Gulf Coast

.Haliax. · Jun 19, 2023

BamaCoastPyrat said:
Does anybody have any chaeto they need to trim? Preferably someone in Baldwin county? @.Haliax.

Yeah I've got some you can get. I can probably meet up sometime this week

.Haliax. · Jun 19, 2023

Snoopdog said:
What intensity are you running them at?

Before I added the AI Blade and only had 2 xr15's - I was mainly running only the blue channels (which is why I went with the blue model instead of pro). In the mornings, I would ramp up to UV/Violet/Blue/Royal Blue at 100% and then in the evening times I would hit the AB+ Spectrum for a few hours. Then ramp down into just a period of lower intensity blue/royal blue (high fluorescence) before lights out. I do have SPS corals though, I'd bring it down if I didn't have acros. Also the Blue's have a lot more blue LED's than the Pro's.

Now that I have the blade, I haven't decided how I'll do it - need a par meter.

Snoopdog · Jun 23, 2023

.Haliax. said:
Before I added the AI Blade and only had 2 xr15's - I was mainly running only the blue channels (which is why I went with the blue model instead of pro). In the mornings, I would ramp up to UV/Violet/Blue/Royal Blue at 100% and then in the evening times I would hit the AB+ Spectrum for a few hours. Then ramp down into just a period of lower intensity blue/royal blue (high fluorescence) before lights out. I do have SPS corals though, I'd bring it down if I didn't have acros. Also the Blue's have a lot more blue LED's than the Pro's.

Now that I have the blade, I haven't decided how I'll do it - need a par meter.

I have had zoas closed up since I moved everything from the failed Red Sea. I almost either rented or bought a par meter this week. One thing I have learned is with this hobby you always end up with an attic of equipment that you just do not use. Instead of buying one I had a though, there has to be people already that have the same lights as you and list the pars at different levels right? Sure enough I found a BRS video showing my exact lights over softies and guess what? I had them way too dang high. I am scaling them back and likely that will also fix a few other problems I have had. Tank still looks great though.

From what I gather with my xr15 pros, with my spacing and tank height I should have the pros at 55% percent or so with softies and LPS, I mainly have softies though. I was running them at anywhere from 85-100% while testing different things, I never dropped them as low as they needed to be. With the high lighting I was doing nothing but encouraging algae growth and blasting my zoas with too much light. This week I also increased the lighting over the sump and that piece of grape caulerpa I got from Bill is already triple it's original size. It was almost dead when I first got it.

BamaCoastPyrat · Jun 23, 2023

Snoopdog said:
I have had zoas closed up since I moved everything from the failed Red Sea. I almost either rented or bought a par meter this week. One thing I have learned is with this hobby you always end up with an attic of equipment that you just do not use. Instead of buying one I had a though, there has to be people already that have the same lights as you and list the pars at different levels right? Sure enough I found a BRS video showing my exact lights over softies and guess what? I had them way too dang high. I am scaling them back and likely that will also fix a few other problems I have had. Tank still looks great though.

From what I gather with my xr15 pros, with my spacing and tank height I should have the pros at 55% percent or so with softies and LPS, I mainly have softies though. I was running them at anywhere from 85-100% while testing different things, I never dropped them as low as they needed to be. With the high lighting I was doing nothing but encouraging algae growth and blasting my zoas with too much light. This week I also increased the lighting over the sump and that piece of grape caulerpa I got from Bill is already triple it's original size. It was almost dead when I first got it.

What other issues are you having? Hopefully lowering the lights helps

Snoopdog · Jun 23, 2023

BamaCoastPyrat said:
What other issues are you having? Hopefully lowering the lights helps

Nothing ground breaking. I had a small amount of hair algae and a small amount of cyano. I have always been big on using other algae to compete with the nuisance algae, that is why I have so much algae growing in my sump area. Also if coralline algae is on the rock, it is hard for hair algae to grow. I have coralline algae, just not as much as I want. I have always found it actually grows better under low light. I think lowering the light will get all the zoas to open back up and finally get rid of any small patches of hair algae. Either way, my tank is looking great but I think it could be better.

