T5 and SPS observation

[afelder]

Originally posted by Serioussnaps
More algae than usual?

I actually have never had an algae problem. I now have a much bigger bioload than recommended so we will see if algae becomes problematic. This system is relatively young and before I make too many decisions about what works and what doesn't I think it needs to mature some more.

[chirocato]

Yeah, mine is fairly young too. Even though all the rock/sand came from well established tanks, mine won't be a year old till Feb.

[chirocato]

OK here's what I just did. Front to back.

B+
PA
3k
PA
ABsp
B+ (this will be a PA when I reorder bulbs. I only have 2 at the moment )
B+
B+

and I also raised my setup from 3" off the surface to 6" off the surface. Let's see what happens over the next month or so. I'll let you guys know how things turn out. Also, I am bumping up feeding both fish AND corals. I know my skimmer can handle it. Stock it's rated for 400gal and I modded it a while back cause I didn't think it was working right! I only have a 250g system...

[Oldude]

I was running straight MH hqi's and have quite recently added T5 Korallen Fiji Purple's to my MH mix and am happy with the results. For me I like the two together over one or the other and the corals seem to be responding positively. I do think I will try a heavier feeding schedule as mentioned by some people in the thread as I do have a lot of coral and some pieces are struggling to colour up with the deeper hues I am looking for.

[shred5]

Originally posted by SimilanRocks
I think what we want to get is low zooxanthellae (less brown) and more pigments (the beautiful colors). From what other people say, sps will need less zooxanthellea on more light, so it's less brown, I think T5 does very good job on this. As for pigments, it seems to be problem with low nutrition, tank is too clean. So feeding more is the answer, as other people sugguested.

There is a thread talking about vodka dosing, many people experience pastel colors after dosing and tanks are too clean. They fed more to get bright colors up. Similar to Zeo method.

What about UVA/UVB spetrums? T5 does not generate, or generate less UV spectrum below 420nm. While halides generate full spectrum including strong UVA on some lamps.

From Tyree's presentation http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog...ee_060202.html
"They genetically identified 3 different types of highly fluorescent pocilloporins. One type primarily absorbs light from 310 to 380 nm (UV-B and UV-A) and then fluoresces this as light from 400 to 470 nm (violet/blue). Scientist refer to this as UV fluorescing pocilloporin, because the greatest absorption occurs within the UV area. Hobbyist should probably refer to this as violet fluorescing pocilloporin, because the visual appearance of the pigment is the fluorescing of violet light. Corals in shallow water can theoretically use this pigment to shield themselves from the harmful affects of UV light, while corals in deepwater can modify the UV-A light into light that is more photosynthetically useable. Unfortunately for the hobbyist, our eyes are not very good at perceiving violet light. Additionally, the stimulation of this pigments fluorescence requires producing UV-A/UV-B light over the reef. Violet Fluorescing Pocilloporin may be of little importance to captive corals."
Lacing of UVA from T5 may be another cause of pastel color. I found that 2 of my deep water sps, 20K lokani, and green with purple polyps birdnest, are loosing metalic green pigments. And I have other shallow water SPS that didn't loose green. I don't how deep they are in the ocean. They may be using the green to shield out UV, and they don't need to do that with T5?

The presentation also says that certain sps will use certain wavelength. T5 bulbs are not fullspectrum, and those good reflectors trend to spot the light. So even if we have all spectrum each in the T5 combination, doesn't mean that all sps will get the spectrum they want, like using halide. So placing right sps directly under the right bulb may be another answer?

Yes T-5s are narrow spectrum bulbs but that is why we mix different T-5 bulbs. I do not believe that is what is happening.

It could be one of the spectrum bulbs is high in a spectrum a coral is not normally under but then again I kind of doubt this but is a possibility . I would suspect sunlight is higher in most spectrum's except maybe for deeper water corals which mainly see blue. So basically putting a G.E. daylight bulb above a deeper water acro may make it go pale.


The uv issue is a valid point to me and really needs to be looked into.


Still do not believe this is a food issue because if there was low nutrients and this was making less zooxanthellae the coral would starve to death and the lighter color does not seem to be unhealthy for the coral.. I also do not know why this would be a problem with just t-5 because lighting has nothing to do with nutrients. We would see this under all types of lighting and we normally see this under t-5. I suspect zeovit and vodka cause the water to go much clearer again causing more light to reach the corals. Also with elevated levels of bacteria with the vodka and zeovit methods this is providing food for the corals. I have tried vodka for several months as a test on one of my tanks.

