mtraylor's 255

[mtraylor]

Much cleaner look. Like the setup. Now I just have to wait for the frags to start growing. ;Snaphappy

 

[SkiCatTX]

While I was working on the light on the main display and my new frag tank. I didn't like just having the one Gen 4 pro with diffusser on the frag tank. It faded toward the edges of the aquarium and I was only getting around 100 par on the edges. I had it mounted over the overflow and I couldn't close the lid either. That was causing salt creep on the wall and unwanted noise. I also had my tunze stream 3 mounted in front of the overflow and didn't like the shadowed frag corals underneath it so I decided to go another route

I purchased 2 Gen 5 xr15's for the frag tank and 2 mp40's. I actually started with one mp40 and put in on the side. Since it was blocking the view from the side panel I bought a second and put them on the back wall. Nothing but clear views now.

oooh, awesome! Looks cool.

Hope to get mine in the next week or so. I also chose to get multiple 15s instead of 30s so I can spread them out more!

 

[mtraylor]

Thanks. The pictures in your signature look great. You will love the spread and color of the new light.

 

[Wen]

Just skimmed over your build thread and really enjoyed it. Loved your photos!

I may have missed it, but would you share with us what parameters are working for you on your DT?

Also, I have some history using Orpheks and AI Hydra 52hds, but have no first hand knowledge with Radions. While I love the light candy Orpheks provide, the reliability of the AI Hydras has out weighed the Opheks for me personally. How do Radions stack up compared to the other 2? Light quality and reliability?

Thank you.

 

[mtraylor]

Thank you. My parms on my DT are as follows:
Alk 8.9
Ph 8.12
Phospate .05 to 1.0 ppm
Nitrate 5 ppm
Calcium 490
Magnesium 1350

Well first and far most. The GHL mitras for LED lighting is a tank. Tried and true longevity and you can upgrade them. IMO they have the best controllable interface than any other LED light I have ever used. Hands down reliable. You give them a program and they run with it.

So my experience with Orphek has not been that great so far. Just within 4 to 6 months operation on the one I purchased to try out. I have failures of led's in zone 3 and zone 4. I now have a replacement board for that one and the other 2 I currently have are supposed to have the new board. We shall see. They have only been running for a very short time. Also every now and then the board with burned out LED's will just turn real bright for no reason and scare the fish before it goes back to the program. Not ideal when you have a few skittish fish.

So reliability of Orphek is not good for me. Not happy with them so far. Of the 2 Radion XR15's I have. I have only issue with one of them. One of them will not survive a power reset. If power is dropped from the light it will not come back on. You will have to unplug and plug back in several times to get power back to the unit. Its not a power supply issue as I have 2 of them and can swamp them out. I have addressed this with Radion and opened a ticket. Unfortunately I can not receive my replacement for a while as shipping has been stopped. From the background of the G4's, i hope the G5's are as reliable. If they are.....they will surpase Orpek easily.

Now if you place all three lights at the same height over the aquarium. There is one clear winning for spread. Its the Radion G5. Its pretty amazing with spread. Coming in second is the GHL Mitras 6300 and last is the Atlantik Orphek V4. That was really surprising for me as I thought they would have been better. Even raising the lights up considerably the spread Is not enough the way i have them positioned. If you position the lights linear as i have you will need supplement lighting in front and back of aquarium to cover adequately. My aquarium is 27" wide. The Atlantik Orphek V4 is not in the same league as the GHL Mitras or Radion G5 for spread.

All three of the lights provide great light quality. I dont think I can say one wins over the other. They are all distinctly different in what they provide. The GHL lighting is crisp and bold. I wanted some more blue/purple so I decided to make a change. The orpheks are a blue/purple hugh if you should choose to make them that way and they have great fluorescent pop on the corals. The Radion G5's have an amazing blue color to them as well. The blues on the radions are amazing on the AB+ program. Just different than the Orpheks. I like what all 3 lights bring to the table. Its a matter of preference of what you are looking for.

Oh one thing I will say is that the blend of lights is won by GHL. There is absolutely no disco effect in the light and they blend more sharp crisp than the Orphek and Radion G5. The Radion G5 comes next and its not too far off. The Orphek is not in the same league and it shows disco. Basically like the G4 did.

 

[mshur]

Very good overview . Do you still run Coral color program at 50% or turn it up a little ?..
Can you share your program if you dont mind?,,,

 

[mtraylor]

Well i put power meter on frag tank and learned i need to max them out for my sps. The 2 xr15s are running ab+ program at 100 %. I will see if i can get some screen shots.

 

[mshur]

Ohh sorry , i meant for Orpheks Lights.
Actually i run G4s on my frag tank at 50% AB+ , tank is pretty shallow thought.