Snoopdog · Jun 23, 2023

Can you tell when I changed the sump lighting? Around the 14th I removed the Kessel and added a simple GE grow light, on the 20th I added a second GE grow light.

.Haliax. · Jun 23, 2023

These levels are with gen 5's mounted at the BRS suggested height and spacing

Edit: its a crappy picture, I didn't think I'd be sharing it with anyone lol

Snoopdog · Jun 23, 2023

.Haliax. said:
These levels are with gen 5's mounted at the BRS suggested height and spacing

Edit: its a crappy picture, I didn't think I'd be sharing it with anyone lol

Tank height and length? Number of lights? I may be denser since I have two XR15 over a 3 foot tank, plenty of overlap.

Snoopdog · Jun 23, 2023

This is what they recommend for softies and LPS with the xr15 pro.

Snoopdog · Jun 26, 2023

I am still really surprised how many people in the hobby do not communicate in this area. We used to have a pretty tight club the last time I was in the hobby. I know the people are here because you can go to Chris's or Bill's and while you are there people are just coming and going. So what gives? Maybe social media just has people locked into their little bubbles, but it is a sad state of affairs.

.Haliax. · Jun 26, 2023

Snoopdog said:
Tank height and length? Number of lights? I may be denser since I have two XR15 over a 3 foot tank, plenty of overlap.

2 lights on a 4' x 24"

.Haliax. · Jun 26, 2023

Snoopdog said:
I am still really surprised how many people in the hobby do not communicate in this area. We used to have a pretty tight club the last time I was in the hobby. I know the people are here because you can go to Chris's or Bill's and while you are there people are just coming and going. So what gives? Maybe social media just has people locked into their little bubbles, but it is a sad state of affairs.

Yeah I wish it were better

Snoopdog · Jun 26, 2023

.Haliax. said:
2 lights on a 4' x 24"

Yeah I am definitely denser, I have plenty of overlap in the middle.

BamaCoastPyrat · Jun 26, 2023

Snoopdog said:
I am still really surprised how many people in the hobby do not communicate in this area. We used to have a pretty tight club the last time I was in the hobby. I know the people are here because you can go to Chris's or Bill's and while you are there people are just coming and going. So what gives? Maybe social media just has people locked into their little bubbles, but it is a sad state of affairs.

Yeah, I would like to see more interaction as well. I think 90% of this thread is you, me, and @.Haliax. Any ideas on how to boost engagement, whether digitally or in person?

Snoopdog · Jun 26, 2023

BamaCoastPyrat said:
Yeah, I would like to see more interaction as well. I think 90% of this thread is you, me, and @.Haliax. Any ideas on how to boost engagement, whether digitally or in person?

I dunno but I think it needs to happen. It is quite ridiculous that locally there are this many people with reef tanks and no local "club" to speak of. I would love to meet other people and share knowledge, maybe bounce ideas off people. When the local club was active before we would bring frags to swap, look at each other's tanks, that type of thing.

Snoopdog · Jun 28, 2023

@A_family_man13 how goes your tank? I am curious what did you use for rock? Was the rock dead or live?

Snoopdog · Jun 28, 2023

I was thinking back and remembered about my lights on my first tank. I could not afford to get an electronic ballast for my halides so I went to one of the appliance repair shops local, paid around $15 for each of these. Yep, just standard coil ballast. This was one of them mounted to the stand.

Snoopdog · Jun 29, 2023

Anyone have any desire on a bulk purchase of live rock? I am likely to be doing an air freight order from Tampa Bay saltwater soon, the only question is how much I actually purchase. I will be keeping mine in a 75 gallon on the floor for a few months to get any bad guys out, but others would be welcome to just pickup theirs whenever. I am going to keep light over mine because I want to cultivate any macro algae that comes on it.