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Switching to MH from LED--advice

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Mark Peterson View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 25 2016 at 3:54am
Originally posted by kevin.st kevin.st wrote:

well, darn it.  Why is everything else still alive, then?  I have a 30 head Duncan, 7-8" monti, huge GBTA and those are all happy as ever! 

This is why I think I am done with SPS.

FYI, Montipora are SPS. The troubles seem to have hit only the Acropora, right? So far, anyway. Shocked

It was the combination of:
1. the change of lighting, 
2. the broader spectrum of the new light,
3. the extreme intensity of the new light,
4. just one single day of fatal exposure to the intense full spectrum light(including UV)
and the final blow, 
5. Alkalinity below safe range and who knows what other parameters were on the edge for Acropora Unhappy 

I'm really sorry for your troubles. I've been where you are. Lethal coral sunburn is hits quickly and is hellish in its aftermath. 
One final thought. When you decided on this dual 250W MH as a replacement to the LED light over this 40 gal tank, did you seek our advice about it specifically? In asking this question I'm not trying to offend you or anyone reading this, just observing a recurring problem with hobbyists coming here to the forum for help; lack of follow through. It makes me sad. Cry

Aloha,
Mark  Hug


Edited by Mark Peterson - March 25 2016 at 3:58am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kevin.st Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 25 2016 at 3:00pm
Mark, you're correct-I should have asked here.  I honestly thought I was being careful.  It turns out I wasn't careful enough.  It's all good, though.  I don't have thousands of dollars in coral and this won't ruin my day.  I've been in this hobby long enough to understand the possible ups and downs.  It could have been much worse.  
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 26 2016 at 9:05am

Cry I did have thousands of dollars in coral which I lost to sunburn, three times(3 seasons), before I realized it was happening. That put MarksReef Coral Farm behind by 18 months and is part of the reason it eventually had to close. Ouch

Se la vie.

Aloha,

Mark  Hug



Edited by Mark Peterson - March 26 2016 at 9:09am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kevin.st Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 27 2016 at 1:25pm
Originally posted by Mark Peterson Mark Peterson wrote:

Se la vie.


Couldn't have said it better myself.  Live and learn.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bryce Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2016 at 3:36pm
I have only ever used LEDs (Radion Gen 1) and have had really good growth and color (maybe it could have been better with MHs) but its been good enough for me. I agree with Bur in that the colors can be different (a coral in my tank can look diff than in a MH/T5 tank) but my growth rates seem good. The 100 billion ways you can set up the programmable LEDs are a big issue when switching as you can run anything you want and people mess with them to get a good "look" which might not be good for growth and real color not fake LED color (i.e. blue lights = blue coral but coral flesh is white when it should be blue), and almost no two people run the same settings and people just mess and play with them too much, vs the tried and proven plug and play MH and T5s (know your depth, coverage and time), it would be great if there were better presets on Radions or LEDs that are backed by results vs. trial and error. I don't mess with my lights at all, I used  graph that Ecotech sent out on the forums when it came out, tweaked it a bit based on other forum feedback a year later and that was it. I don't have them hooked to a phone/ipad/reeflink, or anything that would allow me to easily play with them or adjust them.











Edited by Bryce - March 28 2016 at 4:02pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2016 at 3:45pm
Bryce, what is the time frame from start to now, in the images?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bryce Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2016 at 4:07pm
From time I added coral until now is 3 years. That being said I have cut, hacked, replaced, sps like crazy, sometimes fist size colonies, some have gotten so big I have just given them away (Bob comes to mind). I also ran 1 light only for 1 year before I added a second. Like that red planet, got too big so its gone, kept a few frags as you can see when comparing the 3rd and 4th pics.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2016 at 6:04pm

Bryce is one that I place in the group of hobbyists that has a "wet thumb". From the start he seemed to have a very good handle on keeping a reef tank. I visited and saw his tank around the time of the second pic.

Cheers to Bryce.  Beer

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bryce Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2016 at 8:11pm
Awe thanks Mark, someday I do want to try a metal halide set up just not on the tank I currently have.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kevin.st Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2016 at 9:37am
Bryce, I am impressed with that growth.  You must be doing a bunch of things correct as well.  I think I will probably stick with LEDs for the foreseeable future.  Although adding some 150w halides to a much larger tank than I have now might work!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bryce Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2016 at 11:18am
My buddy Evan127 motivated me to post up my settings vs email them out Wink. It is not all the night data points as I do have some settings for a moon effect that change a little through the nite but it is the main daylight settings. I sometimes change the start and end times for daylight savings and I may have bumped each data point Brightness (not the color%) up buy a few % (1%-5%) since I took these screenshots. These settings are not going to give you those color popping blues in the middle of the day, you only get that in the morning and night (typically when I am looking at my tank). Late morning to late afternoon its going to be pretty white. I have two lights on a 65gallon 8 inches off the water.












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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Marcoss Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 30 2016 at 8:31am
Dang, that is a great amount of growth! 
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