 

[mtraylor]

This is the temporary light schedule I made for the V4s. Since they are so far off the water had to turn it up a notch to get the par levels I was looking for.

 

[mshur]

Interesting program you got there. I see you like Ch4 , any particular reason ?
For some reason Orphek recommends to run Ch3 at max of 60% .
Here is mine schedule below . My lights 16” above the water line as per Orphek recommendation for better color blend .

 

[mtraylor]

No particular reason except a little trial and error to see color response of corals. When i had the light over aquarium with my mitras i tried different settings as well. Starting with their defaults scaled down and one of the users settings they post pics of all the time to cover up negative comments on their thread.

Those 2 work the best imo, but had to find out. Theh blended well with my mitras almost seamlessly. Only difference was more pop/flourescents. This is just a temporary setting i have had going just for a short while. With no mitras beside them i wanted to see if ch4 dpes anything cranked up.

Im not seeing any gains or positives btw. I will most likely go back to my tested and proven program scaled up for par until i get the most needed supplimented light.

 

[mshur]

Your have more experience with LED's then i am and in your opinion is it beneficial or more damaging to run CH3 at 100%?
If i am not mistaken you had positive results running stock program Coral color dialed down to 50%?

Ohh man, how i missed my 400w radiums))

 

[mtraylor]

Yes I had great success with that. No issues what so ever. At that time however I had the light really close to the water and it was positioned vertically beside the mitras. So I only needed it to blend in with the mitras and I didn't need a big spread. Since the light is so powerful, I had to scale every thing way down. Some were at 20% upwards to 50% with different channels. I dont have that program now since I renamed it with the temporary ones I have been tweaking.

Once I get the supplement lighting I will go back to those and I will share exactly what I have so you can see. I want the dang OR-2 150 but I dont think they are actually ever going to make one. I'm looking at the mitras bars but it doesnt look like I can control them.

With the supplement lighting I then will not have to worry about raising the light so high to get rid of the hot spots. I will basically let the supplements let me know where I need to dial in the main V4's depeding on how much par they put out.

My guess is I will be back to using them around 30 to 50% across the boards to get 450+ par evenly across the top of my sps. They seem to have more pop at lower level as well.

 

[mshur]

Hmm.. interesting idea with supplementing light... I use to have GHL bars but first generation and able to control them with P3. I think gen 2 bars is controllable but you can ask Vinny or Matthias.
I will run program that i post it above and see how my sps respond to this settings .Going to measure PAR later today to see where i am at...
Still not sure if i should raise CH3 to a 100% or keep it at 60% per Orphek recommendation...

 

[mtraylor]

Well I have been running T5 supplements with my Orphek V4's for about 5 months or so. With the configuration I have the V4's in. I did not have much light in the front and back of the aquarium. So I bought the 60" giessman hybrid light and hung it with my configuration. The fixture itself doesn't look bad, but with light overspray, i'm really not liking that at all since my main aquarium is in my living room. Corals look ok. I cant say I seen any color enhancement on my sps. I was really thinking I would see a big difference, but I didn't.

 

[mtraylor]

This brings us to a couple days ago. Orphek finally released the 60" light bars that they told me were going to be released last year. I ordered 2, but only 1 has shown up so far. I have it installed on the front right now with the t5 still on the back. Cant wait to see how the blend is with all LED once my other light shows up. The first one came in with the box ripped in 2, but it was between the light and the transformer and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the light so far. I'm guessing the other must have been worse and that is why it wasn't delivered. Here is a pic of the multi hybrid setup.

 

[mtraylor]

As I get my lighting under raps. I have lost the battle with the blue star polyps. I guess I should call the brownish polyps from Hell. No matter how many times i treat them with Fenbendazole they just come back.... and each time with vengeance. They are spreading like wild fire now and I see them on some sand where they have created their own pad. I'm blaming it on the t5. Its making them grow better. LOL.

Well anyway. I'm breaking down the aquarium. I"m moving the fish to a rubber made tub and then i'm going to take the rock and sand and discard it. I have ordered all new sand and rock and I will start all over. This will be a long build thread now starting from scratch. So we will see how i goes. I hope those polyps are not in the plumbing because I"m not going to change that. This is my last effort to eradicate them.

 

[Michael Gray]

Oh man. I got stars on a zoa frag from cultivated reef. I scraped it off 5 times. Just came back more. I chalked it up as d loss and threw away the zoas

 

[mtraylor]

I remember the sps piece I had which had the polyps on it. I should have chunked that coral. I had a friend tell me to just take a tooth brush and scrub it. So that is what I did. That just basically spread it all over my aquarium.

 

[Michael Gray]

Hahah if I get a frag with aiptasia or stars. I'm throwing it away