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180g Acrylic Build


Luke33

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, got my final two fish, pair of Sargassum triggers. And this is why PA is the best, Andy found these for me after looking for months, then kept them for a couple weeks to make sure they were reef safe and didn't show aggression to anything else. I also got the best deal imaginable on these things, they are gorgeous and will make great pets.

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well, a lot has changed in the tank I just haven't had time to get pics. My zoa's have absolutely blew up in growth, torch, frogspawn and hammers have blew up, sps are just doing ok. The big change is I'm going back to t5's and should have a new ATI sunpower fixture in the next week. 8x80w 5b+, 1C+ and 2 AB's. I'll most likely get a few blue LED strips so I can still have the led pop. I love the led's but I just think if I'm going to do a sps tank I'd be better off with high end t5's or mh's. And the mh's are hot!

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Well tonight is the night as my 8x80w ATI sunpower will be delivered. I have had the bulb's all week : ) going to go with 5 ati b+, 2 ab's and one cp. Should make for a nice 20k look. I then plan on adding in 4 blue 36" led strips so that will be another 80 3w led's. Should be around 160w of led, with plenty of par. Plan is to run the lights less than I do now. Right now I have been running my 440w led from noon to midnight, ramping up from 10% blue only to 100% blue, 70% white, red and green, then back to 10% blue only. This time around I'm going to run the led's for 10hrs, all t5's on for 6hrs and outside two t5's on for 8hrs. Ofcourse I'm going to check the par to make sure I'm not frying anything with everything on. I'm also interested to see the affect of the blue led bars, not sure how much they will raise the intensity.

 

As far as corals go, the zoa's and lps are just growing like crazy, I've had some amazing growth. The sps have been hit or miss, which is why I plan on running t5's. Some are showing great colors and good growth while others are a bit brown and showing very little growth. I have had three out of 20 just rtn for some reason or another, but the rest are pretty stable at the moment and doing well. Some just need to color up.

 

Parameters have been consistent, alk 8.7, calc 440, trates 0-5, trites 0, am 0, ph 8, sg 1.025, phos .00 - .08

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The LED craze I'm sure has made many people swap from MH or T5. So you and I are both a statistic! Jenn's tank grows more coralline with t5 than mine with LED's and her zoa growth is better as well. Color can't be beat on mine versus hers though.

 

Your perameters look great! I hate when SPS starts to get necrosis and perams are great. That's why I am a huge fan of montipora, I have like 20 different species and they are not as picky as acro's that's for sure!

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  • 1 month later...

Here are a few iphone 6 photo's, not the greatest as they don't show color well. I'll get my canon out at some point and figure that out again. I battled a bit of HA but that seems to be under control pretty well now as its getting less and less, the joys of a new tank. After the led switch the sps really didn't like the new lights for the first few weeks. Most are now really colored up and I have some that are going to be really crazy once they grow for another 6mths. I have been watching the phos, alk and calc on an every other to every few days schedule. I am using the hanna checkers for all three, which is really nice as its so precise. I have nearly stopped with the LiCh which makes me pretty happy as I don't care for using chemicals. Enjoy the pics!

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sounds like the tank is doing great now! I think the t5 with leds will be a nice combo for growth and color. Looking great overall. Hey I think I see a spot on your sandbed for one more coral lol!

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Thanks Brandon, the tank is doing very well as far as stability goes. I have had some acclimation trouble with some of the mille's I recently purchased. Also when the change from LED to T5's happened pretty much every sps browned out or did something odd. Most have recovered since and really started growing well and some have completely morphed into a different color altogether. I have a motorcity corals fury milli completely morph from the purplish color to yellow and green. I also had a blue mille go from blue to bright pink with blue polyps, blue base and blue tips, its going to be a stunner. As far as sps goes, the selection I have now is better than I have ever had. Some of the maricultured mille's I have are really struggling though as they were under led, then when I got them under t5. Even at the bottom of my tank they are getting hit with 400 par so some did not fare so well. Its always something to deal with. But I'm extremely happy with my sps right now. Only one I just can't get to color up is a cherry corals angels and demons Mille. I have faith though as the base is growing well and starting to color up.

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Looking really good Luke. Really good.

 

I'm going to have to make a visit and bring the spectrometer and take some readings. Just to see what the spectrum looks like.

 

Keep it up. I might need some frags sometime in the next couple of years........

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Sounds good Scott. It will pry be a couple of years before I have some colonies from these frags. But if things keep going as is they will be pretty awesome looking!

 

Anytime you feel like coming down and hanging out with your meter your more than welcome. There is always cold beer just around the corner from the fish room in the bar : )

 

Would be interesting to see how the spectrum of the t5's are vs your led's.

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