FAnstasic pictures of it featured in Reef Hobbiest MAgazine.
http://www.reefhobbyistmagazine.com/magazines_files/d2a2c1da2acde3ed27003dba9c3c1ccc-issue-43.pdf
Before and After....
- Thread starter SchnitzelReef
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FAnstasic pictures of it featured in Reef Hobbiest MAgazine.
http://www.reefhobbyistmagazine.com/magazines_files/d2a2c1da2acde3ed27003dba9c3c1ccc-issue-43.pdf
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SchnitzelReef
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It’s really hard to get a good FTS of my tank since it’s 8’ wide. This pic is 6+ months old.
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One way to do it is to stand back - and then crop the excess off. In any case - the colors are excellent together. very appealing. Thanks for doing that. Would be interested to see a 'current' view. it must certainly be a source of great pride - and rightly so
Although not everybody might agree, do not discount what Schnitzel is saying. Experience matters. Growing acros to legit colonies is a skill that matters. I hate the phenomenon in the last decade of online-reefing where people have doubt, comments and venom towards other reefers who have tanks that they themselves have not yet had as an equal - this is what has driven the truly great masters of our hobby off of the message boards except to sell their frags a few times a year.
Also notice that all of this growth happened while real life was happening... some algae, cyano, etc. With great lights, you do not have to be perfect to get results.
Well done on the tank.
Also notice that all of this growth happened while real life was happening... some algae, cyano, etc. With great lights, you do not have to be perfect to get results.
Well done on the tank.
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Agree with everything you're saying - just dont know to whom you're saying it - since you didnt quote the post you were referring to. But - in response to your opinion, great lights alone do not make the tank he has. If that were the 'key', no one would buy anything but the light system he is using. Thats the fallacy of so many here. so many things go into a 'great' tank but its whittled down to 1 or 2 things. In reality, its the whole thing - the time spent on the maintenance, the flow, the light, the other bioload, teh corals/etc chosen for the tank (or the ones that have survived due to natural selection), the feeding, the parameters, etc etc. I guarantee you. its not just the 'lights' in this case.
I do not agree at all. Well, kinda... it is not JUST lights, but they are by-far the most important thing. I have been doing this for just over 20 years. My tanks have survived alk swings, parameter swings, alk down in the 5.0s, temps down into the 60s with ice storms and even a kalk reactor dumping and PH in the 9s. The common denominator is that I feed them the best energy that they can get from Metal Halides and they are super hardy because of it - I do think that MH are superior to T5 still (heat is no issue for me), but I would use T5s in a heartbeat if I had to. If you have a 8+ bulb T5 setup with a good fixture or a good MH setup, then you are 75% of the way there and you can have pedestrian stability and water parameters and succeed well above average... if you can also have elite stability and parameters, then you can have an elite tank. Every LED lit tank that is near elite has to be dead-on-balls-accurate (it is an industry term) in every step along the way. All of the additions of T5s to LEDs and seeing everything get better and easier is a step in this direction also.
I am not saying that the best lights and a under gravel filter will get the job done, but with the best lights, you can just be pedestrian in a lot of other areas. The best water quality with pedestrian lights will not yield the same results... but changing lights can have the jump that he saw.
Just to be fair, I am picky and I have seen a lot of tanks over the years with my own eyes. I am the guy who walks into WWC and sees a tank that is 75-80% of what it could be. ...or walks into Vivid and thinks that their tank a decade ago was a lot better... a lot better. I understand that most folks will never have a tank like Vivid or WWC, but I do and I know the difference. I also am only into Acropora - I do not even allow any montis, birdsnest, poci or stylos in my tank. I am the ultimate doocher and acro snob... sorry about that in advance... I do realize that this makes me hard to like.
I am not saying that the best lights and a under gravel filter will get the job done, but with the best lights, you can just be pedestrian in a lot of other areas. The best water quality with pedestrian lights will not yield the same results... but changing lights can have the jump that he saw.
Just to be fair, I am picky and I have seen a lot of tanks over the years with my own eyes. I am the guy who walks into WWC and sees a tank that is 75-80% of what it could be. ...or walks into Vivid and thinks that their tank a decade ago was a lot better... a lot better. I understand that most folks will never have a tank like Vivid or WWC, but I do and I know the difference. I also am only into Acropora - I do not even allow any montis, birdsnest, poci or stylos in my tank. I am the ultimate doocher and acro snob... sorry about that in advance... I do realize that this makes me hard to like.
