Mark's 150 (NanoBox Retro)

[markalot]

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

 

How bright is it? I'm looking for something that is a fairly bright blue, the way I used to run with my Razor is 1% blue ramping up to 70% by 10am, then slowly ramping all channels up to full by 3PM. Now, in the morning, my tank is dark.

[markalot]

15ml topoff every 5 minutes which equals 1.14 gallons per day of topoff.

 

45ml vinegar per gallon Kalk so 51.3 ml vinegar dosing per day.

 

PO4 .07

Alk 8.8

 

I can see my acros are beginning to encrust again so conditions are improving and Alk is once again starting to drop. Testing tomorrow will confirm if it's really dropping or if this was just test noise.

[MikeTR]

How bright is it? I'm looking for something that is a fairly bright blue, the way I used to run with my Razor is 1% blue ramping up to 70% by 10am, then slowly ramping all channels up to full by 3PM. Now, in the morning, my tank is dark.

I'll fire it up and snap a pic.. brightness depends on the lunar cycle, unless you program it different. Full moon makes for a nice moonlight, but not enough to keep the corals open.

[jedimaster1138]

I tried to lay out why on the previous page. It's partially about the spectrum balance and how bright it appears to our eyes. Because of the lack of green light, light our eyes are most sensitive too, the proper PAR (I have a meter) makes the tank look dim. Turn it up bright enough and everything starts bleaching and I'm reading 350+ PAR in the middle sections of the tank.

 

It's also about directional lighting. If you could get your eyes to where a coral is and look up what do you see? For LED you see a single puck straight above. For Halide with a good reflector you see the light above plus reflections of that light off the glass and reflections of the bulb off the reflector as you move away from the centerline of the light.

 

Finally, with T5 if you looked up you would see a wall of light, lighting most sides of the coral, plus with quality reflectors the light is entering the tank at a lot of angles, also allowing for more reflection.

 

Did you see my top down pictures fro last week and how good everything looked? That was the real kicker, looks great from the top, but not from the side. You get this to some extent with all lighting, but it's glaringly obvious with LED.

 

So is LED bad?

 

I don't think so, but if you use LED you need to design either a DIY or purchase fixtures in such a way to mitigate the shadows created by a non reflected point source light. It's similar to a theater stage. If you put a single row of spotlights on a track above the stage the actors standing in front of the row of lights would only be lit from behind. Those under the lights would be lit on top with dark shadows under the nose and chin, and all vertical surfaces would be dim. So you use a lot of spot lights to try and be able to light the stage evenly and cut out the sharp shadows. Multiple light tracks. Hell, some stages use lighting from below as well.

 

I now believe successful LED fixtures will use very few white LED's and instead balance green with light the corals need to create a fixture that appears appropriately bright when it IS bright enough for the corals. My Maxspects, 6" above the glass lids at 100% power can dump 650 PAR at 12 inches and 250 down at the sandbed (27 inches). No lack of power there, and to the eye it looks moderately bright. This is why people fry corals under a lot of LED fixtures.

 

I can't afford to re-purchase better quality LED fixtures to fix these issues. My LED solution would be all BML strips to mimic the spread of T5 or 4 high power multi-puck fixtures with the pucks going front to back on each one. In other words, something like $2500 worth of new LED lights.

 

4 Hydras, 4 Radions, all mounted front to back. I'm sure there are other cheaper fixtures that might work as well, as long as you can spread the light front to back.

 

A $550 quality T5 fixture with yearly bulb costs of $144 ($24 per bulb) can be run for 13 years before the cost equals that of the new LED fixtures. I don't think either one will last 13 years without some repair needed. My Razors together used 460 watts, this fixture uses 480 - 500.

 

I tell you what, though. I am going to miss how cool these Razors look, the ramp up and down, and how good they make any encrusting coral or LPS look. Sticks is the problem here. If you are not planning SPS then I would stick with your LED plan.

 

Soon I will have T5 over this and Halide over my 29. Screw that new technology hippy (shakes cane).

 

 

This.

[markalot]

Well, I once again tried to screw up my tank through shear incompetence. I do a timed topoff, and I've been playing with saturated Kalk to try and keep levels steady. When I reset my Apex I thought I guessed how often I was running the topoff but I guessed wrong and it was a little low and my sump level was slowly falling, so I increased it.

