Asylumdown's 275 Tank build

[asylumdown]

Yah man, they're definitely not a 100% solution. I love them because when you get enough of them, they're crazy powerful, way more powerful than I ever gave them credit for before hand (hence 8 units running at 75% max power when I really only needed 6), but I've never seen an LED tank look as good in person as some of the T5 tanks I've seen. Argentiner's tank that I saw today is T5 and his is everything I hope mine one day becomes, it was spectacular. I'm not sure if it's that I just have them way too bright for some corals, or what the deal is, but certain corals just don't hold their 'zing' colours under my lights, while others (like that tricolour) almost hurt to look at they're so electric. So far, I'm willing to trade off the colour losses when they do occur for the fact that my tank actually has a sunrise and a sunset, and how much the look of it changes over the course of a day. I can wake up on a Saturday and look at the tank in it's morning light, then go out and come back at 1pm and it's like looking at a completely different tank. I even get an hour of hyper crazy royal blue (which I wouldn't want all the time) right before bed.

I'm just now starting to play with coral positioning, and considering adjusting my light schedule to see if I can bump up the colours that I've lost without compromising the growth, but it makes me nervous to mess with a good thing if you know what I mean. I'm sure part of the issue is also that this tank has been darn near close to ULNS for months, so things are a little more pastel regardless of lights anyway. I don't think I'd ever ditch LEDs now that I've had a taste of their overall intensity and controllability, but I definitely wouldn't buy another fixture unless it had the same sort of diode mix that the new radion pro has. I think the success of LEDs is going to be when the diode colour mixes start to approach the richness and breadth of what you can accomplish with T5s. I think if I had something closer to the 'true UV', as well as a few more peaks on the deeper blue end in there, the colours would pop a bit more, and the corals that fade might hold on to some of their 'zing'. However, a many thousand dollar upgrade to radion pros is not in the cards for a while.

[asylumdown]

Also, just checked before bed - my male true perc clown is in the nem! He's wiggling around in it like a pig in mud! Here's hoping his girlfriend figures out it's there tomorrow

[gregzz4]

That's kool
Wish my captive-bred clown would play in my bubble tip, without being eaten mind you

The whole lighting thing .... best of luck with your decision

[kien]

That's a good idea playing with placement. I've been doing the same thing. I have a red planet in 3 different places and all three look different! One is more red one is more pink and one is more green. I also have a bonsai in two different places and one is more blue in its tips while one is more purple. It's kinda cool to observe the differences.

Personally I think your pale/pastel colours are due to your ULNS environment. You don't have a lot of fish in there at all. It depends on your perspective whether or not this is a good or bad thing tho. Many people strive for that pastelly zeoVit look. I think this is why zeoVit has all those other bottles to play with. You strip your tank clean with the zeoLites and pale your corals out, but then bring back some colour (possibly selectively) by dosing the various additives (Coral Vitalizer, pohls xtra, amino acids, etc..). Then there are people like me who would see this as an excuse to add more fish.

[lastlight]

are you gluing your stuff directly to the rock? I also had a few corals in multiple spots but would have done much more of this had I drilled my rock to peg the corals in place.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by kien

Personally I think your pale/pastel colours are due to your ULNS environment. You don't have a lot of fish in there at all. It depends on your perspective whether or not this is a good or bad thing tho. Many people strive for that pastelly zeoVit look. I think this is why zeoVit has all those other bottles to play with. You strip your tank clean with the zeoLites and pale your corals out, but then bring back some colour (possibly selectively) by dosing the various additives (Coral Vitalizer, pohls xtra, amino acids, etc..). Then there are people like me who would see this as an excuse to add more fish.

Yah I've been meaning to get more fish, but I'm pretty sold on the tank transfer method as a QT procedure and man is it ever labour intensive. Also, it turns out there's not many 12 day stretches where I'm in the city continuously, and I already ask too much of my roommates in regards to my tank to be ok with asking them to do a transfer for me or stay on top of ammonia testing. I have been dosing Pohl's Xtra with my doser, and for a while I was dosing B-balance, but I didn't see any difference in coral colours and within a week of dosing B-balance I got my first flush of dinos. I can't say for sure they're connected, but since I stopped dosing B-balance, the dino issue has subsided dramatically. I'm nervous to dose things when I don't really know what they are, and if it can't be automated I'm also too lazy to keep up with it lol.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by lastlight

are you gluing your stuff directly to the rock? I also had a few corals in multiple spots but would have done much more of this had I drilled my rock to peg the corals in place.

At first I was breaking them off their base rocks, then super gluing them to new pieces of marco rock rubble, and then epoxying those rocks in to place, but that was before I was sure if I was going to keep my rockscape. Recently I've just been epoxying things directly to the rock and letting them grow over it, as you can see the epoxy for less time. I am however currently regretting that decision, as my new anemone went walkabout this morning and I've had to break 4, soon to be 5 colonies off the rocks to get them out of it's way. I'm pretty sure it's climbing to the highest point on the current rock, so I'm going to re-work things a bit to make sure that rock is an island, as I'll need to move half the corals in my tank (many of which are fully encrusted on the LR) if it makes it off it's current perch.

[asylumdown]

And speaking of the anemone - I caught the moment that the female figured it out it was home on camera:

Taking a look - when she came over for the first time, the male swam out to give her a little nuzzle. Then she inched in and pushed her forehead against the white bulb at the end of one of the tentacles.


And she's in!


It was a total fluke that my roommate and I happened to be standing right in front of the tank talking about how cute the male was when she came down from her usual corner above the powerhead to take a look. Now they're both in there like pigs in... well, you know.

[lastlight]

great shot the orange and purples look great contrasting. i guess this means they're going to start getting nasty at you when you go near their new home lol.

[kien]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I'm nervous to dose things when I don't really know what they are, and if it can't be automated I'm also too lazy to keep up with it lol.

You and me both. Lazy reefing FTW! LOL