If I Only Had a Tank... Weeble's 4 foot 120

[mcarroll]

Judging the from the lighting outline on the wall in that third photo, it looks like at the present height the light has around a 6' diameter of spread. Assuming your light is about 6" off the water/top of the tank, that's about 160º of spread.

It might be overkill for your light levels, so I guess be mindful, but dropping the lights down until you aren't spilling so much light should be possible. Some "yo-yo" light mounts would help during maintenance!

Dunno if you will be able to completely solve the issue this way tho.....T5's are designed to broadcast light, and even with reflectors they do!

I think dropping the light down by as little as 1"-2" (i.e. four to five inches from the water surface) would eliminate a lot of the spilled light - at least from the sides. For the front and back you'd have to drop the light to 2" above the water (or tank rim) to get most of it.

Another solution that might help - along with or without adjusting height - is to fashion some "barn doors" for that light to block at least some of the excess light-spread.

They do not need to be reflective, or even metallic to get the job done you need, which is just light-blocking (I've used paper), so feel free to be creative. This will give you an idea if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Hope this helps!

-Matt

 

[Defective_Weeble]

In the third pic the lights are about 7 inches off the water line. I can drop them down to the tank rim with the existing ratchet hangers. I considered yo-yo mounts but opted for something that feels a bit more secure.

I'm still a bit undecided about which route to go. I'm going to wait for the
led strip to come in on Monday, get it mounted and then go from there.

I'm really big on aesthetics with this tank as it sits in my living room. So whatever I decide I'm going to have to put some serious though and time into. Any quick fix is likely to disappoint me a few weeks down the road so it just becomes unnecessary work right now.

I'm still heavily considering the eventual scrapping of the T5 setup in trade for a T5/LED hybrid that I build myself. We shall see. That won't happen until November at the earliest.

 

[bknapp]

You got lights!!

 

[Defective_Weeble]

About freaking time, eh?

 

[Defective_Weeble]

Not a bad view from the couch.

 

[bknapp]

Nice work.

 

[mcarroll]

In the third pic the lights are about 7 inches off the water line. I can drop them down to the tank rim with the existing ratchet hangers. I considered yo-yo mounts but opted for something that feels a bit more secure.

I'm still a bit undecided about which route to go. I'm going to wait for the
led strip to come in on Monday, get it mounted and then go from there.

I'm really big on aesthetics with this tank as it sits in my living room. So whatever I decide I'm going to have to put some serious though and time into. Any quick fix is likely to disappoint me a few weeks down the road so it just becomes unnecessary work right now.

I'm still heavily considering the eventual scrapping of the T5 setup in trade for a T5/LED hybrid that I build myself. We shall see. That won't happen until November at the earliest.

Well since you have adjustable mounts already, I'd try it both ways I suggested just to see what you think! That'd be the simplest way to solve the light-spill "issue" - put all the light into the tank! There couldn't be a tighter look than this!

For the second idea to block the "spill", try scotch-taping some opaque paper (or plastic, cardboard, etc) along the front edge of the light to see if that's livable. If it is, you can pick up some very nice looking metal flashing at the hardware store to make something nice- or more neutral-looking.

Good luck!

-Matt

 

[mcarroll]

Not a bad view from the couch.

Oh yeah! Definitely gonna have to do something about the lights though....burned retinas spoil the view for sure!



-Matt

 

[Defective_Weeble]

Let's talk lighting.

I bought the current fixture knowing that it was a stopgap piece. Granted that it's a very nice stopgap piece.

That being said, in November, I'm going to make a major purchase. Since I'm pretty sure that my random ideas annoy the living crap out of Dowtish, I thought I'd gather some input here rather than continue to spam his Facebook inbox.

Option 1: Hybrid T5/LED - Using the current fixture, remove the 2 middle bulbs and reflectors. Mount a Radion XR15w on each side. The XR15's are said to have a 24x24x24 spread, which would work well for this tank.

Pros - Sunrise/sunset, moonlight and shimmer effects of a highly-programmable LED, while still keeping the spectrum and growth potential of the T5. T5 would run 4-6 hours per day, depending on what the corals respond to best.

Cons - Uncertain performance from LED. Call me old fashioned but I've not yet been fully convinced that we're where we need to be in order for me to be comfortable with LED as anything more than an accent source for long-term success.

Option 2: Dimmable, 6 or 8 bulb ATI Sunpower.

Pros - Proven performance at roughly the same cost as 2x Radion XR15w units. We all know that they're great. Having a dimming feature would be quite welcome.

Cons - None of the "cool factor" stuff that I'd get with LED. Some horror stories about the dimmable ballasts being pretty flaky.

Option 3: NON-dimmable 6 or 8 bulb ATI Sunpower

Pros - See above, minus dimming.

Cons - Manual timer dimming with way less control than the dimmable unit would provide. No LED cool factor.

I'm really torn here. My tech nerdy side says to give the LED a try. I've seen great results from Radion-lit systems without some of the drawbacks that I've seen from cheaper lights. I'm not against the DIY factor of the hybrid fixture, and actually quite like the idea. But I don't like the DIY idea enough to fully wire my own LED system. I also really like the Ecosmart software.

The reasonable, slow-moving side of me says to stick with what I know works. ATI fixtures are amazing and are lauded for good reason.

 

[Defective_Weeble]

New fish pair incoming. Holy crap, so excited!

Will be here Tuesday. And then the 30 days of waiting begins...

 

[bknapp]

There's that bioload you were worried about!

 

[Defective_Weeble]

I told Josh I wanted big and dirty. He obliged.

 

[bknapp]

I would say so.

 

[danangelo]

I like the led t5 combo works well..

