[Marcus Watts]

800w MH
6500k
blue leds

[chriss]

Whoops, I read your post as being a SINGLE 800watt lamp, but seems you were talking TWIN 400 watt lamps, so my original comments are not really relevant, but I'll leave them here anyway...

Quote

This is all purely my opinion and assuming it's for the led lit tank I saw when I came round a while back...

Single halide on a rectangular tank? Spread = hieght = spill + shadowed ends. Without a LOT of powerful blue it would still be pretty yellow. My choice on your size tank would be either twin 250 on cheapy mag ballasts which will overrun the lamps or twin 400's.

Two lamps will give better coverage than a single lamp plus you'll get an overlap area of higher intensity. The tank will be filled with more light 'evenly' and gives better coral growth shape along with the lack of shadows at the end. Scaling can help get around the shadowing, but not as well as using two lamps. Sps don't grow so nice when lit unevenly. I know people use 6500k lamps to grow sps to good shapes quickly, but the shadowing/single source would upset this, twin 400, good water and feed would do a better job in your situation.

then the LEDs, an 800w 6500k lamp will be VERY intense, if you intend to use blue LEDs to make it more appealing, I doubt you could physically arrange enough of them over the tank impacting on the halide coverage to make a difference. A couple of atinic/narva t5's would be better. Why use LEDs at all, it's not like they will save much heat/money wise when running whopping great halides. For night time use, fine.

Overall, for me, the shadowing and restrictions on coral placement at the ends of the tank is why I wouldn't go for it, but that's my opinion.

Chris

[lindsay]

Hi Chris jas here

I think your find that Hes going to run the 400ws when hes not around and have the leds on when he is .I'm not 100% sure but i always thought Marcus had a largish tank ?

If not and it is a small tank then yes Chris is right and 400s maybe a little over the top .What size tank have you got Marcus ?


jas

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

2 x 400ws Chris,

I have the stats on his tank and he will have to be careful with some corals ,,sps will love it but needs to give the lps some shade from the lighting .
Also he will need to slowly increase the lighting as not to shock them as there used to the LEDs

The tank is just over 100g i think so as long as the lights are 14 to 15 Inch over the tank he should be ok .

Be good to see how you go Marcus ,,remember guys don't blast on about the look for 2 reasons one what one guy likes may not do it for the other .Also Marcus is running the 6500ks while there not in and over to blues when they get home from work ,,top idea lol .

I agree with where Chris is coming from but i think as long as the light are not sitting in the water and he has shade for the corals that don't want to much light then all should be ok


jas

[Marcus Watts]

cheers guys,

Yes, 5ft main tank, 3ft sump, 400l in the system, 2*400w, 6500k bulbs as I only changed from leds to give the most natural growth light I could for the stock, not a blue/white compromise to supossedly look nice. As Jas says the mh is on 8 hrs when we are at work, then the leds cut in for evening viewing / moonlight etc

Interesting 24hrs -LPS - both cataphillias absolutely huge, acans happy just the same, 6 euphillias just the same,maze,favia,duncans etc all stayed the same, lobophilias a bit bigger, Fish hidding !! hahaha. The sps were growing before anyway but there was no way I was going to get sps forming or maintaining tables and flat growth. The led growth pattern was showing longer branches as the coral went looking for light and I could see that i'd end up with a tank full of sticks and twigs when I wanted a series of layers and flat plates.Also while some corals were doing really well the lobophillias were struggling to maintain their zooalantha, they, as a species, dont like leds. (Hammers and acans though love them). Again it will be interesting to observe the lps as there wont be many largeish collections of lps under these lights - the warm yellow light hasn't seemed to initially shock them, my gut feeing is a pair of 400w 12-14k would have made them shrink away a bit more.

temp shot up to 29.5 but the lights were 6 inches off the water yesterday while I built the light stand. Stand finished this morning and the actual bulbs are 16" off the water level this morning so i'll let them run thier course today and see what happens. As long as it stays under 30 it will be fine, my nano ran for 12 months with a 150mh, closed lid and ave temp of 29 with high stocking.

Time for a new set of pics i think so see what changes occur in the corals.

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Nice one Marcus

Be very interesting to see how they all go ,You may have a few problems to start with but i think as things settle and you do the tweaks that may be needed your be looking at a lot happier tank.

Waiting for the pics m8


jas

[chriss]

Welcome to the 'bright' side!

Just watch your sps/lps don't bleach with the extra light. You've probably reduced your hours to begin with anyway.

Don't forget to post some photos and then go and spread the word!

