Hey Brett, looking sharp

Looks Moar better Brett!!

Let me know when you change up to 400 watters... :lol::lol:

no moar upgrades on this sucker man. I think she's finally ready for growout time. Which means I need a new tank now right?

Looking good Brett. Didn't take you long to get that ballast installed :biggrin:

wow that tank is gorgeous, where is everyone getting thier tanks built? i want a 2'x2'x2' cube :lol:

Lol yeah I had the canopy built the day before and I rolled into action as soon as I got that puppy home. Thanks again dude you're a reef-saver.

Thanks this was an old setup of Jay's:

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=69699

Jay kicks glass.

look at dispars, bartletts, ignitus, or even lyretails. These are all ones that I was looking at for the 75 gallon, so they'd be perfectly fine in your tank...just remember that they need lotsa feeding!

Levi has a pair of squarespots for sale but I'm wondering if they're a bit too active for the tank? I have no regrets about the Kole though he seems very happy.

I can see I need to do more than just turn the lights off 2 hrs early. A few pieces look a little ****ed about moar light. It's also been 2 weeks since a water change too so maybe it's just that. Was too busy and missed a week.

So normally my halide ran 1 - 8 and since upgrading I've just shut them off at 6. Keeping in mind I can't raise my lights and don't want to lay anything over the tank as a difuser what should I do?

Yesterday I forgot to shut them off so tank got 7 hrs. Today I changed my program to 1-3, 5-7, 8-9.still 5 hrs but with breaks. Not sure corals sense a difference or if it's just simple hrs and 5 hrs is still 5 hrs.

Advice anyone?

After thinking about it more I set it to 1-3, 5-7 for now. It's twice the wattage so to be safe I *should* run them total 3.5 hrs for equal watts over a day. 4 is 8x250w hrs just a small bump from the original 7x250w hrs. I'll ramp an extra 1/2 hour per day each week until I'm at 7 hrs again.

Unless I'm way off. Just tell me.

I was always under the impression it was the intensity of the light... not the time. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.... but if you are standing in the closet and then someone opens the door real fast BANG the intensity of the light gets yah. Would this not be the same with turning a brighter light on... regardless of how long or how you stagger the timers?

Tony might be able to chime in here I'm not sure. He's stepped out of a closet a few times and might have some details regarding his recovery.

You are doubling the intensity or at least the wattage (I'm not sure if 2*wattage = 2*intensity, but nonetheless it's a jump no matter what the relationship is specifically) so an adjustment period is to be expected. The best way to acclimate to a new intensity is to ramp it, which could involve either raising the lights (which I know you said wouldn't work, but still, I mention it because it's there). Another option is using layers of eggcrate that you remove one by one a couple days apart.

And then my personal preference which is just to keep the photoperiod but go in bursts. Let's say your photoperiod is 10am to 10pm. You keep the endpoints the same but you adjust the timer to do 15 minutes on, 45 minutes off. Then 30 on, 30 off, then 45 on, 15 off and then finally all the way on the whole time. A couple days apart between adjustments.

Or you can hope to heck that the corals just pout a bit but eventually recover. Which could work sometimes but I imagine it's the riskiest approach.

Coming out of the closet. :lol: Nice!

When I went from 250W to 400W I raised the lights and lowered the photo period. I ran them 2 hours on, 2 hours off; ramping up slowly over a couple of weeks. This seemed to work fine for me.

Thanks guys sounds good. My canopy can't lift and the eggcrate sorta scares me because of the tight clearance between tank and canopy. Sheets of eggcrate may restrict airflow enough to make my fans/cooling not work.

I'm going to keep the overal 1 - 8 photoperiod like you suggested Tony and work with the on/offs. I doubled the light so I would think 30 on 30 off for each hour would be ok but I've already ****ed a few off so maybe I will start with the 15/45 split. Only a few days with each setting so not so bad.

Thanks!

Acclimation has been going well. I went up in 5min increments daily until today. Should be 1-1:55, 2-2:55 etc but with only 5 min off now each hour I decided to just run the lgihts today 1 - 7:30. I'll adjust the overall endpoint now that I'm so close and eventually be at 1-8 again. Corals have not become more bleached and hopefully the few I ticked off will be happier soon.

