Coloring up SPS (was: Too Much Light??)

[NEWSALT]

I was thinking about adding more light to my tank. My tank is a 120g that is 60"L x 18"W x 26"H. Currently I have two 250W 12k MH and two 48" 110W Super Actinic VHO's. The MH's are on the left and right of the tank and the VHO's are front and back. I was thinking about adding another 250W 10k in the center between the two 12k's. Would that be too much light for a 120g that is 26" deep? It would be 970W.

Thanks

 

[Phyl]

Do you feel your MH give you good coverage left to right? Or do you feel like you have a "dark spot" in the middle or the edges? Is there something in particular you feel like you're missing without the addition of the 3rd light? What is your thinking behind adding it?

A MH bulb throws ROUGHLY (give or take depending on the reflector used) 2' of good coverage. 5' tanks are tough in this regard as you've got a foot "uncovered". Your light penetration will be similar for each of your 3 bulbs so the areas where your 2' light throws cross will become brighter. How much brighter? Enough so that you'll probably want to "wean" your system onto the addition.

I have 400w MHs on my 24" deep 180 (6').

A different (lumenarc, etc) reflector might get you the coverage you need without the increase in your electric bill. That or possibly tipping your existing reflectors?

 

[NEWSALT]

My reason behind the addition of the 3rd light was SPS color. I've always felt that my SPS don't color up as nicely as they did in the tanks that they came from.

 

[Phyl]

And your NO3/PO4 as close to zero as practical? Heavy/light fish load? Heavy/light feeding? With what? Sometimes it isn't as much the light as the other factors involved. How are the corals DIRECTLY under the lights? If you saw GREAT colors under the bulbs and not as much color on the fringes of light coverage for your MH then I'd tend to agree, but if you're colors are similar across the board then there's something else at play.

12K Reefulx, if I'm not mistaken?

 

[sinkingbeach]

I'm running/was before the flood and will be soon again, 3 250 MH HQI, without fluorescents on my 60 x 20 x 20 reef and I noticed a good color change in my corals along with growth. I was using 2 14.5k Geismans which are actually quite white and in the center a phoenix 14k, I would highly recommend it if you can control the additional heat that comes with it.

 

[NEWSALT]

NO3 is pretty good. PO4 is another story. I always seem to be struggling with that. My fish load is:

• 1 Hippo Tang
• 1 Yellow Tang
• 1 Royal Gramma
• 1 6-line Wrasse
• 3 Green Chromis
• 2 Clownfish

I feed every 3 days with anything from Cyclopeeze to Mysis Shrimp. Every so often, I'll put Nori on a clip for the Tangs. It's funny, some corals directly under the light look good where others that should have purple tips, do not. Yes, I'm using 12k Reeflux bulbs.

 

[Phyl]

Are you running phosban or the like? What's your PO4 at? We've started running GFH (club GB stuff) recently and have notices an great increase in our coral health (not color yet). I don't know what it was before but our PO4 is down to .07 (Hanna), and I'm still working on bringng it even lower. Even with the increased light (400w) we weren't seeing color increases (which is what had me start running the GFH).

I've read some things recently about Potassium? Of couse the only stuff I've found on it so far has had no detail to it, so I'm not sure how you'd go about testing for nor dosing it, but it certainly piqued my interest.

 

[NEWSALT]

Right now I have some Phosban in a bag in my sump. I know that's not the best was to run it. I have a reactor for it but was waiting for my new skimmer pump(BO in the PA Group Buy)before hooking it up. I was going to tee off the pump's discharge to feed the PO4 reactor. My PO4 is probably around 0.7 with Hanna.

Your right about Potassium (K). At one time I was considering using Zeovit and I know if you use that system, K is one of the parameter to keep in check. Maybe there's some info about K on Zeovit.com.

 

[Phyl]

We did a massive water change early this year (95% roughly) and the following weeks the corals looked INCREDIBLE. They changed colors almost immediately. I haven't been able to have that same effect via nutrient reduction, so that leads me to wonder if the color change I saw didn't have more to do with what is IN new water v. what ISN'T in it. Mind if I move this to the Advanced forum?

 

[NEWSALT]

Sure, you could move this thread to the Advanced forum if you think it should be there.

Phyl, what container do you use to mix your fresh SW?

 

[Phyl]

I use one of those food grade 55g white drums that we got from Rascilnakov back in the day. I have 3 of them. One for my RO/DI (that feeds my system via my Kalk reactor) and two that we use for water change water. I wonder if Hef ever sold his.

 

[NEWSALT]

What do you use to circulate the water while it's mixing?

 

[Phyl]

Mag somethingorother. 7, I think though it could be a maxijet. Why?

 

[NEWSALT]

I ask because right now I'm mixing water in old Reef Crystals buckets with a Maxijet pump. I wanted to come up with something in my fish room (a.k.a. garage)to mix my fresh SW and I was thinking getting a larger drum and using a Mag18 to recirculate the water and also use the same pump to pump the fresh SW into the sump. I know this might sound off topic, but the reason is that I think I'm not doing large enough water changes. That can affect the coral colors, right?

 

[chase33]

Just for the ease of water changes I would recommend getting a large garbage to mix and store you fresh SW. For a 120 gallon tank a 10% w/c is 12 gallons. That's 2 1/2 of those 5 gallon buckets. I find it's much easier to fill and mix in the bigger container. I have a 20 gallon container that I use to mix and store my fresh water. I perform a 20 gallon w/c weekly (120 gallon tank w/ 40 gallon sump) and it only takes about 15 minutes. I too use a mag 19 to mix my water. Mag 18 is overkill for this and a waste of electricity IMO.

 

[Phyl]

On our 120 we used to use a 32g garbage can.

 

[Carlo]

Just for the ease of water changes I would recommend getting a large garbage to mix and store you fresh SW. For a 120 gallon tank a 10% w/c is 12 gallons. That's 2 1/2 of those 5 gallon buckets. I find it's much easier to fill and mix in the bigger container. I have a 20 gallon container that I use to mix and store my fresh water. I perform a 20 gallon w/c weekly (120 gallon tank w/ 40 gallon sump) and it only takes about 15 minutes. I too use a mag 19 to mix my water. Mag 18 is overkill for this and a waste of electricity IMO.

Not to mention you can topoff the trashcan with RO/DI and add some more salt to keep this always filled with SW in case of an emergency. Might want to keep a small heater or maxijet 1220 pump (decent heat) in it however so the temps are pretty close.

Carlo

 

[chase33]

In regards to your lighting question, I know someone who has the same setup as you except it's a 125g tank. He keeps the SPS on the left and right sides of the tank under the lights and other corals that don't require much lighting in the center. His SPS corals are doing great in that setup. He too has 2 250w MH and 2 110w vho super actinics.

 

[Boomer]

Phyl

We did a massive water change early this year (95% roughly)

I wonder where I heard that before Some are binging to find out that large massive water changes do good things not bad things But you wont' here telling people yeah go ahead and do a 95 % change, you are on your own. Evey time I did mine, my 22" Tube Anemone would go into the spawing mode and just pollute the flippin' tank but I found a trick to fix that

Coloring up for the most part seems to be dependant on K and/or low nutrient levels. An now adding crazy things like HGH and AA to the mix.

 

[Phyl]

Do they sell K to dose? And a test kit?