Thinking of ditching h380

[pgravis]

I’ve had a 90 gallon tank setup as a fuge (gotta love basement sump rooms with tons of room!) for around 5 years or so. Always had decent growth of caulerpa and marginal cheato growth. Anyway, thought I was upgrading and added the h380 6-8 months ago. Since then growth of everything has slowed way down and now my fuge is mostly full of hair algae. Technically it’s growing something I can export to get rid of nutrients, but I prefer a macro I can trade around. I’ve thought about a fw radion (have one over a vivarium, it’s a great light) but it’s a bit pricey. Anyone else ditch their h380 and go for something else? Looking for some ideas.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Chinese fresh water black box.
Or SBreeflight freshwater

 

[wangspeed]

I use one of these over my 12x24 fuge. It works really well. If you are using a standard 90, I would use 2 or maybe even 3 of these. Depends on your nutrients. You should be able to grow with the H380, but it won’t cover enough area on your 90 gallon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0776R69WH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_vCtmCb8JTJ0Q5

The 200W one draws over 90W. It’s silent and waterproof too.

 

[pgravis]

I use one of these over my 12x24 fuge. It works really well. If you are using a standard 90, I would use 2 or maybe even 3 of these. Depends on your nutrients. You should be able to grow with the H380, but it won’t cover enough area on your 90 gallon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0776R69WH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_vCtmCb8JTJ0Q5

The 200W one draws over 90W. It’s silent and waterproof too.

Do you find that spectrum growing a lot of hair algae?

 

[wangspeed]

Do you find that spectrum growing a lot of hair algae?

I only have chaeto and some red macro algae in the fuge, oh and more coralline than I want. No hair algae mixed in with it.

 

[lapin]

I have 1 of these 14"over my 20 gallon fuge. On for 10 hours a day on a timer. Grows ulva and red macros like a champ. I dont have very high nutrients or flow so my chaeto grows very slowly. No hair under this light but my dt tank has hair. In fact it was so good I had the wrap my cal reactor in black because the light was causing algae to grow in it.
http://www.viparspectra.com/goods.php?id=61

 

[AlgaeBarn]

I’ve had a 90 gallon tank setup as a fuge (gotta love basement sump rooms with tons of room!) for around 5 years or so. Always had decent growth of caulerpa and marginal cheato growth. Anyway, thought I was upgrading and added the h380 6-8 months ago. Since then growth of everything has slowed way down and now my fuge is mostly full of hair algae. Technically it’s growing something I can export to get rid of nutrients, but I prefer a macro I can trade around. I’ve thought about a fw radion (have one over a vivarium, it’s a great light) but it’s a bit pricey. Anyone else ditch their h380 and go for something else? Looking for some ideas.

Have you tested your levels recently? If so, please post. We run an H380 with Sea Lettuce (ulva) and it grows like crazy. We have a 136 gallon display + 44 gallon sump and we have about 50 fish in the tank (probably about 30 yellow tangs, 10 file fish, and 20 molly millers). We feed heavy - a ton of pellets 4x a day. No water changes and nitrates are at 0.

 

[Mark Gray]

I’ve had a 90 gallon tank setup as a fuge (gotta love basement sump rooms with tons of room!) for around 5 years or so. Always had decent growth of caulerpa and marginal cheato growth. Anyway, thought I was upgrading and added the h380 6-8 months ago. Since then growth of everything has slowed way down and now my fuge is mostly full of hair algae. Technically it’s growing something I can export to get rid of nutrients, but I prefer a macro I can trade around. I’ve thought about a fw radion (have one over a vivarium, it’s a great light) but it’s a bit pricey. Anyone else ditch their h380 and go for something else? Looking for some ideas.

Hum I have a 90 with the H380 it grows pretty good not like the one on the 55 but the bio load is lighter, I do dose some iron

 

[pgravis]

Have you tested your levels recently? If so, please post. We run an H380 with Sea Lettuce (ulva) and it grows like crazy. We have a 136 gallon display + 44 gallon sump and we have about 50 fish in the tank (probably about 30 yellow tangs, 10 file fish, and 20 molly millers). We feed heavy - a ton of pellets 4x a day. No water changes and nitrates are at 0.

