don't forget that

[Sk8n Reefer]

 

It has a single cord from the light that goes to a junction box where two power cords come out. One cord for 2 lamps, the other for the remaining 4. No ramp, but I can run blue only to simulate it. I will also be running my BML strips for some shimmer that can ramp.

 

It's really to bad my frigging Apex has been bugged since coming off DST! All ramps an hour behind so when they start they immediately go to max or min, depending on the ramp direction. From what I've read you have to physically unplug each connected box to fix it. Grrr.

Sounds like a pain- gotta do it though- not to change topic but since you brought it up- how do you like your apex- another thread was talking about all the anti leak, the shutting a heater off etc controls I didn't really think about. Are you utilizing some of those- when you think about it - now I "have" to have a controller?. But it does seem smart if it's in your budget. I have a doser coming this month ? that's a start

[markalot]

 

Sounds like a pain- gotta do it though- not to change topic but since you brought it up- how do you like your apex- another thread was talking about all the anti leak, the shutting a heater off etc controls I didn't really think about. Are you utilizing some of those- when you think about it - now I "have" to have a controller?. But it does seem smart if it's in your budget. I have a doser coming this month ? that's a start

 

I'm not using any anti-leak, just temperature, ph, lights (and dimmers), and timed topoff. I did a full system reset and had to re-setup everything after it went haywire. Royal pain in the ass, and it looks like I didn't set the temp back like I had it AND the PH probe might have lost calibration. Before this it had been working flawlessly. I like the ability to monitor both tanks.

 

150 dashboard

 

 

29 dashboard

 

[Sk8n Reefer]

Ya that sucks- cool dashboard shots! that's a great point monitor two tanks- I like the ATO feature - probably a little easier in a larger tank with more evaporation.

[latteslave]

Actually Mark, for a 72" tank you'd need at least six LED fixtures to cover it properly, so put that into your equation

 

 

(or, ya know, one Nanobox retro )

 

OK - I am retracting my comments in regards to shadowing of cluster focused LEDs. And I now would say I disagree with needing 6 fixtures (respectfully). I went with the Radion G3 Pro on mine - 6 foot, 3 radions using the mounting arms. I thought I would be shadowing corals but was willing to take some level of it. I did switch to the 120 lenses... The reason I say this is that I just got back from another local reefers house. He has an 8 footer, 24 deep and 30 high. He has four G3 Pros over his and there is excellent coverage. All of his corals have great color and I see no shadowing or variance in how things look in different places in the tank. I am now looking forward to seeing how mine color up with these over the tank. 4 over his were plenty of light - he runs them on a custom schedule and it only hits 100% for 2 hours in his light cycle.

[markalot]

OK - I am retracting my comments in regards to shadowing of cluster focused LEDs. And I now would say I disagree with needing 6 fixtures (respectfully). I went with the Radion G3 Pro on mine - 6 foot, 3 radions using the mounting arms. I thought I would be shadowing corals but was willing to take some level of it. I did switch to the 120 lenses... The reason I say this is that I just got back from another local reefers house. He has an 8 footer, 24 deep and 30 high. He has four G3 Pros over his and there is excellent coverage. All of his corals have great color and I see no shadowing or variance in how things look in different places in the tank. I am now looking forward to seeing how mine color up with these over the tank. 4 over his were plenty of light - he runs them on a custom schedule and it only hits 100% for 2 hours in his light cycle.

 

I think any LED with two pucks, one mounted in front of the other, would work well. I would use 4 on mine, not 6! I let Ben have that one. I took down my LED today but before I did I attempted to aim the entire 43" Razor back at an angle. Didn't work very well, and not stable, but it did help light up the front of the corals. I think many of my issues are a direct result of this light AND the single row of LED pucks.

 

I'm now running just a single T5 on each side with two rows of BML strips, one made from two 36" fixtures I bought before upgrading. 350 PAR up top, 150 at the sandbed. These strip lights do work quite well and I've been tempted a couple of times now to cancel my order, since it didn't ship, and work with what I have for a while, but I really want that fixture. I may run it with just 4 bulbs rather than all six.

[latteslave]

regardless, I am sure the T5s will look great. You have a great looking tank - and you know what you're doing.

