120 gallon journal - picture Feb 27

kwirky · #1 09-02-2006, 02:13 PM

i did it... i started my conversion.

went to gold's and bought a Sun System Tek light 8 bulb T5 system. It's so damned bright you can't even look at it! It's 430 watts or so, and Albert was swearing up and down that it would be better than 250W metal halides.

I decided to opt out of the 400 watt systems because of their trouble, and the fact I won't be stocking much for SPS. AND the power consumption. And when looking at Sanjay's charts, the 400 watters don't scale in a linear fashion compared to 250's, so you're doing 75% more power for 45% more light. And the T5 bulbs can go forever without having to be changed, I guess. And basically I'm a sucker for new technology. I'm allways the early adopter.

We'll see. It broke the bank a little, but half the cost was in bulbs, and it's all done. no heat, no canopies to build, no airflow to worry about.

Now I have to worry about how I'm going to hang it. The one end of the ceiling where I have to hang the light from, the drywall's cracking. I don't think there's a stud running along where the two sheets of drywall meet.

I'm still going to test these ballasts. They're TAR ballasts, so they won't be as noisy as outdoor ballasts, and if they work, I'm sure I'll be able to trade them with somone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midknight

Now it is not saying that you can't run both types of tanks.
Each has their own merits as well as challenges.
I have a 10g nano in the bathroom and a 33 that I am upgrading to a 75 later this year.

I'll probably run a little 5 gallon nano in my bedroom until summer hits. They do have their advantages, if you want to have a little fish tank in every room, or if you have limited space. My girlfriend's been hinting for a tank for her bday in november, and I might get her a small 24g, and salvage the HQI system I've purchased. She has about 2 feet of space she's clearing in her bedroom, and she's been hinting REAL strong she wants one

albert_dao · #2 09-02-2006, 04:12 PM

Errr, well, you should be changing the bulbs once a year man haha. You can drag out the replacements to 14 months from what I've read and stagger the blues a bit though.

kwirky · #3 09-02-2006, 07:44 PM

"forever" was exaggerated

it's just 12 months seems a lot longer than 9 months

and here's a current picture of the tank.

Ruth · #4 09-03-2006, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwirky

"forever" was exaggerated

it's just 12 months seems a lot longer than 9 months

IIRC those amazing european tanks that you see using only T5 lighting are changing their bulbs every 6 months. I know that I have 6 T5's over my 190g and am at the year mark on them now but they definately need to be changed.

albert_dao · #5 09-03-2006, 03:16 PM

The Americans beg to differ, haha.

Skimmerking · #6 09-03-2006, 04:19 PM

8 t-5's are quite bright and intense too. Doug had 4 over his 75 and man it was bright ,but more intense then anything. I think it was bleaching his hydro and some other frags he had. I think that after that he took it down and ran just 1 set of t-5's not sure on what he's going to run now.

kwirky · #7 09-04-2006, 07:25 AM

I have to say, I've grown quite impatient

i'm not running all the lights right now. I just turned 'em all on for the photo

put in 70 lbs of liverock from Gold's. Moved my existing 20 lbs from my nano. 90 lbs all together. Moved my whopping 4 frags into the tank, along with my fairy grammy. He spent the night creeping over the tank from cave to cave, till he found the real cool cave piece he bought. decided on his new home.

I'm running just the actinics, I removed about 75% of the sand, so it's just a fine, 1/4" layer on the bottom (unlike in the picture).

The toadstools should be fine halfway down the tank, with the half the lights on, right? I don't think they'll bleach when I turn the rest of the lights on, either, because it'll be gradual. The big tank's going to be a better place for them than the nano, even with half the tank's lights on. The toadsool's in medium-heavy water flow, and the xenia's in medium flow with some nice looking turbulence.

Now as for the echinophyllia (chalice), anyone know what kind of flow requirements it has? Hard to find much information on it. I placed it on the far right, off by it'self, because I know it'll get sweeper tentacles eventually, and I placed it in a way that I hope it will begin plating.

I have to figure out how to get the toadstool plugs out of the ugly clumps of epoxy though. Also, I didn't plan on having them in a tank bigger than the nano, so now they're too close together for how large I have decided them to grow.

Tested the water paramaters again, and again ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphates are undetectable. They're aquarium pharmeceuticals testkits though. I think I'm going to break down and get a salifert nitrate kit soon.edited next day. post was WAY too long