 

HELLO? YOU ARE DUMPING MORE KALK INTO THE TANK. WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?

 

 

So yea, Alk jumped from 8.8 yesterday to 9.8 this evening. Glad I decided to test. My new saltwater was ready after mixing over night so I went ahead and did a 20 gallon change and then diluted the Kalk big time and plan to slowly stop Kalk because it throws a wrench into the nice clean calculations for Alk usage.

 

So let's review. Tank is good, colors are good. I decide to try a more saturated Kalk solution and my Alk starts slowly rising until it hits 10.8. Corals are suffering, then browning, then some STN. I turn off dosing but insist on continuing my Kalk experiment because I'm a stubborn ass.

 

So I'm done with that for now, back to dosing once I figure out what the daily usage is. I have no idea if phosphate was high before all of this or not, or if it's high because growth in the tank stopped during the Alk spike.

 

PO4 still about .07 which I'm happy with. New light arrives tomorrow and hopefully there will eb soem corals left to look good under it.

[Sk8n Reefer]

Stoked to see your light.....you've been waiting for what seems forever. ?What are you gonna do with your Maxspect?

[markalot]

Stoked to see your light.....you've been waiting for what seems forever. What are you gonna do with your Maxspect?

 

Not sure yet. The small one is over my 29 for the moment, until I get the Halide setup.

[Sk8n Reefer]

Not sure yet. The small one is over my 29 for the moment, until I get the Halide setup.

 

Halide? So you totally going away from LED's?

[markalot]

Halide? So you totally going away from LED's?

 

For a little while anyway. I've never had halide and a cold winter is the perfect time to try it.

[markalot]

It has arrived.

 

 

 

Well hung ...

 

 

Done, timers set, blues only.

 

 

BML 18K Custom strip in front running at 50% brightness.

 

Bulb selection, front to back ...

Coral+

Blue+

AquaBlue Special

Purple+

Blue+

Coral+

 

This produces 350 PAR around the rocks with the Katropora.

 

 

 

[plainrt]

Looks good. After many fixtures I'm still fan of t5s. Love my ati dimmable

[Arkayology]

Nice light! I hope we get some coral shots in a week or so to see how they take to the change.

[markalot]

Looks good. After many fixtures I'm still fan of t5s. Love my ati dimmable

 

Thanks.

 

Nice light! I hope we get some coral shots in a week or so to see how they take to the change.

 

Yep, but they are also recovering from an Alk swing and some acros are really hurting at the moment.

 

I don't think this was an Alk issue though. I'd like to know who is responsible for this! 1 inch of the branch broken off and gone.

 

[Arkayology]

Yeah... Who knows how that happens. Coral mysteriously breaks in my tank all the time. I have no idea how.

[markalot]

FTS Even the browned out acros look good under these lights!

 

 

I'm working on a bunch of before pictures of all the acros so I can compare them in a week or so.

[NorthGaHillbilly]

The ati fixtures really are sexy, I'm excited to see how your coral react

[jedimaster1138]

It has arrived.

 

 

 

Well hung ...

Bulb selection, front to back ...

Coral+

Blue+

AquaBlue Special

Purple+

Blue+

Coral+

 

Grats!

 

Nice isn't it?

 

So your bulb layout is intense. You can basically look at that as 2 blue bulbs (the Blue+) and 4 white bulbs (2x Coral+, 1x Purple+, 1x ABS). You probably want to be careful with that much intensity and watch your photo period for a while. Me, I'd probably suggest going with 3x Blue+ and 3x WHITEBULBS. That's pretty standard and the Blue+ will give out a lot of glow along with PAR, but won't wash things out or bleach things.

 

That all being said, the ABS is a bulb that's...meh. ATI basically came up with the Coral+ as a replacement for the ABS because the ABS washed things out some and couldn't bring out the reds and purples. The Coral+ has taken its place for the most part. If I was running 6 bulbs I'd probably rock out 3 Blue+, 2x Coral+ and 1x Purple+. If the Purple+ didn't do it for ya, swap for another Blue+, taking that total to 4.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the reef keeper though - if the corals look right to you under a different combo, that's certainly up to you. Regardless, enjoy.