[jedimasterben]

OK - I am retracting my comments in regards to shadowing of cluster focused LEDs. And I now would say I disagree with needing 6 fixtures (respectfully). I went with the Radion G3 Pro on mine - 6 foot, 3 radions using the mounting arms. I thought I would be shadowing corals but was willing to take some level of it. I did switch to the 120 lenses... The reason I say this is that I just got back from another local reefers house. He has an 8 footer, 24 deep and 30 high. He has four G3 Pros over his and there is excellent coverage. All of his corals have great color and I see no shadowing or variance in how things look in different places in the tank. I am now looking forward to seeing how mine color up with these over the tank. 4 over his were plenty of light - he runs them on a custom schedule and it only hits 100% for 2 hours in his light cycle.

When it comes down to it, you cannot fight physics. Light exists as a wave that travels in a straight line unless it hits something and bounces off of it. Water refracts it a bit, but corals are what it bounces off of, and the issue is that without multiple directions of light, they're still only getting hit on one side. Some light bounces off of the tank panels, other corals, etc, but not with any remarkable intensity, and this is where the inherent issues lie. Using wide or no lenses helps the issue by having less focused light, but does not fix the problem, only helps to mitigate it by a bit, which is all that some people desire. Shading is natural, happens in the ocean, the undersides and bases of large colonies are dead as doorknobs.

 

Have you seen Arkayology's tank? It's been lit by a single Radion for quite a while now, the tank is packed to the brim with SPS. He is seeing issue now from shading and is looking to mitigate them, but with the Radion it's not exactly cost effective to keep throwing more of them at the problem lol.

[markalot]

Phosphates down to .12 or so, less blue than before. Skimmer is still not dialed in but at least it's skimming more now.

 

I'm going to guess that I was slowly building phosphates and crossed over a critical line sometime last week. While I was screwing around with lighting and then worry about KH the corals were sending a message something was wrong and I ignored it. The first sign was the crazy bird stopped growing, no more white tips. So after a small water change and adding a small bag of phosguard last night what do we have today.

 

 

This is exactly what it looks like at the beginning of a growth spurt. Still watching Alk daily and still stuck at a rock solid 9.0 KH.

 

The Katropora showed the most damage from this incident, and it's hurting bad. No polyp extension at night while all my other acros have it.

 

 

 

The slimer has been growing, of course, and my little frag of a "Rainbow Acro" has been steadily encrusting down the super glue toward the frag plug.

 

 

The Red Robin stag ain't red, but it appears healthy enough.

 

 

 

My bulbs for the new 60" fixture arrived today, but the light has yet to ship. Apparently it's dropped ship from the "factory" even though it shows as in stock.

 

[Sk8n Reefer]

Can't wait to see your new lights set up. I've been looking over some of the LED T5 combos- nanobox has some interesting ones . What made you decide on the sunpower ?

[markalot]

Can't wait to see your new lights set up. I've been looking over some of the LED T5 combos- nanobox has some interesting ones . What made you decide on the sunpower ?

 

It works well, great ventilation, bulbs can last nearly a year, and the reflectors are the best made.

[latteslave]

When it comes down to it, you cannot fight physics. Light exists as a wave that travels in a straight line unless it hits something and bounces off of it. Water refracts it a bit, but corals are what it bounces off of, and the issue is that without multiple directions of light, they're still only getting hit on one side. Some light bounces off of the tank panels, other corals, etc, but not with any remarkable intensity, and this is where the inherent issues lie. Using wide or no lenses helps the issue by having less focused light, but does not fix the problem, only helps to mitigate it by a bit, which is all that some people desire. Shading is natural, happens in the ocean, the undersides and bases of large colonies are dead as doorknobs.

 

Have you seen Arkayology's tank? It's been lit by a single Radion for quite a while now, the tank is packed to the brim with SPS. He is seeing issue now from shading and is looking to mitigate them, but with the Radion it's not exactly cost effective to keep throwing more of them at the problem lol.

Don't want to pull Marks thread off... But yes - I have seen Arks tank several times in person. It is awesome.

 

 

Leaving it at that.

 

Mark - great pics as always. Glad to see growth coming back. I won't derail your thread again. Sorry about that.

