junior

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I would take the light if you decide to break it down. 

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I believe brs did a great job on light testing and I believe we assume we need more than necessary.

Are you running natural daylight? If not could you send me your settings? Do you run at that setting for all 12 hours?

I don't really have an advise besides what i gave you. One day everything looked awesome and growning. The next day nothing. I spent weeks watching parameters. Increased watch changes. Replaced all media. And light was all I had left... so

 

This is what scares me with LED's. I just want my halides back, but not the electrical bill lol. 

 

If you are around Portland, I'd be interested to see what par readings you have. 

I love my nanoboxes. I did burn down my 20L with it though. They can be intense. I run a quad over a 20long. About 30% max output 2x blues vs. White. And a tide plus m over a nuvo 8 46% blues vs 23% whites. I'd only up a couple percent every couple weeks. My quad had everything looking awesome 5% weekly... until 1 week it burned everything down....now I'm back at 30% and ramping extremely slowly. So corals came backs... others are gone. Be careful

 

So they have been ramped up for about 1 week now. I don't see any burning. I am really confused by the par meter readings, and what I expected. Currently have a low light morning, 6 hours of high light then just blue for night viewing. Full cycle is 12 hours. At max my par meter reads 180 at the top tip of my highest coral. about 120 at the bottom now. Even with adding 30% that some people have suggested I'm not getting as high as I hoped. 

 

Any advice is welcome

 

Edit: Morning: blues 50% whites %20

        Mid-Day: blues 90% whites 45%

        Night : blues 30% whites 5%

 

Thanks,

JR

interested in the TDS Meter and possibly the PRS reactor. 

Still trying to get my clowns to get into my BTA. no luck so far. They instead like attacking me anytime I touch the tank.

Looks good. How do you like the calcium reactor for such a small tank? Any issues with it dropping your ph?

 

I was worried about the same thing. Currently running it at 6.25ph and a drip rate a little faster than 1 per second. Ph holds prefectly at 8.2. Does help that I have it drip right next to the skimmer.

 

Looks good man. How are you liking the NanoBox?

I like it as LED's go. Easy to program and adjust. Only issue I'm having is getting enough par lower in the tank. Growth has been nice on the sps. Same as I used to get with MH.

One with the blue lifted up, and white turned down. 

 

Thought I would add an new update. I was having an issue with my corals browning out to some extent. I decided to just get an apogee par meter. My readings were well below what I expected. I have since increased my output, and I'm noticing some coloring back up. Parameters have been really stable with the ATO, and calcium reactor dialed in right. 

 

Watching the sunset monti in the middle color up has been really cool. It was originally all brown, and bleach out on a large section. All of the bleached area is now filled in. It is slowly shifting to that bright orange. 

 

Only last thing I am dealing with is a small amount of hair algae. It hasn't been spreading. I think it will just take some time before it dies off. 

 

The pictures are from when I was losing color, but the tank has come a long way. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

JR

What prompted me to order an apogee is the corals lower down. One blue stag is browned out, and I noticed the BTA stretching towards the light. My concern was ramping the light for them will burn the red dragon colony that is closest to the surface. I was getting a reading of 230 on top of upper most tip of it. 

 

I'll snap some pictures tonight when I get him. 

My main concern has always been burning corals with the led's. With those readings I'm thinking I should increase the lighting? Is there anything I may be missing?

I'm really hoping I'm doing something wrong because my light levels look really low. I know PAR readings are very accurate with led's, but what I'm getting doesn't seem helpful at all. I know some people have used the apogee meter on led's before, and I was hoping for a little in site. 

I have a a Nano-Box Duo Plus M. The current settings for day time light is 80% on all channels other than white, which is 40%. 

Using the SQ-420, hooked into a laptop. I have it set to daylight, and has been calibrated. 

My readings are about 300 at the center surface of the tank. By the time I reach the first coral(about 4" under) it is at 150. Once to where most of my sps is(about 6-8" under) it is reading 90-100. At the bottom near my clams, I'm getting of reading of 60-70. 

This just doesn't seem right since, my corals are growing an have decent color. The clams aren't trying to move, and look very healthy. I have looked at their webpage, and even at maxed out I'm not getting the readings they have on their page. 

Any advice is appreciated, and thank you for the help. 

 

 

 

Also if anyone would like to use it, I'd be more than happy to swing by. It will create an excel file I can e-mail to you. 

 

Thanks,

JR

Need to get an update on this. Currently have a quickly growing collection of SPS colonies. Everything is happy healthy, and settling in. 

 

 

Nice looking build, I am in the process of designing a 55g cube, and am really sick of my dosing pump!  How do you like the Aquamaxx nano reactor? How do you think it would run on a 55g, w/ 20g sump?

 

Personally I like the reactor, I wouldn't put it on a tank that large though. My tank has about 8 decent size SPS colonies(about softball size), clam, and a few frags. It handles that just fine, but I have had to turn it up quite a bit. When I go bigger, I will upgrade my calcium reactor first. My reasoning is because I will have up the drip rate. With such a small reactor, your regulator is constantly popping on/off. This would just get worse as I increased the drip rate.  

Jeff often has nice and hardy (and inexpensive) Derasas in his shop. That's what I would try if I was starting out with clams.

 

I was there this weekend. They had a 4" or so Derasa, standard coloring. Usually best to try your first time with one that isn't the really small 1"-2" ones. 

 

Not sure if its still there though.

PM sent. 3+ if I can get it. 

I will be going to the meeting this weekend, if anyone wants it. 

I decided to upgrade to a smaller regulator. Works perfectly, but isn't the prettiest. Feel free to pm with any questions. Asking 40 or a coral to trade.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks

the rainbow I purchased is happy and healthy. Thank you. 

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Also decided to order a Tunze Osmolator, adding up to a gallon a day is a bit much. 

Last couple of days have been a challenge. I discovered that the used tank had a very slight leak from the bottom seal. My short wet test before hand didn't show it. Worst part was I had picked up the live rock from Matt, and was really trying to not stress the corals any more than a fresh tank already will. 

 

I was forced to drain/dry the tank, and reseal the whole thing. Last night I got it all back running. Here are the pictures from this morning, looks like everyone is ok. 

 

 

 

Only concern is getting very little polyp extension from the top corals. Some what concerned my LED's are to intense. I've lowered them down a little to see if that might be what is doing it. 

Thank you. It will be nice to finally get livestock in it. Looking at a sand covered square gets boring.