Tank of the Month - April '04

[Achilles]

Originally posted by Travis
Achilles, your tank is absolutely awe-inspiring. The blown up picture of the whole tank has become my new background. That video really helped put everything into perspective in a way that pictures can't.

I have a question about the reflectors. Could you describe how you designed them and determined bulb placement to blend the two different bulbs so well. I would like to run 2 10k and 2 20k on my new tank but I haven't figured out a way to blend the light like you have.

I found that I had to place my Ushio Blue MH bulbs in front and the Sakis at the back to get a very nice blend of colours, when I reversed it, it looked strange.

A possible reason could be that the rear of my tank has corals and LR that is placed much higher and that helps reflect the 'yellower' light back to the front to blend with the blue light.

My tank is 3ft wide, and the reflectors cover the entire width of the tank, so that could be another factor why it blended well?

I wanted to put two bulbs in one reflector initially but I figured that since I designed my lighting spread to be like this, with the two reflectors parallel to each other, it already does look like two bulbs in one big reflector!

I may change the sakis to the AC 14k bulbs because, believe it or not, I want to cut back on growth and see if I can get better colours from my SPS instead! LOL!