Ace25's 75G Build Thread
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i had a similar problem on a ten gallon with 70 watt mh 1400k. corals where bleaching bad. i got a piece of uv glass and it did the trick. not sure about the PAR. that's your area lol
Couple more pics to point things out. I want to show how much growth I have gotten on my corals since switching to a 14k bulb, which has far less PAR than a 10k bulb.
First picture, Cali Tort, red circles show how much growth I have gotten since switching out bulbs. Yellow arrow is pointing to a "dead spot", this was were the coral stopped growing about a month and a half ago under 10k lighting. I ran 10k lighting for 9 months total, first 6 months then replaced the bulb with another of the same and ran that another 3 months, but after the first month (burn in period) I started to notice no real growth anymore on my corals. Everything else seemed fine.. they just stopped growing and the dead spot shows where the coral sat for about 2 months.. then 2-3 weeks ago now I put in a 14k bulb and you can see the growth just in that short amount of time. These are just my observations, but I welcome anyone to come and see with their own eyes if they were in my area (and have had people do so). There is a highly respected member on Reefcentral by the name of Greg Carroll that has a signature that I love.. it says "Be wary of advice coming from those who will not show you the fruits of their success!". I am always willing to show the fruits of my success, as well as speak of my failures so others can avoid them.
Second picture is just the upper portion of my tank. Remember when I got my Vortech.. just a few weeks ago, and there was 2 "eyes" clearly visible on my overflow box where my old Koralias used to be.. well.. look how much the green slimer has grown in just that short of time..
First picture, Cali Tort, red circles show how much growth I have gotten since switching out bulbs. Yellow arrow is pointing to a "dead spot", this was were the coral stopped growing about a month and a half ago under 10k lighting. I ran 10k lighting for 9 months total, first 6 months then replaced the bulb with another of the same and ran that another 3 months, but after the first month (burn in period) I started to notice no real growth anymore on my corals. Everything else seemed fine.. they just stopped growing and the dead spot shows where the coral sat for about 2 months.. then 2-3 weeks ago now I put in a 14k bulb and you can see the growth just in that short amount of time. These are just my observations, but I welcome anyone to come and see with their own eyes if they were in my area (and have had people do so). There is a highly respected member on Reefcentral by the name of Greg Carroll that has a signature that I love.. it says "Be wary of advice coming from those who will not show you the fruits of their success!". I am always willing to show the fruits of my success, as well as speak of my failures so others can avoid them.
Second picture is just the upper portion of my tank. Remember when I got my Vortech.. just a few weeks ago, and there was 2 "eyes" clearly visible on my overflow box where my old Koralias used to be.. well.. look how much the green slimer has grown in just that short of time..
So I replaced my actinics and changed out the ballast from the Icecap660 to 2 2x24w T5HO ballast so now I can have just 2 actinics on at a time instead of 4.
My lighting results:
3 month old Giesemann 24w actinics driven to 40w each by an Icecap660 ballast. PAR = 60 at center/surface of the water and 230 at the bulb, Spectrometer showed very little 440nm wavelength, it was a small gradual bump from 420-480 but no strong peaks, then it really spiked at the 540nm area. The spectrometer results, albiet extremely unscientific, told me those bulbs were actually doing no good for my corals and only helping algae grow. The daily green film on my glass recently even though phosphates are at .04 and Nitrates are .5 told me something else was feeding the algae as well, which was the lighting.
New bulbs = ATI Blue+ on 2 standard electronic 2x24w T5HO ballast. PAR reading at center of the tank is now 207, up from 60, and 1020 at the bulb, up from 230. Over 3 times the PAR output at the surface and 4x at the bulb and the spectrometer showed pretty much what the ATI graph shows, very strong peak at 440-450nm area and just a small peak in the 550nm area.
I am also able to do a 2 stage dusk/dawn setting. Now I set the left/right actinics to come on at 1pm-11pm, Front/Back come up from 1:30-10:30, MH is from 2-9pm. This weekend I am going to do some DLI tests if I can figure out how to connect the PAR meter to a PC. Appears I need to give Apogee another $50 to be able to do that even though that fact seems to be not well published. I have the USB cable but I can't find a driver to install the meter.
