Duckhams' 75G Reef Build - Eurobraced/BeanAnimal

[Bugger]

SO two drains can handle 3400 gph

[Duckhams]

Originally Posted by Bugger

SO two drains can handle 3400 gph

2 standard non-siphoning drains? it would depend on the size, and orientation of the pipes. i.e. a 90 degree bend and a horizontal run at any point in the drain line could cause a 'backup' and limit the amount of air/water able to flow through. PM me your plans and I'll take a look.

[Duckhams]

Here's a quick pic update. I've been playing around with coral placement a lot, so things still need to settle and grow in, and there's a few corals to place still. But you get the idea of where it's heading, things are really taking shape now. A few corals didn't photograph well in this setting, and there's a few not shown. I'll try to do a full photo list soon.

I've also been battling a major 'brown slime' bloom (possibly dino's) for the last month. Long story short, i've been manually removing them once a week during regular water changes. For the last week i've been using Korallen-Zucht's Coral Snow in line with Brigthwell's MicroBacter7 and that seems to have done the job. Ultimately the algae is using up nutrients, which is a good thing, so I let it run it's course and try not to freak out while manually removing it so that it doesn't negatively effect my corals. In a more established tank, I might do other things too. But as the tank is so new, I let it balance itself out with little to no change in husbandry, accept the addition of the Coral Snow and MB7.

Feb 15th 2016 FTS
[/url]

Bali Green Slimer (Acropora Yongei)
[/url]

Superman/Bullseye Rhodactis
[/url]

Grape Vine acro (Acropora Secale)
[/url]

Yellow Highlighter (Acropora Caroliniana)
[/url]

Mr.Pacman (Acropora Hurlock)
[/url]

Purple Highlighter (Acropora Plana)
[/url]

Tear Drop Tridacna Clam
[/url]

Rasta's (Zoanthids)
[/url]

Superman/Bullseye Rhodactis
[/url]

Superman/Bullseye Rhodactis
[/url]

Mr.Pacman (Acropora Hurlock)
[/url]

Used to be neon yellow, now neon green (Acropora Vermiculata)
[/url]

Chilli Pepper Monti (Montipora sp.)
[/url]

Yellow Nebula Yuma Mushroom
[/url]

[Duckhams]

So this week I switched to the wide angle 120˚ lenses on my Radions. After taking some PAR readings, I switched back to the standard 80˚ lenses as the PAR was so low on the wide angles, even at 100%. As I have 3 x XR15PRO's above my tank, the standard lenses do the trick and I get great coverage and now great PAR too!

Below are my readings/settings. Im running them at 70% right now, but you can see what sort of PAR range I have up to 100% intensity. Obviously there is some variation in the readings as you go further toward the back glass/front glass. But all these readings were taken within the 6" center of the tank (front to back). PAR readings on the Apogee MQ-200 actually read <2% low, according to the manual.

At 70% they are incredibly bright already! I really love the Radion's. Im getting good growth from my SPS and i've kept colouration on 95% of them, but still expect to see improvements in colour as my SPS settle in and light intensity/feedings increase.

70% INTENSITY:
[/url]

100% INTENSITY:
[/url]

[Duckhams]

I also took a few readings at 100% on all channels just to see what the difference would be. The Radion XR15PRO's put out a LOT of PAR. However, I dont think many aquarists will run all channels on 100% percent as we tend to favour the blue 20,000k look over the bright 5,000k sunshine look. Though for heavy SPS tanks it may be worth ramping up to the 100% on all channels for an hour or so a day just get that extra bump in PAR. How effective, necessary or worthwhile that would be, i don't know. But I like that it's an option.

[/url]

[Duckhams]

My actinic settings on Radion XR15PRO's. In person the tank is a brilliant blue with serious pop on the coral colours, the picture doesn't really show how bright and blue it is, but you get the idea. PAR readings are low but acceptable given the color spectrum.

With the UV channel set to 0% the sand bed reading drops from 50 to 10. The other readings stay around the same and drop very little.

[/url]

[Bugger]

What program did you use to make the picture.
Wasen't it a pain to change the lens

[Duckhams]

Originally Posted by Bugger

What program did you use to make the picture.
Wasen't it a pain to change the lens

I did it all in Pages on my mac. Changing the lenses took me about 2 minutes on each unit. It's really easy.