Ace25's 75G Build Thread

Ace25 said:
Some interesting results..

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. :)
Click to expand...

Don't forget that higher PAR isn't necessarily better. Oops! Did I say that outloud? :lipssealedsmilie:

I recall you initially didn't have the best results with the switch to Radium. In all fairness to the excellent reputation of the Radium 20K, I'm suspecting that 1wk may have not been enough burn in time. Plus, the sudden change from 10K to 20k was too much of a difference. Now that your corals are adjusted to the 14K, maybe give the Radium another shot and see what happens?
 
I must admit I may have dozed off for a few during the technical bits, but Have you done the change over yet? Or are you still finalizing the pre-change setup?
 
Ya, definately PAR is not the answer. When I switched bulbs to the radium, it was at the 6month mark of my XM. I am now thinking it was more of "too much spectral shift" that I had the problems with vs too much/too little PAR. Going from almost a pure yellow bulb to an extremely blue bulb in one day probably isn't the best method.

When I switched the 3 month XM which had better spectral qualitys than the old XM so the Pheonix 14k not only did I NOT stress out my corals this time, it was like I added fertilizer for my corals because they started to grow so much.

Jen.. if your asking if I have drained my tank yet to fix my SCWD issue, no, I haven't yet.
 
So.. once again.. all this lighting stuff leaves me with more questions than answers.. but I am determined to find out all I can. Here is my "recap" of my tanks lighting adventure.

Started off mid June 2008 with:
XM 10K 250w MH overdriven to 370w by PFO M80 ballast + Icecap660 overdriving 4 24w UV Super Actinics at 40w ea. Ran this setup for 3 months, tore down my tank for repair for 3 months, then set back up in beginning of Dec 08 with new Actinics put in.

6 month mark, March 1st '09, XM was visibly very yellow and even though PAR numbers on the bulb still are better than other bulbs, the lack of blue in the bulb made it a bad choice for corals IMO. I still have the bulb and tested the PAR at the bulb, 3 month XM was 2850 and 6 month was 2600, not much difference in PAR output at the bulb. I replaced the actinics with geisemann at this time and tried switching to a Radium 20k. I let the Radium go for 5 days total, but after day 4 my corals seemed to be still not looking well, and actually looking worse each day so I ordered a new XM10k and put that back in, in place of the Radium, and almost immediately my corals started opening back up and looking better the first day. I thought at the time it was too big of a PAR difference that caused the problems, but now with my recent observations I am thinking that wasn't it at all.

So, here it is, the 9 month point of my tank, and again the Actinics needed replacement.. 3 months on the dot with those it seemed, so this time I chose to stop overdriving the actinics and put them on regular ballasts and put in some ATI Blue+ bulbs this time around. I liked the spectral graph on them so I wanted to give them a try. I had alway heard great things about the Radium bulbs but my experience was not a good one at the time. I had also heard great things about the Phoenix 14k DE bulb and now that they make a SE bulb I wanted to see how they were, so I changed out my 3 month old XM10k because for some reason the majority of my acropora corals stopped growing or really slowed down. I put in the Phoenix to see if I would have the same problems I experienced with the Radium, but they ended up being quite the opposite which made me happy. After yesterdays tests showed me the Radium actually put out more PAR than the Phoenix (just a little) I ended up leaving the Radium in and will run it today and observe. After running both of them back to back I saw very little difference in lighting/color, actually, the Radium seemed a little more "white" than the Phoenix which I found a little odd. If my initial problems with going from XM10k to Radium20k were simply PAR related I would have had the same issue with going to the Phoenix, but I didn't, so that now makes me really think it was a spectral quality problem with the lighting (too big of a shift at once), not a PAR problem.
 
Ace is it possible to chat with you in private? I dont want o create a thread over my questions but I really admire your tanks and I would like to chat with you abit about seting up my tank.. I have some renovations coming up and I'd like some expert advice. my e-mail is rcrob04@hotmail.com or msg meon here if you can thanks :)
 
Ace: now that you have had your MP40W for a while, do you still like it? Would you purchase it again? David
 
Well.. a full day of running the Radium and this is solely my opinion, but I actually like the look of the Phoenix better. Right now, the Radium is just a tad whiter and the corals seem a tad washed out. Nothing like the XM, that just about completely washes out colors IMO, but the Phoenix definately looked the best to me, made the corals "Pop" more. Orange digi looks particularly bright under the Phoenix vs the Radium. Also, this is really only day 6 of the Radium running, so it still isn't burned in yet, which means it will get whiter, where as the Phoenix should be just about broken in and the colors and growth are great. I can't judge growth with the Radium of course. Mon-Tue depending on if MD shipped my order Friday I will have that AquaMaxx bulb to test out and judge by as well. So, when MH goes out tonight I think I am going to stick the Phoenix back in as my "Primary" light for now and use the others for testing unless the AquaMaxx suprises me.

As for the MP40, DEFINATELY like it. The motor has gotten quieter, guess new motors are very tight and make more noise, but it is fine now, and flow is still amazing. I also like the built in "Night time" feature. I am mainly running it in short pulse mode now after testing everything over and over until I found what I liked best. It is good for my size tank, but I can't comment if that would be the best choice for flow options for others. Longer tanks may like long pulse mode, or if you get multiple the reefcrest mode may be best.
 
Well, finally got my "shipped" notice from MarineDepot this morning and my package with the AquaMaxx bulb is already out for delivery so I will have some PAR test/pictures posted tonight of all my bulbs and PAR readings at the surface and below. Sheash, MD needs to not have my "Order history" so easy to look up.. I have spend $1200 with them just in the last 30 days!
 
Radium 20k 250w PAR Results

1. Radium 20k - 14" below bulb, 2" above water line.
3672989177_14fa421677_o.jpg


2. Radium 20k + 4 24w ATI Blue+ Actinics - 14" below bulb, 2" above water line
3673797454_44c76ca646_o.jpg


3. Radium 20k - 4" under water line
3673798242_6290e4dac0_o.jpg


4. Radium 20k + 4 24w ATI Actinic Blue+ Actinics, 4" under water line
3672988887_823a135b46_o.jpg
 
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