OgreMkV

Put me on the list for frags of both the milli and the zoas.

If you have a glass tank, it won't work anyway, IR doesn't penetrate glass.

One thing that I suggest

You might run a powerhead with a large sponge filter in your main tank for a couple of weeks. That'll let the sponge get some bacteria in it.

Then transfer the sponge and powerhead to your QT tank. Instant cycle (kindof). I've never tried it with a 75, just my little 10.

I never reuse the sponge. As far as I'm concerned, it's now contaminated.

That is the most gorgeous setup I think I've ever seen. I want.

But I haven't the money and I'm in a rental.

25g tall tank

I've got the hood for the biowheel system. No pumps, biowheels, or lights... just the hood.

$10

Also have a 96W PC fixture. It currently doesn't work, but it did in March. I'm sure someone can fix it. It's a coralife 24inch fixture with a single 96W bulb. The bulb is less than 3 months old.

$10 (you have to take the fixture if you just want the bulb

Thanks

Ogre

P.S. This is in Round Rock near the corner of I-35 and the toll way.

I DID splurge on lighting. I got in on a group buy of Pacific Sun Deimos fixtures... 3x 160W Cree LED panels and 2x 80W T5s; I'm thinking the KZ Fiji purple bulbs, but am open to suggestions. The lights are fully programmable; you can adjust the color temperature, PAR, sunrise, sunset, simulate clouds, etc... I'm quite excited by this purchase and hope to be able to provide good feedback about these fixtures (and LEDs in general). With this fixture I hope to not have to use the chiller that I also got with the tank. I am working with my stand builder on mounting the fixture next week. We are planning on using cabinet slides to have the fixture move out of the way for tank maintenance... we'll see how well it works.

WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wouldn't worry too much about the lighting. We have LEDs and our tank is too bright. I've got two SPSs at the bottom of the tank (doing very well) and almost everything else is migrating to the shade. LEDs are bright.

We have an older APC 500 UPS (I have an APC 750 for the computers). I run the Aquaclear 70 HOB filter, the heater, and the koralia 1 Powerhead. The other powerhead and lights are not on the powersupply. The lights here went out about a month ago and the power was out for about 3 hours. Everything was still running.

You can figure out how much you need here: http://bugclub.org/beginners/miscellaneous/upscalc.html

Koralias are nice because they don't use a lot of power and since you can't put any equipment on them (like sponge filters), there's no extra power draw on them.

I hope that helps.

This is from my talk on Saturday. We didn't have time to go into bleaching, but here's what I've found. I'll get this into the FAQ area with links to resources as soon as I can.

Coral Bleaching

It is not usually a disease and it is different than the white syndrome series of diseases. It is caused by the coral expelling the zooanthellae that provide some of their food supply. (Interesting thing I discovered while doing this research is that corals manufacture their own sunblock proteins to protect them from excessive UV... that's the stuff that makes them glow for us.) Anyway, the coral bleaching can be a fairly common thing and is not always a sign of poor health.

Both excess and lack of nutrient can cause this.

The best solution to a bleaching even is to A) remove the stressor and make sure that sufficient (but not excessive) nutrients are in the water. This is especially true for nitrogen. In most aquariums, the nitrogen load is much higher than in the ocean. However, if you are running a super clean tank, then injection of some nitrogen may also help zooanthellae production.

Rate of ejection. If you notice that over time, the coral is becoming less colorful, that's one thing. A slow change is not as bad as a fast one. If, literally overnight, the coral goes from colorful to white, then a severe bleaching event has occurred.

A recent survey of coral reefs has found over 18 causes of bleaching. Many of them are contradictory (i.e. both hpo and hyper salinity will cause bleaching).

The important thing is that for bleaching, it may not be the death of the coral. It may just be re-establishing equilibrium with the zooathellae.

We have some green stripe and blue stripe on shells (2-4 per shell). We're in Round Rock. Call it $5 per shell.

We also have an extra frag of eye-of-ra zoanthids (6 polyps). $15 for that. If you're interested

Ogre

OgreKV, I've got the G2 light...110W. What exactly is your lighting schedule? I'm thinking mine may be too long because I couldn't get the cyano to stop. I believe the blue turn on around 11a.m., white (don't have the 30W bulbs) turn on at noon, white off at 8p.m. and blue off at 9p.m. Last night I did replace the sand with a new bag of Hawaiian Black (and do a major water change) and put back only a few rocks, a couple softies and the fish and inverts. No cyano today...so I'm thinking it was partly the sand...it was from a sump and pretty dirty.

I need to move my Solana contents which does have SPS and a nice RBTA into the tank with the G2. They are currently under and LED fixture my hubby built that has a mixture of cree bulbs, 12 blue and 12 white bulbs at 3.7W's each. I'm thinking G2 will still do well for the corals as I have another RBTA in this tank recovering and it's coloring back up quickly. What are your thoughts? FYI...I got this light after I saw yours LOL...got in on a group buy for $400 including shipping.