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Its not all about light was my point (I still dont know if you were replying to me or something else). But - lets assume for a minute that Light is the main thing. What is it - the PAR? The Spread? The Spectrum.
Just give out the numbers and everyone will have that tank. The problem is - the other variables that in each tank prevent you from given an accurate answer. It it also depends on flow, nutrients, the amount of coral as compared the rest (ie. if I have 1 frag in a 200 gallon tank, my guess is that is different than the tank of the oP) Etc etc etc. Without light you cant have a good SPS tank. Without correct chemistries, no matter what light you have you cant have a good SPS tank.
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SchnitzelReef
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I just wanted to post pics of my tank and share my story, I wasn’t trying to make this a debate.
On another note. Here’s the other side of my 8’ tank.
On another note. Here’s the other side of my 8’ tank.
This guy is giving you a data point. Real life, ups and downs have hit his tank and the stuff has not just over come, but flourished. That was my whole point - this is real and do not discount it. You can clearly see that he knows what he is doing or else he would not have legit acro colonies. He has not had "correct chemistries" or there would not cyano or algae. Embrace the opinion from a guy who has a tank beyond what 99% of other people do. If he credits this to the lights, then remember it and learn something from it. We are not talking about a guy with a 2 month old biocube with some boogers on frag plugs telling everybody that what he has is "the bomb" without any other experience to compare to.
Ty has never changed water - ever, so he says. T5s keep him ahead of the game, IMO. There is no awesome chemistry in his tank, just "good enough." This is another data point similar to this one. I do not really pay attention to my water parameters or care if they are all that stable - stuff thrives. None of these tanks have corals living in sewage, but I would doubt that any are perfect.
There are recipes for how to succeed with Acropora. Some people do not believe them... they want to believe a BRS video instead. Ok, that was an overgeneralization, but you get the point. Lots of people today see an outlier or exception and think that they can make it work too... bet on the rule. The rule with exceptional Acropora tanks is best of the best lights... more people succeed with these than with inferior lights. While not inaccurate, saying that all things matter is a red herring... they do not matter in the same amount. This statement can sometimes give false hope to people who will never have perfect parameters and probably just change to better lights so that it does not matter. Lighting is by-far the most important.
Sometimes, we, as reefers, are blinded by our own stupidity - I am not calling anybody stupid or anything, just the hobby as a whole sometimes. It does not really matter WHY having alk near NSW is important, or WHY do MH/T5 just work, or WHY does 78 degrees seems to be best, etc. What matters is that they do... but we try and think too much instead of just doing what works. Don't think about why... pay attention to the many, many people who have the same story, will show you photos of their work and just do what they do. Why can get you into trouble - Why do we need IR spectrum - it is only in sunlight that lights these corals in nature and also in some other great artificial lighting, but I cannot see it, so why put it in a LED? ...only to find out that it is really important to help proteins process energy. Why do I need to use rock from the Ocean that has yielded great tanks for decades and not just the same stuff for half the price from an inland quarry that ends up being full of terrestrial phosphate and just gets the same pests/alage over time anyway? Why do I need to QT if my LFS said that they did it already?
If somebody posted that ditching their T5s and going all Radions got this kind of spurt for a FEW YEARS, and then outlined some typical kind of changes like this guy has, then I would take that as a data point and learn something from it as well. These kind of posts to not really exist except for initial reactions that fade over the years... so this is telling as well. We do hear of successes that have no photos or other folks to vouch. Instead, what we see is that everybody loves the LEDs for a while, then IF colonies ever appear and they start to die from the base up from shadowing and stuff suffers or many T5 tubes are added... and then people reassess. If they hobbyist/tank never gets colonies, then I typically do not give it much credit. I do not want to discount the few tanks/threads that are not like this, but they are truly few - these hobbyists have worked really hard and deserve a lot of credit.
I pay attention to all of these data points. Should TRULY better lights come along, I want to switch to them... and there is no way to know without paying attention to posts like these and finding some common denominators. If you have any kind of experience at all and add all of this up, you see that lighting is by-far the greatest factor and there are some clear winners in the long-term with colonies and mature tanks that vastly outnumber the others. Forget about the why and just look at the results.
You want some numbers for success? Let me know the size or your RS Reefer (sorry, I do not know which one is which), I will pick out a Giesemann Spectra for you, you can put it on and change nothing else and see results similar to what Schnitzel has had.
Dang! This was long. Sorry. It is Saturday night... I am truly a dork. Sorry all...
