Thanks @mattgsa and @revhtree!
I might add a few more SPS colonies but I’m going to let it do it’s thing now. My favorite part of a marine aquarium is usually the live rock! I feed heavily to keep the diversity alive. I’m blessed to have spent a significant amount of time on five different reefs, so I really prefer the ‘wild reef’ look, which is what I was trying to capture here.
I’ve ordered new ballasts and bulbs, swapping the 250w halides for 400w! I’m not getting enough PAR to the clams as I’d like.
I’m also running one PowerVEG t5 bulb in each fixture, it provides mainly UV between 310nm and 390nm. It’s a lot of UV but a fairly weak (24w) bulb. After two days I’ve already noticed the mag’s tentacles are significantly more yellow, but I don’t know if that’s due to the halide+t5 combo (it was under LEDs before I got the Spectras suspended) or because of the extra UV, or what.
I’ve also decided a ‘warmer’ look works so much better with all of the red macroalgae in the tank, so I’m going to swap out an actinic bulb for a PowerVeg 660nm red bulb for a warmer look. I wish Phoenix made a 400w SE MH bulb!
Anyway, it’s turning out a lot better than I expected!
Here’s what’s left to do:
- Plumb in the Teco chiller
- Drill the mini-fridge and get liquid food dosing on auto
- Tidy the cables from the new fuge lights
- Figure out why feed mode shuts my pumps off permanently rather than going into feed mode (now I see that all the complaints about Mobius are justified...)
I might add a few more SPS colonies but I’m going to let it do it’s thing now. My favorite part of a marine aquarium is usually the live rock! I feed heavily to keep the diversity alive. I’m blessed to have spent a significant amount of time on five different reefs, so I really prefer the ‘wild reef’ look, which is what I was trying to capture here.
I’ve ordered new ballasts and bulbs, swapping the 250w halides for 400w! I’m not getting enough PAR to the clams as I’d like.
I’m also running one PowerVEG t5 bulb in each fixture, it provides mainly UV between 310nm and 390nm. It’s a lot of UV but a fairly weak (24w) bulb. After two days I’ve already noticed the mag’s tentacles are significantly more yellow, but I don’t know if that’s due to the halide+t5 combo (it was under LEDs before I got the Spectras suspended) or because of the extra UV, or what.
I’ve also decided a ‘warmer’ look works so much better with all of the red macroalgae in the tank, so I’m going to swap out an actinic bulb for a PowerVeg 660nm red bulb for a warmer look. I wish Phoenix made a 400w SE MH bulb!
Anyway, it’s turning out a lot better than I expected!
Here’s what’s left to do:
- Plumb in the Teco chiller
- Drill the mini-fridge and get liquid food dosing on auto
- Tidy the cables from the new fuge lights
- Figure out why feed mode shuts my pumps off permanently rather than going into feed mode (now I see that all the complaints about Mobius are justified...)