 

[bknapp]

Just follow my master plan for lighting. T5's, halides and, LED. Can't miss that way. LOL

 

[Defective_Weeble]

Day 23 and I FINALLY get the needle to move somewhere. Nitrates still at 0, but I've spiked my phosphates by purposely overfeeding to keep the new tang happy. Adding in some more pellets to balance things back out.

 

[Defective_Weeble]

28 Days Later

Took a phosphate reading after 3 days and was measuring at 0.06. Still a bit higher than I want but an amazing reduction in 3 days. Thanks EcoBak! I need to do another reading today but haven't yet.

Overall things are progressing well. The tank is a bit brown right now as I've been feeding very heavily to keep the eibli happy. He had a few spots the other day, and my tomato clown had a few as well. Rather than ripping them out and doing a hospital tank with them I just kept them in place and overfed until things cleared up. I'm not 100% sure that what I saw was ich, but it did behave like it so I'm working from the assumption that it was. Bearing that in mind I'm just keeping an eye on things and continuing to feed heavier with a mixture of Garlic Guard and Selcon to keep everyone fat and happy.

The eibli is an interesting fish. He's about 5 inches and typically runs the tank. The only fish who doesn't scatter when he comes around is my 3 inch foxface. They seem to buddy up pretty well, grazing happily on the rocks. What concerns me, however, is that the eibli is still displaying stress behavior. He does the vertical pacing thing, up and down the corners of the tank. It's not constant, but it's happening often enough to be of a little concern. For now I'm just keeping an eye on him, but he may go to an 800 gallon community tank if he doesn't calm down in the next week or so.

The triggers are doing great. The female is much more sociable than the male, but they're both fat and healthy. The male had a bit of a tear at the base of his forward dorsal fin when I got him. That appears to have healed up already. The two of them absolutely destroy a full cube of garlic-soaked mysis in a couple of minutes. I've read that they'll also snack on nori, but that's not been my experience yet. She sniffed at it, then swam away.

I'm a little concerned that adding them to the DT is going to stress out the tang again. But with a tank full of fat fish, and my willingness to drastically overfeed in order to keep them that way, I'm not too worried. That being said, if I wasn't running pellets my tank would look like absolute crap right now.

The up shot of all of this is that my tank seems to be supporting SPS well again. In all honesty it probably could have supported new SPS from day 1. The ones that I lost were likely from shock rather than any inherent problem of the tank. Thanks to Schooleyosis for a couple of frags on the cheap/free to help me test things! I'm positive that it won't have thriving SPS yet, as my bio load still has me at 0 nitrates, especially after bumping up the pellet dose to take care of the phosphates. Hopefully, when the triggers go into the display in 3 weeks, that will change.

 

[Defective_Weeble]

Week 1 of the triggers in QT has gone well. They're both eating like pigs and becoming a bit more social.

The tank itself is going well, though my phosphates have spiked again. I did turn up the flow on the pellet reactor just a touch in hopes that I can get it running a bit more efficiently on the existing dose instead of increasing the amount of pellets I'm running.

Also an interesting thing happened. My skimmer barely takes anything out of the water right now, except when I happen to get the tank really dirty from feeding, etc. But last night I moved the output of the reactor a few more inches away from the skimmer intake. Since then, it's been skimming like a beast and pulling dark, dirty skimmate. It makes me wonder if something in the pellets was causing my skimmer to not keep a good foam. Though that doesn't seem likely, it's a strange bit of correlation. Regardless, things are happy so I'm going to see if the corals respond well to a bit more "food" in the water.

 

[Defective_Weeble]

Therapy update

As some of you know I've been fighting an ich outbreak for the past week or so. My eibli stressed out and spotted up, leading to an outbreak on the tomato clown. After a couple of days of heavy feeding things went back to normal. At least until yesterday. I noticed that my tomato had spotted up again, and this time it's also spread to my standard ocellaris, my second-oldest fish.

I've been talking a lot with members from the local reef club, as well as Bob from WWM. While there have definitely been suggestions of moving everything over to a hospital tank, the resounding message has been to keep everything in place, feed heavily and wait it out. After getting that same suggestion from Bob in an email this morning, I finally made up my mind to do just that.

Unfortunately as the day has moved on things have taken a bit of a turn for the worse. PT, the ocellaris, has stopped eating. He was laying on the sand bed earlier which is concerning behavior from him as it's quite atypical. I know how important it is that they eat in order to fend off the infection, so I'm just holding out hope that he perks up a bit.

What's strange is that I'm also noticing a behavioral difference in my foxface. Todd is swimming differently and appears to be breathing heavily. Though I haven't seen any spotting on him, this behavior change leads me to believe that his gills are infected. The up side is that he's still eating very well (and he's extraordinarily fat) so I have high hopes that he'll make it.

This whole process is really tough for me. I've had great success in my very short time in the hobby, with only minimal problems. I attribute that success to reading constantly, asking questions from people who have exhibited "reef cred" and generally taking my time with things. As a testament to the benefit of taking your time, I had no outbreaks of any sort until I added the tang without quarantining him.

The Cupramine will be here tomorrow, and I have the hospital tank set up. The inherent problem, of course, is that tangs are sensitive to copper and it would likely kill my mandarin. Bob did suggest using different medication if I chose the hospital method, but it seems nigh on impossible to find.

In short, it's been a bummer of a few days. My tank is my therapy. Right now my therapist needs my help and I feel like I've failed it pretty miserably.

 

[fishroomlady]

just a thought....could moving the output of the pellet reactor further away from the skimmer perhaps caused a drop in oxygen level in the tank? What you're describing could be low oxygen? I would increase surface agitation and put the hose back to the skimmer intake and see if that helps.