[markalot]

That all being said, the ABS is a bulb that's...meh. ATI basically came up with the Coral+ as a replacement for the ABS because the ABS washed things out some and couldn't bring out the reds and purples. The Coral+ has taken its place for the most part. If I was running 6 bulbs I'd probably rock out 3 Blue+, 2x Coral+ and 1x Purple+. If the Purple+ didn't do it for ya, swap for another Blue+, taking that total to 4.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the reef keeper though - if the corals look right to you under a different combo, that's certainly up to you. Regardless, enjoy.

 

I got the fixture for the AB Special, I love it. I had T5 before, over my old 40 gallon. The ABS has a lot of green and by itself is horrid, but put with a Purple+ and the Coral+ and it really brightens up the tank because of all the green. I have dealt with LED's for so long I've been green deprived.

 

I don't like the look of too many Blues so I just placed the two Blues on the second circuit. I have another Blue+ and Coral+ bulb in case I change my mind, but I tried the Coral+ in place of the ABS and the tank looked a lot redder and darker.

 

PAR is about 50 higher than with LED on some corals, 50 lower on others. We'll see if I need to raise the light more, but it's sitting 14" above the glass lids.

 

The ati fixtures really are sexy, I'm excited to see how your coral react

 

Me too!

[metrokat]

That light!

[jedimasterben]

Even though some have less light by a bit, they now have much more even light, which should give better growth.

[markalot]

Coral pics as of yesterday. Not a lot to look at here, some browns, some death. The millis showed no stress whatsoever during the Alk/PO4 spike. I like corals that can put up with my mistakes.

 

T5BeforePics <-- used to search

 

 

 

 

Green "Rainbow" milli

 

Cultivated Reef Rainbow Acro

 

UC Rainbow Milli

 

Unknown reddish Milli

 

Unkown Yellowish Milli

 

Unknown greenish acro

 

 

Red Robin from Cultivated Reef

 

 

Blue Acro from Salty Underground (browned out due to repeated dipping)

 

The Turd Acro

 

Unique Corals 'original' Strawberry Shortcake. I mount this poorly with a gap on the back side. Filled with epoxy 2 weeks ago and it's been encrusting nicely ever since. Seems to be a rugged acro.

 

Unknown Blue Tip acro with the missing tip.

 

Bonsai like acro. Even though it looks bad it can fight off those blue cloves.

 

 

The poor ORA Red Planet from Unique. Not holding out much hope, but polyp extension has improved greatly from a few days ago.

 

Unknown acro, maybe Sarmentosa

 

 

My Purple Fuz acro. This is going to hurt if I lose it. Significant tip recession and STN. Cheap to replace and fast grower, but my second largest acro prior to this. And damn, another poci sprout in the lower left.

 

 

ORA Joe the Coral. Browned, but still growing.

 

ORA Plum Crazy. Looks like I might have killed my second one. Still has polyps and skin, but algae showing up on some branches.

 

Acropora jacquelineae. Some browning but relatively healthy.

 

 

Cultivated Reef Blueberries and Cream

 

 

Unknown blue polyp acro frag. There's also a green milli frag behind it that's growing like crazy.

 

 

ORA Miami Orchid

 

 

And finally, for reference, the crazy bird that was first to stop growing and lose color. Showing numerous new growth tips.

 

 

 

[markalot]

Here's the progress report on the Monti eating Nudis. First found July 21st, started munching on this spongodes around the first of September.

 

This is all that's left of the spongodes and I've decided to see if I can save this patch, but it might be a daunting task at this point.

[markalot]

Lol, spoke too soon. And it's gone. So now where is the hoard of nudis off too?

[markalot]

Sitting here watching the tank and suddenly I see the Foxface stuck to the MP40. Oh NO.

 

But he's looking around, not breathing heavy, just sitting there stuck to the pump. I get up, he sees me, and launches off the pump with ease and darts across the tank to hide.

 

Not funny, and I'm still worried about him. He looks ok but I've never had a healthy fish get stuck to a pump.

 

Now he's back picking algae off it.

[NorthGaHillbilly]

Sitting here watching the tank and suddenly I see the Foxface stuck to the MP40. Oh NO.

 

But he's looking around, not breathing heavy, just sitting there stuck to the pump. I get up, he sees me, and launches off the pump with ease and darts across the tank to hide.

 

Not funny, and I'm still worried about him. He looks ok but I've never had a healthy fish get stuck to a pump.

 

Now he's back picking algae off it.

He wasnt stuck, just got tired of swimmin