My lighting results:
3 month old Giesemann 24w actinics driven to 40w each by an Icecap660 ballast. PAR = 60 at center/surface of the water and 230 at the bulb, Spectrometer showed very little 440nm wavelength, it was a small gradual bump from 420-480 but no strong peaks, then it really spiked at the 540nm area. The spectrometer results, albiet extremely unscientific, told me those bulbs were actually doing no good for my corals and only helping algae grow. The daily green film on my glass recently even though phosphates are at .04 and Nitrates are .5 told me something else was feeding the algae as well, which was the lighting.
New bulbs = ATI Blue+ on 2 standard electronic 2x24w T5HO ballast. PAR reading at center of the tank is now 207, up from 60, and 1020 at the bulb, up from 230. Over 3 times the PAR output at the surface and 4x at the bulb and the spectrometer showed pretty much what the ATI graph shows, very strong peak at 440-450nm area and just a small peak in the 550nm area.
I am also able to do a 2 stage dusk/dawn setting. Now I set the left/right actinics to come on at 1pm-11pm, Front/Back come up from 1:30-10:30, MH is from 2-9pm. This weekend I am going to do some DLI tests if I can figure out how to connect the PAR meter to a PC. Appears I need to give Apogee another $50 to be able to do that even though that fact seems to be not well published. I have the USB cable but I can't find a driver to install the meter.
Did Guillo try some shade cloth from the garden section of home depot? that might help a little or block out one of the tubes completly. I will try to stop by your house sometime today/tomorrow and check out the PAR meter and discuss the "too much light" from the solar tubes...
He tried some thick plastic sheeting, the type that goes over spotlights for auditoriums. They are made to handle the heat of a spotlight and are thick. When we put them on the tube it almost completely blocked the light, PAR went from 2800 down to like 60 just from that thick film. Need something thinner that doesn't have to worry about heat. I told him to look for that blue celophane used for crafts and presents like in the picture below, because the stuff he got was like limo tint for a car. It comes in all types of colors so we can try a bunch and look through the spectrometer to see how each type affects the lighting along with the PAR.
Just did some tests.. typical Saturday - Test day. Was debating a water change.. but I think I can go a little longer. Did 2 50% water changes last Fri/Sat as kind of a nitrate "flush" that I do a couple times a year. Even with my DSB it seems nitrates still creep up over time and I have found it a good idea to do a big flush of the tank every 6 months by doing 2 very large waterchanges back to back.
Also, BIG TIP of the day. ALWAYS rinse your frozen food! Seriously, I bet the large majority of phosphates enter the tank through food. Myself and Flomojo have been doing phosphate tests and from my observations Phosphates spike 10x during the hour of feeding. I had my tank at .04 and then fed without rinsing and my phosphates were .4 30 minutes after and took over an hour for my phosphate reactor to clean it all out of the water. This uses up the phosphate media very fast. Simply rinsing your food will help with the green film on the glass, diatoms, hair algae, and save you money on phosphate removal media.
Nitrates - .5
Phosphates - .03
Alk - 7.0 dkh (low IMO, been fighting this one)
CA - 400 (acceptable, been slacking with dosing B-Ionic CA)
Mg - 1350 (was fighting this one, finally got it back up)
Also, BIG TIP of the day. ALWAYS rinse your frozen food! Seriously, I bet the large majority of phosphates enter the tank through food. Myself and Flomojo have been doing phosphate tests and from my observations Phosphates spike 10x during the hour of feeding. I had my tank at .04 and then fed without rinsing and my phosphates were .4 30 minutes after and took over an hour for my phosphate reactor to clean it all out of the water. This uses up the phosphate media very fast. Simply rinsing your food will help with the green film on the glass, diatoms, hair algae, and save you money on phosphate removal media.
Nitrates - .5
Phosphates - .03
Alk - 7.0 dkh (low IMO, been fighting this one)
CA - 400 (acceptable, been slacking with dosing B-Ionic CA)
Mg - 1350 (was fighting this one, finally got it back up)
Some interesting results..