Ty has never changed water - ever, so he says. T5s keep him ahead of the game, IMO. There is no awesome chemistry in his tank, just "good enough." This is another data point similar to this one. I do not really pay attention to my water parameters or care if they are all that stable - stuff thrives. None of these tanks have corals living in sewage, but I would doubt that any are perfect.
There are recipes for how to succeed with Acropora. Some people do not believe them... they want to believe a BRS video instead. Ok, that was an overgeneralization, but you get the point. Lots of people today see an outlier or exception and think that they can make it work too... bet on the rule. The rule with exceptional Acropora tanks is best of the best lights... more people succeed with these than with inferior lights. While not inaccurate, saying that all things matter is a red herring... they do not matter in the same amount. This statement can sometimes give false hope to people who will never have perfect parameters and probably just change to better lights so that it does not matter. Lighting is by-far the most important.
Sometimes, we, as reefers, are blinded by our own stupidity - I am not calling anybody stupid or anything, just the hobby as a whole sometimes. It does not really matter WHY having alk near NSW is important, or WHY do MH/T5 just work, or WHY does 78 degrees seems to be best, etc. What matters is that they do... but we try and think too much instead of just doing what works. Don't think about why... pay attention to the many, many people who have the same story, will show you photos of their work and just do what they do. Why can get you into trouble - Why do we need IR spectrum - it is only in sunlight that lights these corals in nature and also in some other great artificial lighting, but I cannot see it, so why put it in a LED? ...only to find out that it is really important to help proteins process energy. Why do I need to use rock from the Ocean that has yielded great tanks for decades and not just the same stuff for half the price from an inland quarry that ends up being full of terrestrial phosphate and just gets the same pests/alage over time anyway? Why do I need to QT if my LFS said that they did it already?
If somebody posted that ditching their T5s and going all Radions got this kind of spurt for a FEW YEARS, and then outlined some typical kind of changes like this guy has, then I would take that as a data point and learn something from it as well. These kind of posts to not really exist except for initial reactions that fade over the years... so this is telling as well. We do hear of successes that have no photos or other folks to vouch. Instead, what we see is that everybody loves the LEDs for a while, then IF colonies ever appear and they start to die from the base up from shadowing and stuff suffers or many T5 tubes are added... and then people reassess. If they hobbyist/tank never gets colonies, then I typically do not give it much credit. I do not want to discount the few tanks/threads that are not like this, but they are truly few - these hobbyists have worked really hard and deserve a lot of credit.
I pay attention to all of these data points. Should TRULY better lights come along, I want to switch to them... and there is no way to know without paying attention to posts like these and finding some common denominators. If you have any kind of experience at all and add all of this up, you see that lighting is by-far the greatest factor and there are some clear winners in the long-term with colonies and mature tanks that vastly outnumber the others. Forget about the why and just look at the results.
You want some numbers for success? Let me know the size or your RS Reefer (sorry, I do not know which one is which), I will pick out a Giesemann Spectra for you, you can put it on and change nothing else and see results similar to what Schnitzel has had.
Dang! This was long. Sorry. It is Saturday night... I am truly a dork. Sorry all...
Wu Tang Clam
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Beautiful tank...I did post on your tank thread but you left me hanging...
Great success with your lights
I too changed to a different light source from radions to something else (not T5)and the results are great !!
I suppose you more than cover the tube replacement costs by selling frags
Again great aquarium!!!!
Let’s not fuss and fight over lights
Great success with your lights
I too changed to a different light source from radions to something else (not T5)and the results are great !!
I suppose you more than cover the tube replacement costs by selling frags
Again great aquarium!!!!
Let’s not fuss and fight over lights
BigKid4788
Well-Known Member
Tank is amazing! Love the colors. Nice regalI just wanted to post pics of my tank and share my story, I wasn’t trying to make this a debate.
On another note. Here’s the other side of my 8’ tank.
LivinTheSwreefLife
Well-Known Member
Your tank is an inspiration. I can only hope mine looks like that in 2 years!!
And btw I have t5 and LED so no dog in this fight
And btw I have t5 and LED so no dog in this fight
TheLadyCrash
Active Member
Gorgeous tank! I’d love to have results like yours some day. ;Smuggrin
And ignore the trolls. Everyone needs to (as my siggy says), keep calm and love the ocean.
And ignore the trolls. Everyone needs to (as my siggy says), keep calm and love the ocean.
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SchnitzelReef
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[emoji1303].
DancingShark
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Jesus, I am tired of reading just keep posting pictures of that tank. I want to see more.
But if I am going to read something, what do you feed them if anything?
But if I am going to read something, what do you feed them if anything?
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