Its been awhile since I’ve tested. Work the next couple of days but I’ll try and get some numbers posted next week. I haven’t tried ulva. Maybe switching up would help. I will say that the growth I have gotten has been very compact and thick. Just not a lot of mass! My display is a 60, then the 90 fuge and probably 40-50 or so gallons in the sump. 12 fish spread between the tanks (2 pajamas, 4 clowns, 2 bangaii, 3 royal grammas, and a mandarin). I’m probably a medium feeder. A chunk of frozen every couple days. What numbers do you run to get the great growth?

 

[ReeferReefer]

I only have chaeto and some red macro algae in the fuge, oh and more coralline than I want. No hair algae mixed in with it.

Do you use your fuge as your primary nutrient export?

 

[wangspeed]

Do you use your fuge as your primary nutrient export?

I'm not sure that I would call it my primary. I generally think of a skimmer and bacteria as the primary, even though I'm not carbon dosing. My nutrients are stable around 10 nitrates and .03 phosphate.

 

[Hemmdog]

I'm not sure that I would call it my primary. I generally think of a skimmer and bacteria as the primary, even though I'm not carbon dosing. My nutrients are stable around 10 nitrates and .03 phosphate.

On my h80 I’ve found if I keep it a little more blue than red it grows less hair algae. My chaeto grows like a champ. 12 hrs on full blast

 

[pgravis]

Have you tested your levels recently? If so, please post. We run an H380 with Sea Lettuce (ulva) and it grows like crazy. We have a 136 gallon display + 44 gallon sump and we have about 50 fish in the tank (probably about 30 yellow tangs, 10 file fish, and 20 molly millers). We feed heavy - a ton of pellets 4x a day. No water changes and nitrates are at 0.

Finally got around to testing. All tests done with Red Sea kits
Alk 7.98
Ca 380 (been dialing in my doser, working on bringing it up)
Mag 1360
Phos .02
NO3 0.00
I switched modes from grow to bloom and have noticed a bit more growth. I am wondering if I should dose some nitrates though. Sps colors are a bit pale. Any thoughts on that?

 

[Chavin20]

I had this light and the chaeto grew fast. The hair algae in the display and sump were gone. 11pm to 5pm time.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N51OJ82/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I changed my light to H380 in September 2018. I had the light on from 11pm to 5pm. The chateo growth decreased and actually was dying. Hair algae came back in the sump area. Two weeks ago, I changed the time from 11pm to 5am. The chateo starting to gain it's color, growth is slow. Hair algae in the sump started to decrease.

I thinking I cooked the chateo and caused hair algae bloom with 18 hrs of H380. Maybe H380 is too much for my sump.

120 gal display 40 gal sump.

 

[Rjukan]

I only have chaeto and some red macro algae in the fuge, oh and more coralline than I want. No hair algae mixed in with it.

Nice, I like the hanging light baffles.

 

[wangspeed]

Nice, I like the hanging light baffles.

I’ve contemplated making them longer, but I would need to remember to remove them for things like the rare water change.

 

[CMO]

I have an H380 and it grows all macros very well. There were certainly times while the tank was maturing during the first year when hair algae became dominant in my fuge but I do not attribute that to the light. Today I have zero hair or other nuisance algae in my fuge. Just chaeto, flame algae, sea lettuce and gracilaria all growing well.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

I have an H380 and it grows all macros very well. There were certainly times while the tank was maturing during the first year when hair algae became dominant in my fuge but I do not attribute that to the light. Today I have zero hair or other nuisance algae in my fuge. Just chaeto, flame algae, sea lettuce and gracilaria all growing well.

Love it! Which one do you see growing fastest?

 

[Firedawg1983]

Got rid of mine. I had plenty of nutrients and couldn’t really get anything to grow. I’m going to get a cheap one off amazon and go from there. Working on getting rid of the GHA in the display.

 

[CMO]

Love it! Which one do you see growing fastest?

Thanks! Definitely the chaeto and sea lettuce. But the flame algea and gracilaria grow pretty fast as well. I harvest them all about once per month to keep them growing nicely and not crowding each other out.