Chris

[karnivor]

It will be interesting to the the changes that occur as things settle in.

There's a definite feeling of de ja vue here for me as I have been down the same route myself.

Strangely though, i'm about to do it all over again. Will I never learn.

I just hope your nutrient levels are low, cus algae just love 6500's

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Should be Tony as hes running the Bio pellet

I cant wait to see this one as i think he will love the shapes and growth the sps will take on .I have told Marcus to cut lighting for a little to not shock them Chris

Jas

[Marcus Watts]

thanks for all the advice everyone.

Ive made an adjustable frame for the lights that can be raised or lowered - at the moment the bulbs are 16" up, on for 8 hours. I dont think I'll need to drop them much lower for quite a while as practically all the sps are in the top 3rd of the tank. To be fair there was a fairly intense beam of light coming from the tmc LED tiles i was using (they are better than T5's by miles), certainly there has been enough light to keep the various sps actually alive for the last 5-6 months with no stripping etc. Uv is now back in the mixing pot though so i'll keep a very close eye on all the branch tips and coral edges to make sure they dont bail out or even strip.

Colour change is visible already - the brick red plating montipora is going orange and the first signs of blue tips are appearing again on one of the acros. The hairy polyps on the milleoppora are much longer now too. I had to move the corals around last night as the sps were grouped in one area so now they are spread out, and the cataphillias are huge, soaking up the new rays but the two of them need a quater of the sand bed now!

Favia and maze were unmoved and had 'relaxed' and plumped up again by yesterday aternoon, they were always happy under leds but have not reacted badly to the new light intensity.

Acan expansion is double so they visible look much bigger now and needed a bit more room nearby.

Nutrient wise the tank does stay quite low - the nutrient filtration comes from 1.5 litres of very fluidised biopellets, 6 large pacific oysters and my space shuttle skimmer (Deltec 2060) that is rated to 1700 litres does a fantastic job on my 400 litres. For the algae that does manage to grow 2 urchins, 18 turbos/snails and the powder blue munch merrily away.

before and after pics on the way!!

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Marcus hows it going m8 ?.

Its a big step up the ladder on the lighting ,have you noticed any light shock and odd corals that are slow acclimating to the higher lighting

jas

[Marcus Watts]

jason@jasonsaquatics, on Jun 10 2010, 10:13 PM, said:

Marcus hows it going m8 ?.

Its a big step up the ladder on the lighting ,have you noticed any light shock and odd corals that are slow acclimating to the higher lighting

jas

Hi Jas, I had a move about of some of the corals before they had a chance to show shock. Before the sps were grouped under 3 tiles quite near to the water surface, so I spread them the full length of the tank and put them between 30 & 50% down in the tank. Colour is returning to some of the tips already and the light is punching into the corals better polyping them inside too.

I moved 4 of the hammers/torches from top third to the sand bed/bottom third and they are fully expanded, flowing and happy. One small blue tipped torch has retracted and expelled zoo
The 2 cataphillias have been spread even further apart as they are reaching about 10-12" each now by the end of the light period - still 8hrs
the 2 plates of Duncans never even flinched, but are not bigger or smaller
Trachy needs sun glasses, I've got it a little sheltered atm as is shrunk back (they dont initially like like any changes tho)
the lobos that were expelling under leds are looking the same, but not worse
The full colony Favia and Maze love it - they are unmoved and still plumped up (open at night tho, as before)
ACANs - wow - this is interesting - They (4) are up on the rocks, on average in the middle of the tank, and expand under the lights at least double what they did before - but colours under MH cant come close to the daytime led mix of blue and white - An acan tank should have both lighting methods, 5 hrs MH to expand them and 5hrs led to make them look good.

Other than a hiding trachy & the small torch no other lps are showing any signs of shock, even though they've gone from 238w of led to 800w of MH ! I think 10k, 12k or 14k would be a different story - the stark white 'persil underpants' look would have shocked them a lot more, but under the warmer 6.5k with blue aquarays the lps seem to be behaving very naturally.

Temp has risen - of course!! - led temp was 25.5 with hardly a shift over 24hrs - now I'm 29.5 high, 26.5 low. I have a fan wired in today but I'm quite happy with 29- it seems from my research to be a temp where coral and tank bacteria metabolism is at its highest - this apparently leads to much faster growth rates and improved filtration - so I can feed more

Everyone should have hot tanks and buy more coral food from Jas

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

So Far Marcus all seems to be a happy story,Glad all is going well and I'm looking forward to your updates on the sps as they will benefit from the light change more

Thanks for keeping us posted Marcus


jas