[4x5]

Looking forward to seeing the new light.

[markalot]

Don't want to pull Marks thread off... But yes - I have seen Arks tank several times in person. It is awesome.

 

 

Leaving it at that.

 

Mark - great pics as always. Glad to see growth coming back. I won't derail your thread again. Sorry about that.

 

Thanks. No problem with the derail, wherever the discussion happens is fine.

 

Looking forward to seeing the new light.

 

Yea, me too! Still no word as to when it will ship.

[jedimasterben]

Don't want to pull Marks thread off... But yes - I have seen Arks tank several times in person. It is awesome.

You lucky bastard!

[markalot]

So the light is shipped, from California, will be here Friday.

 

I could have saved $25 by ordering it from Marine Depot but I like Premium Aquatics and the product was listed as In Stock so I figured I could get it in a day. I'm a tad peeved that I paid more and it ended up being slower.

[jedimasterben]

Yeah, some of the larger/more expensive stuff like that gets shipped direct so that they have it for sale but don't exactly have their money tied up in it until it's needed.

[metrokat]

The Katropora showed the most damage from this incident, and it's hurting bad. No polyp extension at night while all my other acros have it.

 

Ouch, that hurts.

[markalot]

PO4 down to .1. Going to let it ride one more day and change the bag of Phosguard tomorrow evening.

 

Bird of Paradise actually looks better with high phosphates. :|

[markalot]

My Alk is holding rock steady at 9.0 KH every time I test, and I'm alternating between an old and new kit just to be sure.

 

I reset my Apex accidentally (stupidity <--) and had to setup everything AND recalibrate the PH probe. Some of the default programming for the outlets the lights are plugged into are for pumps, so my BML strips were blinking on and off every 5 seconds. Make it STOP!!!! I did have a backup, that I remembered after I set everything back up, but it only had settings for the 150 and not the 29. Now I have a backup both at home and here at work.

 

Anyway my PH has been a lot more stable since probe recalibration. Things that make you go hmmmmm. I also changed lighting which would effect it as well. I'm noting it, but not caring about it.

 

Based on an answer I got on RC I now understand that there really is no limit to how much vinegar you can add to Kalk to increase the saturation potential. This means I can go above 45ml per gallon if I want to put more than 3 tsp of Kalk / gallon to meet my needs, as long as the tank can handle that level of carbon dosing. I want to use carbon dosing to lower my nitrates and phosphates so this almost sounds too good to be true. I have been adding vinegar to Kalk for a few weeks now and adding some Microbacter to help with the bacterial population. I had one cloudy day when i first started and since then the tank has been crystal clear.

[markalot]

Dr Bingman

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20030418110415/http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/oct/bio/default.asp

 

He stopped his test at 45ml / gallon, or 15.5 ml per teaspoon of kalk.

[MikeTR]

I RTN'd two frags on my rack from the alk swing and some tissue loss at the base of one of my birds and a maricultured tricolor. My PO4 is sittin upwards of .22, I'm gonna work on that I swear I've been contemplating switching over to a T5/LED hybrid.. I dunno yet tho. I think I'm gonna make a backup of my Apex config after reading your troubles.

[markalot]

I RTN'd two frags on my rack from the alk swing and some tissue loss at the base of one of my birds and a maricultured tricolor. My PO4 is sittin upwards of .22, I'm gonna work on that I swear I've been contemplating switching over to a T5/LED hybrid.. I dunno yet tho. I think I'm gonna make a backup of my Apex config after reading your troubles.

 

Sorry about the frag loss. My ghetto T5 LED setup looks really good, I can't wait to to get the big light, but now I need a blue LED solution for a nice moonlight period. I have some ebay led strips, 24" and a 36" I could connect together and hang somewhere, but something dimmable would be very nice. If only I wasn't so allergic to DIY.

[MikeTR]

Sorry about the frag loss. My ghetto T5 LED setup looks really good, I can't wait to to get the big light, but now I need a blue LED solution for a nice moonlight period. I have some ebay led strips, 24" and a 36" I could connect together and hang somewhere, but something dimmable would be very nice. If only I wasn't so allergic to DIY.

I've got the apex lunar module with 5 leds.. haven't used it in a while.. I'll sell it to ya.