Also added a nano wavebox today. I was amazed at how silent these units are compared to the fullsize ones. The unit itself is as quiet as my little 6025s and there is just the smallest swish swish sound which I kinda like. Stirred up a ton of crap and my skimmer has been really foaming nicely.

Also been filter sock free for about a week I guess? Display is just a tiny bit less clear but my skimmer has been working much better.

Wow Brett! Nice....the scape looks good. Something to be said about a simple scape. I like it. Colour looks good too! Haven't kept up with your build thread, just catching up now. I've been too busy tracking your runs.

Good to hear the wave box works well for you. Doug

Thx guys. Yeah the wavebox along with the added light seems to really be helping growth. I was noticing polyp extension down some and was due to replace my gfo and carbon in a few days but did it today. What a difference that made in just a few hours. I seem to VERY slowly be beating the hair algae but the bryopsis is going stronger than ever. We'll see how the new gfo works. I'm also up to 2 cups in the reactor vs the 1 to get things started.

Here are a few new shots. The big growth spurts have been in the Salty Nuts Acro and an unknown teal I got from Dez and the Orange/green formosa from John. Main halides had gone off this is just a Fiji Purple and a KZ New Gen.

Salty Nuts and Formosa. Tons of new branches starting to take shape:

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/97/250s5.jpg

The A. Abrolohensis has a super blue growth tip. It's grown over an inch in mere weeks:

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/97/250s4.jpg

This teal sprouted 4 new branches:

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/97/250s2.jpg

New Duncans and Acans from Greg. Acans are much more extended with the halides on:

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/97/250s3.jpg

My favorite angle into the tank:

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/97/250s1.jpg

Whoa! Looking sexy! Need to see in person for sure.

Oh and tank ain't bad either.

Wow nice colours and polyps and stuff.

Nice "stuff" :)

Your Albrohensis is taking off faster than mine did. Mine was a square top for months and the first branch was out the side. Once that first branch came out it all started branching from there. How did you ever snag a frag of that off of me anyway? I don't even remember ever fragging that coral.

That Saltynuts is a fast grower. Soon it'll be at the water surface in my tank.

Thanks guys. Dez I'm just that charming I guess I'm nit sure lol. What really drives me nuts is how some tips on my spas do nothing. You'll have an out of control branch and nothing from the other spots. Ive heard breaking a tip off can jumpstart growth but I'm too nervous to try.

Wow its is looking really nice Brett. Colours are looking great.

Looking good Brett. Nice colours and growth. Whatever you're doing, keep on doing it.

Looks great Brett, you've got some great colors and an awesome collection of SPS there :cool:

Nice pics. Those colours really stand out!

Mitch

Thanks everyone!

Anyone else notice that certain corals look way more colorful depending on which end of the tank you're looking into? Must have to do with angles of light hitting corals but my corals all look brighter looking into the ends of the tank. My bulbs are positioned so the end of the bulb faces the front of the tank and maybe that has something to do with it?

really digging that one from salty nuts. I think its a tenius

Your salty nuts are my favourite Brett!

The saltynuts look best from the top, so blue. We can rename it the blue nut acro :)

:lol: Oh dear... I always thought blue nuts weren't all that good but what do I know. :lol:

The growth looks really purple in my tank actually. The rest of the coral is nothing to write home about so I'm hoping it's always got mad growth!

Not sure if I missed it somewhere in here, but what model of SWC skimmer are you running?

You're right Brett. I just couldn't pass up the blue nut name. Purple nut just isn't the same. In my tank the colony is about 8" tall and only the top 1 1/2 is always purple. The rest of the coral is kind of tan/brown cause it grew sort of like an upside down cone so the parts underneath the growth don't see any light. We have to start coming up with underwater lighting to light corals from below :). Maybe when I'm in Calgary between Christmas and New Year I'll invite myself over to see your tank in person.

SWC Extreme 160. Cheap and awesome!

Mine is pretty much a little bouquet on top of the stem so I'm wondering if the top gets too large if the base can support it. There is one branch coming out the bottom and I hope I see more to balance it out.

We'd love to have you guys over for a visit. If there's a possibility let us know so we can actually arrange for dinner or lunch or whatever you guys can manage =)

wow your growth is fantastic, and the colors are unreal. can i ask, are you using np pellets or zeo or vodka dosing, or anything else?