Rick Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 This thread relates to the recent build thread I started on my custom frag tank seen here: http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14514 I'm starting a separate thread here though to follow the actual results of this experiment. Basically this is an experiment to see if it is possible to get good coral growth using a shallow tank and normal compact flourescent spiral bulbs close to the daylight temperature range (6500k). My choice of bulbs are a package of 4 6500k 23w CF spiral bulbs from the local home improvement store (Lowes in this case however Home Depot should carry them and other stores may also). The cost on them was just under $12 for a package of 4. The 23w bulbs advertise an equivalent light rating as a 100w incandescent bulb. The tank itself measures 24" x 21" and is 12" high. To hold the light bulbs I first made a hanger to hold 4 clamp on lights with reflectors. (The lights with reflectors cost about $6.50 each) The total cost on the lights with the bulbs came out to a little under $38. Each bulb covers about 1 cubic foot of the tank. The tank is bare bottom with aluminum foil under it to help reflect light back up from the bottom. While I don't have a par meter to check it I can judge somewhat by the exposure with my camera how much light the tank has in it. Surprisingly these 4 bulbs (92watts worth) put out enough light that the shutter speed is about 1 1/2 times as fast as what is required in my display tank with Dual 400w MH lights over it. (It is about twice the depth though) This alone was a bit of a surprise to me. The growout tank is gravity fed from my display tank to keep additional maintenance minimal and has about 780 GPH of flow with the return lines positioned to get some surface movement and to provide a circular flow through the tank. I may add a small powerhead to give some additional flow to this tank as well. Initially I am starting with a variety of different corals most of which I have duplicated in the display plus I added one of my RBTA's to the tank as well. Both to see how well it does and to provide a host for the maroon clown pair that are also in the tank. Following this post I will provide initial pictures of each coral I plan to follow the growth on and then I will try to make regular updates to see how they progress (including any additional corals as I add them). Let me know what you think. Any comments, tips, or ideas are welcome. Here is a FTS showing the tank with the lights: This pic shows the tank with the frag rack and the initial corals that I will be following the growth on: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted October 7, 2009 Author Share Posted October 7, 2009 First up is the RBTA. For some reason this one has had a tendacy to kind if hide under the rocks in the display tank so the coloring is so so. Not bad but it could be a bit more vibrant. Next is a purple mushroom and some pulsing xenia. This one is an Australian Maze Coral that isn't too healthy right now. It was subjected to attacks from a Jewel Damsel for several weeks before I was able to get the damsel removed. This one has stayed about the same for 3 or 4 weeks now so I'm going to see if it will make a comeback in this tank instead. If anyone has any tips that may help this I would much appreciate them. Here is an Acan that I have had for a month or so. PE has never been great on this so we will see what happens with it here. A few Zoa Polyps. This actually show a flourescent green center under actinic and 14k MH bulbs. Under the 6500k bulbs it is hard to see the green though. This one will also be interesting to follow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny503 Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 This is a pretty nice frag tank Rick, I am pretty there will be plenty of people in this forum will start giving you frags for experiment. Too bad you dont live closed to me or else I will give you a few frags from my tank for this experiment. I want how corals growth in this lighting especially with with sps. Could someone here be generous give Rick a few SPS for this experiment? Puh lease..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted October 7, 2009 Author Share Posted October 7, 2009 These are some Yellow Polyp Zoas that originally came from Calvin (Kilmca). I'm going to try to get a better pic of these. I was told these are Paly's however I'm not sure. I have some other that look almost identical that are also supposed to be Paly's as well. (I haven't figured out how to tell the difference between Paly's and Zoa's yet) 2 Candy Cane heads. These are a bright teal color with alternating shades of green around the edges. The color is substantially different under the 6500k bulbs. A single Hammer head. For some reason GSP takes a long time to get going in my system. I have a fairly good sized one in my display but it took a long time before it started to get any substantial growth. This one here came from a tank that crashed when we had the heat wave over the summer. The mat started out almost white and has changed to a dark brown color. Underneath it does have the typical purple colored mat though. The polyps on this are still white though after about 2 months and there hasn't been any new growth that I can see yet. I wonder if the 6500k light will change how fast this recovers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted October 7, 2009 Author Share Posted October 7, 2009 This is a pretty nice frag tank Rick, I am pretty there will be plenty of people in this forum will start giving you frags for experiment. Too bad you dont live closed to me or else I will give you a few frags from my tank for this experiment. I want how corals growth in this lighting especially with with sps. Could someone here be generous give Rick a few SPS for this experiment? Puh lease..... Yes, SPS will be interesting. I only have a few SPS frags right now that I'm not willing to take a chance with. I was thinking about getting a few of the $5 ones from Seahorse next time I get over there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny503 Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 I was prefer the free one :-) I used to get punch of free SPS from members here. Oh yeah them from Steve, Dinh and Jake... when those guys cleaned their tank, they accident broke it and glue it on a piece of rock.... I came over and they decide gave it to me :-) Those were good old day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 so how has the growth been? Or did you just start? You just started huh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted October 15, 2009 Author Share Posted October 15, 2009 so how has the growth been? Or did you just start? You just started huh? Only been 1 1/2 weeks however what I see so far is encouraging. The only thig I moved out was the rock with the Anemone on it as it wasn't looking happy. All 3 of the RBTA's started moving around last week though (The small one is MIA) so I don't know if it the unhappiness was related to the light or something else. The only change I could