Also do you use the mounting rack or did you suspend it and if so how high do you have it from the water? I don't know why, but I'm worried not suspending will put it too close to the corals and stress them out. I had a chalice on the side before, somewhat shaded and it started to bleach.

As far as my opinion on LED's...I really like the color. There is heat, but it's directed up. I actually have a heater on my Solana...usually stays about 78, but never goes above what the temp in the house is (80 when we are at work).

My schedule is similar:

blues on at 11:00

whites on at 11:30

whites off at 7:30

blues off at 8:00

I wish I had the moon lights from the G2... oh well. Next tax return.

Because of the weird shape of the tank, I've got my fixture resting on the rails on each long side. The LEDs are about a half inch from the plastic cover on the tank and that's about 1.2 to 1 inch from the water. So they are pretty close.

We have found that lower light species don't like the intensity of the LEDs, I'm guessing that would be true for MH as well. So we built kind of a shelf out of dead rock. It's about 2/3rds of the way tp the tank and provides shade for a big chunk of the bottom area. That's where all the zoas and mushrooms are. Most of the SPSs are on top of the shelf, right under the lights. The birdsnest and the softies do not like the intense light. We have some mushrooms that literaly crawled into the rocks to hide from one of the 30W spots.

I had a huge problem with hair algae recently. I reduced my photoperiod and installed a skimmer. The hair algae disappeared in about two weeks. We also got a tail spot blenny and he keeps algae in check too. I have other kinds of algae, but its not as annoying as the hair or cyano. Some of it's pretty, so I leave it and just trim it once every couple of weeks... which I need to do today.

I hope that helps.

Ogre

Let me add a few more comments here. I've been running LEDs for almost 6 months now. Before I had a 96W PC bulb (dual 10k/actinic), now, I've 160Ws of LEDs lamps (60W 18k, 60W 10k, 40W actinic). I've also decreased my photo period from 10 hours to just less than 8 hours per day.

1) Over the summer the tank temperature has been 2-3 degrees cooler than last summer. Notably, we're running the AC less this summer (thermostat set to 80 during the day rather than 78. Last year, I struggled to keep the tank temp at 80-81F. Over the last three months, I haven't seen the tank temp above 78F.

2) Before LED, I had one SPS (birdsnest) that didn't do very much for 6 months (maybe doubled in size). After LED, the birdnest has increased to 5-6 times what it was prior to LEDs and I've added 3 more SPS with a fourth coming tomorrow.

I respect the information that hydro is presenting, but from personal experience, I can say the LEDs do the job. Plus I have the option of just running part of my lights, not the whole thing.

P.S. I'll be happy to show how mine work tomorrow to those who come to the ARC meeting at my place.

Yep. See you Saturday at 1:00PM. My birthday present.

Going to see you guys Saturday before the monthly meeting.

So that then raises a question in my mind: Why do we use MH if their output is far above 6700k (i.e. 10k, 14k, 20k)?

Because it makes them look pretty. And that's pretty much it.

As an addition to what everyone else has said, corals (indeed all photosynthetic organisms) do best at a spectrum of about 6700K. That's the spectrum put out by the sun. Photosynthetic compounds (generally) peak around 420-460nm and around 650 and 680 nanometers.

Interestingly, the compounds that make corals glow (like we like) and much of the coloration of them are actually proteins that the coral uses to protect itself from UV radiation. The more UV, then more proteins are produced and the brighter the corals glow.

So, get the lights that make the corals look like you want them and then sufficient lights to make sure they get enough photosynthetic byproducts to thrive.

my 2/100s of a dollar

It's safe to assume Lexie and I will be there. We have a 3.5 year-old, so feel free to bring kiddos. We also have cats, benydryl is available as well.

During hurricane Gustav, when we were without power for 5 days, I sat in the driveway and cleaned guns for two days (I cleaned them many, many times). But didn't have any trouble with break-ins or any of the other crap that happened in our area.

We only got one, but it's a great deal and I'm looking forward to picking up a few extras Saturday.

Leather Sold... thanks versace. It was great talking with you.

$10 each or $15 gets both.

These are in a quarantine tank right now due to lack of room.

INstalled with no problems. So far no skimate in the collection cup, but I'm seeing some nasty dark bubbles in the tube.

Lexie is on her way to borrow her brother-in-law's dremmel.

I can't wait to get it installed.

Seems like a nice unit. Pretty well built. I've got to cut a hole in my tank lid, so that'll have to happen tonight or tomorrow morning before the lights come on.

No, it's not attached, but I'm just not sure how much I want to do that for an 'iffy' chance at keeping the eggs going.

I'm glad of the eggs, it shows my tank has a good ecosystem. I'll try to keep them, feed with rotifer and the like.

So I read that Clown GOby eggs take about 4 days to hatch, then another 45 days to complete metamorphasis. All I have food wise that might work for them is frozen rotifers. They are buried up in the candy cane (as shown) and away from any powerheads and major flow.

I'm wondering if it's worth trying to get the quarantine tank up and going? I'll still have to have a powerhead in that and all I have is a big sponge filter for it.

Thoughts? Suggestions?