Todd's 60 gallon reef

[chris88]

Tank looks great. However, I don’t think you have enough light over that tank to keep your sps happy. I did a quick count but I think I seen around 40 leds at probably 3 watts each. Over a tank that size I would have double that amount or added a couple of t5's with it in your canopy. Just a suggestion.

[axe_man16]

With the drivers I picked I do have the ability to add a bunch more, but with my tank being so narrow (13") i might not need much more.

I have the whites at 28% and the blues at 40% right now and will be going up a little bit as the corals adjust. With the whites even at 50% it seems very bright. So i doubt I will ever need to go above that.

Thanks for the input, i had the same concern when i started. Hopefully I wont need any more.

[chris88]

i have a 93 gallon cube thats only 30x30 so a small footprint. I have an ecotech radion which is 120w as well but with 5w crees and i have 4 t5's. in theory i have almost double the light over a simlar sized area. I have the radion going at full and i still want to add more light.

If you are getting good growth and color then i wouldnt worry about it. If you notice slow or no growth, or bad color i would add more leds or t5's. you basically only have 30watts over each foot of the tank.

[axe_man16]

I will definitely take that into consideration.

The corals have already started to get some different color. As they were washed out by the T5's and for a month I only had 2 bulbs working.

Time will tell

[chris88]

I am interested and how things turn out. I think you have a great set up and some nice corals in there.

[axe_man16]

Thank you, and your 50 gallon tank that you have/had was one of the inspirations when I was laying out mine. I Got a long way to go to get to a reef that impressive tho.

[chris88]

Thanks for the compliment. I definitely miss that tank. It took a few years to get it to that point and with one bad mistake the majority of it was gone. Keep posting updates as your corals respond to the LEDs I am interested on how the respond you your new lighting.

[axe_man16]

This is an over-due update. Been a bit of an adjustment switching to LED's. After my T5's started crapping out my corals were a little worse for ware. most had browned or gone completely white. I started the led's low and gradually increased the intensity.

I noticed that the colors were not doing any better so i did some water tests. All seemed ok, except I have been using cheap test kits. So I bought some Salifert kits and after I did a water change I realized I was very low in Alkalinity which I never really tested as with my older tests it was always the same. My tests were 5.7dkh Alk (used salifert now) , 550 in cal (normally keep this at 410-450) Mag was 1120. Nitrate was .2ppm i believe (still don't know if this is low or high) Phosphate was 0.

I have since lowered my lighting intensity and removed some of the lenses to spread the light a bit better. And gotten my params back to what they should be.

These are some pics of a coral I had that was not doing so good but seems to be coming around since the adjustments.

before


after



This is one coral that I got last year and seems to be doing good


Now

as you can see some corals are not doing as good. Although they do have polyps, so I wonder if I should still hold out hope.

And these are some fish pics

My Filamented Wrasse (Thanks Steve! Red Coral)


feeding time!

[kien]

If your coral still has polyps its not dead and still has hope! Just a bit of TLC should bring it around. Or it might just die. Could go either way.

[axe_man16]

A few look like they will die, and a couple that may start to get better. Some have ok color but grow well. My monti plate is 5 or 6 times bigger than this time last year, had to break some off because it was blocking light for others