find in the parameters was lower nitrates. (I added some Purigen which cut them in half over a 2 day period) The two I can still see are looking better this week and seem to have stopped moving. I did add some new corals that I picked up over the last week. Here are some pics of some of what I added. A Purple Polyp Finger Leather: A Purple Mushroom Rock: A Galaxea: (Note: This wasn't very healthy due to it being crowded out by featherduster worms which I took off it before adding it) A partially damaged Candy Cane due to the same overcrowding. (This will go to my brother after the flesh covers the skeleton again, it actually looks much better than a week ago) A Purple and Green Psammocora. Note that this is supposed to be a high light SPS coral. So far it seems happy (4 days now) and the green actually appears a bit brighter. (It came from under 250w MH lights) This one will be a true test of the spiral light growth capacity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 Interesting. Will have to keep an eye on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted October 15, 2009 Author Share Posted October 15, 2009 Here are a couple of one week comparison shots Hammer - Last Week: Hammer - Now: Acan - Last Week: Acan - Now: What I find interesting is that part of these corals actually seem to have colored up some over the last week. This seems to fly in the face of popular opinion regarding coral temperature and growth vs. color. Not all have though. The Zoas seem to be doing okay however the color is drab under these lights when I know they were fairly bright under 250w MH bulbs. This hasn't changed though from when they were placed in the tank so I don't think they lost color but rather the lights just don't make them pop out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 like to see after one month what results are Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted November 15, 2009 Author Share Posted November 15, 2009 A few people have asked me what these bulbs look like so I snapped a shot with my phone last time I was at Lowe's. Here is the picture: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClayTheSavageFraser Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 How are the corals lookin? Would love a pic update! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted November 15, 2009 Author Share Posted November 15, 2009 How are the corals lookin? Would love a pic update! I'll see if I can get a few pics tomorrow. In a nutshell though soft corals and lps seem to be doing great. I have an Acan that really seems to be taking off under these. I dabbled with SPS in here and ended up moving them back to the display. They just didn't look too happy under these. The biggest issue I have though is that I'm getting too much algae growing in the tank for the cleanup crew (which is almost nonexistant). This tank being plumbed directly from the main display also is getting all of the detritus from it without a decent way to use a filter sock. I may end up putting another pump in and plumb this by itself. Still use the same sump but not gravity feed it from the display. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandinga Posted November 15, 2009 Share Posted November 15, 2009 Very interesting experiment Rick. I experimented with Halogen bulbs about 8 years ago, but I never tried corals, just macroalgae, which grew incredibly fast. I would imagine that the algae issue has alot to do with the col;or temperature of the bulbs. Daylight bulbs usually produce more algae. It may be wise to re-plumb if you don't want to affect the main tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted November 15, 2009 Author Share Posted November 15, 2009 Very interesting experiment Rick. I experimented with Halogen bulbs about 8 years ago, but I never tried corals, just macroalgae, which grew incredibly fast. I would imagine that the algae issue has alot to do with the col;or temperature of the bulbs. Daylight bulbs usually produce more algae. It may be wise to re-plumb if you don't want to affect the main tank. Main tank hasn't been an issue. I actually had one rock with a few zoas that was covered in hair algae that I moved from this tank to my main display and within a few days the rock was clean. I also figure it's from the color temperature however I'm trying to come up with a cleanup crew that will deal with it. I added 25 lbs. of sand and a diamond goby a week or so ago and it helped quite a bit. The pencil urchin in there loves it but it doesn't have a big enough appetite to keep up. I'm going to try half a dozen trochus next to see if they will clean it up. If I re-plumb then it will be so I can use a filter sock to collect the detritus that comes out of the main display instead of having it settle into this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted November 16, 2009 Author Share Posted November 16, 2009 Here are some more comparisons with pics taken yesterday Hammer - 5 weeks ago: Hammer - One Month ago: Hammer - Now (This now has 2 heads): Acan - 5 weeks ago: Acan - One Month ago: Acan - Now (This has 2 extra heads now and the ones that were there are fuller with more color): Galaxea - 5 weeks ago: Galaxea - Now: Yellow Polyp Zoas - 5 weeks ago: Yellow Polyp Zoas - Now: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted November 16, 2009 Author Share Posted November 16, 2009 And here is a current FTS: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 nice . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impur Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Very cool!! Thanks for the pics Rick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClayTheSavageFraser Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 I heard from someone that that clear algae maybe from that white eggcrate? I don't know how but that's the same stuff that comes out on my eggcrate as well!! Anybody have thoughts on this? Clay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted November 19, 2009 Author Share Posted November 19, 2009 I noticed 2 more eyes yesterday growing on the Acan that I didn't see a few days ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impur Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 I heard from someone that that clear algae maybe from that white eggcrate? I don't know how but that's the same stuff that comes out on my eggcrate as well!! Anybody have thoughts on this? Clay Never heard that before, and I have never seen that stuff on the eggcrate in either of my tanks. Rick - that acan might turn out to be pretty darn nice!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewie Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Here's a good read. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16042034 I've used all kinds of eggcrate in my systems. Keep in mind that the structure of eggcrate is a haven for algae to grow on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClayTheSavageFraser Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Nice thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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