PAR test w/ Actinics on 6" under water / dead center in tank using a stable holder to accuracy/placement. I know, I need to do the test without actinics as well.
XM 10k (3month old) - 550 PAR
Phoenix 14k (3week old) - 330 PAR
Radium 20k (1week old) - 360 PAR
I thought the Phoenix was going to beat the Radium for sure.. but test says otherwise. Hmmmm... may have to rethink things on my lighting again.. but hey, I am going to have plenty of good bulbs to last me a while at this rate.
Coming on Tuesday, AquaMaxx 14k bulb I ordered Friday to test that out because it was on sale from MD. I will redo all my MH tests without actinics and take pictures/videos of the test next time.
PAR test w/ Actinics on 6" under water / dead center in tank using a stable holder to accuracy/placement. I know, I need to do the test without actinics as well.
XM 10k (3month old) - 550 PAR
Phoenix 14k (3week old) - 330 PAR
Radium 20k (1week old) - 360 PAR
I thought the Phoenix was going to beat the Radium for sure.. but test says otherwise. Hmmmm... may have to rethink things on my lighting again.. but hey, I am going to have plenty of good bulbs to last me a while at this rate.
Coming on Tuesday, AquaMaxx 14k bulb I ordered Friday to test that out because it was on sale from MD. I will redo all my MH tests without actinics and take pictures/videos of the test next time.
It'll be interesting to see what the PAR reading will be on the AquaMaxx 14k. I got the 2 bulbs on Friday (250w and 150w DE). Put the 250w in my dual fixture, side by side to the Phoenix. On my setup they're almost identical in color and intensity. Most observers wouldn't really be able to tell the difference. But just by looking at the light spill against the white wall, the 4 mo old Phoenix is just a tad whiter and brighter (probably due to the AM not being burned in yet). Gave the new AM 250w to a local reefer (Evo) for letting me borrow his spare lighting setup for my QT tank.
The new AM 150w DE 14k looks so awesome on my nanocube and corals are loving it. So much better than the Sundial's stock 10K POS. My brother has the same fixture and is running the stock bulb. Because the 10k was so harsh, he had to raise the fixture about 16" above the surface to keep his corals from burning. The AM 14k will allow him to lower the fixture back to a more aesthetic height, make his corals happier and colors pop.
Regarding the colored film, I recall Steve Garrett of Garrett's Acropolis first used simple blue Saran Wrap over his outdoor coral farm with great success. Only he had to replace it frequently due to exposure to elements. He's since made improvements, but try that first.
Rinsing frozen foods = huge decrease in daily diatoms. I used to suspect that the 125 ml of RowaPhos in my reactor was becoming exhausted after 30 days. Since rinsing food, seeing way less daily diatoms anymore and the PO test showed .03 this morning (media 45 days old). Will probably be able to stretch out Rowaphos way longer now, perhaps at least the 2.5 months I recall it states in the instructions. Thanks again, Ace, for sharing the tester.
The new AM 150w DE 14k looks so awesome on my nanocube and corals are loving it. So much better than the Sundial's stock 10K POS. My brother has the same fixture and is running the stock bulb. Because the 10k was so harsh, he had to raise the fixture about 16" above the surface to keep his corals from burning. The AM 14k will allow him to lower the fixture back to a more aesthetic height, make his corals happier and colors pop.
Regarding the colored film, I recall Steve Garrett of Garrett's Acropolis first used simple blue Saran Wrap over his outdoor coral farm with great success. Only he had to replace it frequently due to exposure to elements. He's since made improvements, but try that first.
Rinsing frozen foods = huge decrease in daily diatoms. I used to suspect that the 125 ml of RowaPhos in my reactor was becoming exhausted after 30 days. Since rinsing food, seeing way less daily diatoms anymore and the PO test showed .03 this morning (media 45 days old). Will probably be able to stretch out Rowaphos way longer now, perhaps at least the 2.5 months I recall it states in the instructions. Thanks again, Ace, for sharing the tester.
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