Dave

[Cubman777]

I agree with what shred has written

[SimilanRocks]

Dave, good point. How is your vodka dosing so far? I'm thinking of doing some soon.

Another observation about UV, it's known that HQI bulbs produce a lot of UV, that many people need to shield it out. I have been in several LFS and warehouse around LA. One of the most brightest deepest color SPS is the show tank at Reefermadness. They use HQIs. I got a few frags from them, when I went back to see the same sps in their tanks again, I always have question why mine are pale.

BTW I found a great T5 tank thread. http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=700454 It's very rare but possible, sems to be those Prodibio and Zeo. And he's using only blue+ and aquablue special.

[Serioussnaps]

Originally posted by SimilanRocks
Dave, good point. How is your vodka dosing so far? I'm thinking of doing some soon.

Another observation about UV, it's known that HQI bulbs produce a lot of UV, that many people need to shield it out. I have been in several LFS and warehouse around LA. One of the most brightest deepest color SPS is the show tank at Reefermadness. They use HQIs. I got a few frags from them, when I went back to see the same sps in their tanks again, I always have question why mine are pale.

BTW I found a great T5 tank thread. http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=700454 It's very rare but possible, sems to be those Prodibio and Zeo. And he's using only blue+ and aquablue special.

They use 1000 Watt 20 K xm's I believe...20 K for sure though not sure about xm's. HUGE difference......those things will make throwup pop colors.

[Shouse94]

Also t5 bulbs lose there spectrum and power much faster than MH!

Wooooahhhh. Where did you pull that BS out of?
Not only is that completely false, it's actually quite the opposite. T5's will hold MOST of their color spectrum, light-output till near brink of bulb life. I've been running the same T5's for about a year and half w/ no problems.

[SimilanRocks]

http://www.reefermadness.us/NewsRoom.htm
They use SE 1000W in the 8000g frag tanks. Their display tanks that I talked about are using DE 250Wx3 150Wx2. See the first picture, it's a lot of purple, I think because of high UV. The colors really pop.

Originally posted by Serioussnaps
They use 1000 Watt 20 K xm's I believe...20 K for sure though not sure about xm's. HUGE difference......those things will make throwup pop colors.

[ejocam]

One of my customers is a lighting manufacturer (Helios) and he frequents my house to buy frags. Anyhow he said that with their experiments, he found out that by using the Blue+ and Actinic+ bulbs soley, they bleached out all the Acro's and Monti's.

So I picked his brain a little and he said if you want you will get the colors back when using more 6700 and 11000 k range bulbs.

I think this really explains why one of my tanks doesn't have pastel and the other one does. Each are 8 bulb fixtures with 4 Blue +, 2 Fiji Purples. The other 2 bulbs in the non-pastel tank are 6700k and 1100k. The faded bleached out colored tank is Aquablue Special and 11000k.

I just swapped out:

One of the Fiji Purples for another 11000k on both tanks.

One Aquablue Special for 6700 on the other.

Here is the new lighting scheme:

Blue+
Actinic
11000K
Fiji Purple
11000K
6700k
Actinic
Blue +

We'll see???

[shred5]

Originally posted by SimilanRocks
Dave, good point. How is your vodka dosing so far? I'm thinking of doing some soon.

I did this a long time ago just to test it out.. I only did it for several months. I had no real problems before it though but still had positive results but can not tell you long term affects. I wish I would have recorded all my results and took pics.

Water was much clearer than anything I had ever seen. Even when using carbon or ozone. Also my skimmer pulled out about twice the amount of skim mate and it was far smellier than anything I had ever had. I am sure alot of this was bacteria because it was slimy.

Phosphate is all I tested for with a hach low range test kit and again I wish I had recorded my results. I had started with low phosphates and still they dropped.

I also dosed in the morning and in the evening instead of one large dose a day. This way you would not get the huge spikes of bacteria. Basically it is a pain to do though and you can not miss doing it or you can kill off large populations of bacteria and really have to start over. I had no adverse affects on my tank though and only positive. i had lot less algae on my glass. I also saw some positives in my coral which could be because of the bacteria as food or cleaner water. I saw better polyp extension on some of my corals. I did not observe much color change though, maybe if I would have done it longer or maybe my tank was at maximum before starting. I always wanted try this on a dirtier tank.

