mtraylor's 255

Wrangy · Jul 4, 2019

I'd just continue the frag tank build here

That's what most other people do I've found lol a new thread would also be cool though haha

KJoFan · Jul 4, 2019

mtraylor said:
I have been concentrating my efforts on a new frag tank build lately. Not sure if I should start a new build or starting adding it here. I"m going with Orphek lighting on the frag tank and I may just swap out my GHL's on my display for the Orpheks.

What? Ditching the GHL's??

mtraylor · Jul 4, 2019

Yes. When my Bariene Tang bit off 2 $300+ frags I had just purchased and buried them in the sand. I said....thats it....I'm going to start a separate frag tank to get corals started outside of my display. That being said. I have spent allot of time researching on what kind of light I want for the frag tank. My first thought was a just to get the GHL 7206 because I have had such great success with GHL over the last ~8 years or so and I have been wanting to upgrade the display lights for some time.....but then my techie side kicked in and said lets do some research right now and see whats out there like I did when I first started using GHL. After narrowing my search down to a couple lights. Orphek was at the top of my list. I found some great articles right here one reef2reef and reference to BRS video's etc....

The specs on the Orphek light appear to be superior to anything right now currently on the market. Just a quick comparison to GHL. GHL has 9 seperate dimmable colors and the Orphek has 14. The GHL has reflectors and the Orphek has one optic to each led. The Orphek fixture is bigger than GHL with those optics and spreads light differently. Orphek light is 24"x9" while the GHL is 13" x 7". Orphek will cover and spread light I think better over my aquarium. I think the blues/actinics are going to be superior as well. Will know for sure when I get my hands on it.

They both use the same power supply, so I know the light will have longevity since I have been using them for 8 years with no issues. I'm excited with the light since some comparisons are to T5's. I will keep the thread updated. The more I think about it, the more I think I should just bite the bullet for the lights on the display.

mtraylor · Jul 4, 2019

FRAG TANK
I decided to build a seperate frag tank that is independent of my display. I went with the waterbox 60.3. Upon receiving the waterbox 60.3 the fit and finish is excellent.
No issues what so ever. Really like the contemporary look of the cabinet and the aquarium edge is really nice. As some others have said. Some of the white waterbox aquariums
have black panels. As seen below. The black panels on the white base are actually not seen once you put the stand together so its not important.

mtraylor · Jul 4, 2019

Once I got the stand put together to this stage. I started to water proof the sand. I sealed all the seams with white silicone. I did not take a sponge or anything to clean up
the excess as I want it sealed really nice and everything is none visible. I also sealed the bottom of the stand with multi coats of white plastidip. This stuff works great for sealing.

mtraylor · Jul 5, 2019

After getting everything sealed up. I installed the doors. It took a while to get them aligned properly, but after someone on here posted some directions on how to do it. It was very
easy. I purchased a separate Apex controller for this tank as its in a total different part of the house and I didn't want to string long cables through the attic and the cost was not much
different just to get new controller. I went with the new red sea skimmer. Will report on it once I get it up and running.

mtraylor · Jul 5, 2019

Updates on the main display. I removed my bubble tip anemone. It was around 18" in diameter. Huge! Final straw was it killing some of my torch heads off.
Needless to say, I had to remove rock to get it out. Took a long time. My clowns are now not happy. I found them this new home. Very tiny bubble tip pictured
here. its has not been happy, so I have ordered a new one. I think I should have treated it with cipro. When my new one comes in may treat with cipro and take
this one out and treat as well. It has lost some zoanthology and reseeding nipples.

mtraylor · Jul 10, 2019

Ok. I got my new replacement for the anemone above yesterday. I have him in and its really healthy. The foot was really sticky and healthy looking, and mouth was in good shape. I just acclimated this anemone and placed right in the aquarium. It took the clowns a while to find it. I had to take away the hammer corals they were in and put in the sump until they found it. They are loving it now.
Hopefully over then next several months it will get more color like the little one above.

mtraylor · Jul 10, 2019

one more pic

mtraylor · Jul 15, 2019

Just took a quick photo of my frogspawn. It finally colored up after removing some of those huge colonies that were shading it.

mtraylor · Jul 15, 2019

The ASD rainbow fruit is now really nice size. Hopefully I can get the frag tank up and going to trim this one down. Its intruding on some other corals.

mtraylor · Jul 15, 2019

This is the pink cadillac under the ASD rainbow fruit. Im going to have to trim a bit for it to get more light.

Michael Gray · Jul 25, 2019

id love to get my hands on your GHL Light composer. so i can see if i like your color since ill be putting water in my tank on saturday and have 2 LX7's I downloaded a few composers on GHL to try this weekend.

mtraylor · Jul 26, 2019

Unfortunately i have ghl mitras 6300's. They have same led's but in different spots. There is a favorite lx7 config floating around on this forum that will allow you to use all the power of the fixture. I think it runs blues and uv at 130%

Michael Gray · Jul 27, 2019

Dam I wish I got my hands on that config.

mtraylor · Sep 1, 2019

Well my frag tank has come to a screeching halt for a bit. Just not enough time to get everything setup at the moment.

That being said, i have been itching to see how well the orphek light looks and performs so i took down one of the mitras on my display tank and replaced it with the orphek the other day.

My tank is 27 inches front to back so i hung the light the full length the same way my mitras sit. First observation is just the gerth of the light. Its huge and covers the whole display top. I hung the light about 8 to 9 inches above the water.

My first program on day 1 was conservative and i tried to mimic what i have on the mitras by ramping up and down the channels and when my mitras came on the program i put in was no where close to what i had running on the mitras. This was because i didnt know exactly how each channel looked and how to blend on the new light.

I then used the coral color program supplied with the unit and modified it to my needs once i figured out what each channel looked like etc. Now the orphek has seamlessly blended with the mitras timing etc.

The first thing you notice with the orphek is that the blues are much richer than that of the mitras. Much deeper blue look. I really like it. With the coral growth program running side by side with my mitras in day and some times during the day the spectrum frkm a far looks almost exactly the same, but from close inspection you can clearly see that the floursecents from the corals is allot better.

I first noticed when my blond naso tang swam from under my mitras to under the orpheks and the tangs color was amazing. Night and day difference. I then started to see that the greens pop allot more in some corals etc. As i started to inspect the corals more.

I placed the light over some corals that i have been trying to get more color and growth out of. We shall see what happens over the next couple weeks. Everything looks very promising so far and a light change out on the main display is probably coming soon.