Honestly if you have no problems, do not do it.. Instead of maintaining a tank with vodka I think it could be used to clean up a tank. The bacteria will consume lots of phosphates or nitrogen in the tank. Make sure to bring the populations of bacteria up slowly and let them down slowly. Bacteria can consume lots of oxygen and you can have a massive bloom right off the bat. Also if you have a huge die off they can realease alot back into the tank.

I imagine the method people use to cook rocks could be accelerated by vodka and a skimmer big time.

D/E halides for sure put out large amout of uv compaired to other lamps but people use a uv shield and I am not sure how much actually gets through. I think Dana may have done tests on this though but I am not sure where the Data is... I have never used d/e myself but know several people who have and most claim less color. I really do not understand this myself. Maybe their problems have nothing to do with the lighting though.

Dave

[barjam]

So I picked his brain a little and he said if you want you will get the colors back when using more 6700 and 11000 k range bulbs.

I think this really explains why one of my tanks doesn't have pastel and the other one does. Each are 8 bulb fixtures with 4 Blue +, 2 Fiji Purples. The other 2 bulbs in the non-pastel tank are 6700k and 1100k. The faded bleached out colored tank is Aquablue Special and 11000k.

Aquablue special is a 12k bulb. Is your guy saying there is a difference between 11k and 12k? Both Blue Plus and Aquablues have a huge 460nm peak.

One pet theory I have is that a lot of these tanks are loaded up with Blue Plus and AquaBlues both of which peak at 460nm. Perhaps 460nm is saturating the zoax but not doing anything for the pigments, who knows.

There was a thread where (JetCat I think, may be mistaken there) removed all or most of his blue plus to actinic and he almost immediately got better colors. Who knows.

[ejocam]

Yeas he definatley said something about the 460 affecting the Zoox in a negative way. With the 6700k-10000k he said it balances out to where it doesn't affect it because of the other spectrum feeding it. Either way I will know soon.

[barjam]

Sorry, I meant 450nm but same applies.

[SimilanRocks]

Originally posted by barjam
There was a thread where (JetCat I think, may be mistaken there) removed all or most of his blue plus to actinic and he almost immediately got better colors. Who knows.

Maybe the actinic that made the pop but does not actually help getting better color?

Originally posted by ejocam

Here is the new lighting scheme:

Blue+
Actinic
11000K
Fiji Purple
11000K
6700k
Actinic
Blue +

We'll see???

Eric, actually yours are the best around here I'm tracking along your new T5 set up.

[barjam]

Maybe the actinic that made the pop but does not actually help getting better color?

I wish I could find the thread but no it was a pretty drastic change in color of the actual color. He want from 2 daylight + 2 Blue Plus to 2 daylight and 2 UV Actinic I believe.

[barjam]

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1216474

There was the thread.

[IPT]

chirocato and ejocam - I am curious to see your results. However, to really learn what's going on you can't increase your feeding AND change the lights. No way to know which caused the change then.

I run an Aquatinics TX5. it has an ATI AB special, Gmann Midday 6000K, UV super actin, UV Aquasun, and a B+. Some of my corals are light, some not. I can't decide if I need to increase PAR (Lose the Actinic) or decrease (lose a Daylight bulb for an Actinic + or pure actinic). The general consensus here seems to be that we have too much light. Though even with the close proximity of corals to intense light lighting I seem to recal some graph by (Dana something?) showing that we will never hit the PAR from the real world. The thing about it was the PAR through out the day in a bell curve where ours is pretty consistent (at best it may have two steps usually - a jump up and then a jump down). I wonder if the data was averaged for the entire daylight period what would have been found?

For now I have decided to just keep my spectrum as is and increase my feeding for a month or so.

[barjam]

Per the weird algae mentioned earlier in this thread...

I recently upgraded from 4x54 T5 to 2x250MH + 2x54 and that algae is slowly going away. It started receding from surfaces that were seeing direct light. I also increased feeding in this time frame so it could have been that as well.

[neyugn0w01]

I am running a setup with 6 T5's.
Ati blue plus
Ati procolor
Ati Aquablue
Ati blue plus
Aquascience 15k
Ati aquablue
And I do not feel my color are washed up or faded. That combination gives off a crispy white with a tint of blue.