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Unread 04/16/2018, 01:58 PM   #9965
hkgar
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Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Dewitt MI
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo View Post
Gary, did anything in your system change? Feeding, livestock, nutrient levels, anything at all?

Offhand I would agree with homer that it looks like photosaturation but that doesn't make sense given that it's not a new screen/system. So that's why I asked the question.

my guess is that some nutrient bottomed out or is limiting things and that caused growth to stifle. You might check potassium. You can always add that no matter what, because most scrubbers suck them down. You can try adding iron also. These would just be troubleshooting steps to see if one thing kicks it back in gear.

You could also try to decrease intensity, maybe wire a couple of those arrays in parallel to put them to 50% (or even 3-way parallel for 33%) and then go back to the longer hours. Or a diffuser. If you have a limiting situation, keeping intensity the same and lowering duration may not help because it's an instantaneous thing - the light is too intense so no matter what the duration, the photosaturation (or whatever is happening) is happening instantly, not due to duration. If that makes sense.

Either way, clear off the slime. It's possible that got a foothold because of some other condition in the tank, and pushed the GHA out of the way. To get it back in there, you would need to think like you are starting over, and then intensity is definitely a factor.

So with all that said, I would find a way to lower intensity, I think you have to do that no matter what the root cause of the problem is.
There have been no significant changes in anything about the tank in the lst few weeks. NO3 runs between s and 10 but was 2 yesterday. PO4 runs about .05.

I checked Potassium and it is 400-410.

I am not sure what you mean by wiring the lights in parallel. I am using the 3 drivers that came with the lights from Steve's LED's and each driver powers 14 of the led's. Link to drivers. I believe they are wired in Parallel, but not sure. Red wire goes to positive on light 1 then from negative on light 1 to positive on light 2 and black wire is to negative on light 2. Maybe that is in series? Should the re be split to go to both positives and the black split to go to both negatives?

Not sure how to difuse the light. Someone said a piece of Scotch tape over each LED would lower the intensity?

I actually started using 6700K cfl and still have them. Maybe going back to them until it begins to regenerates?


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Gary


180 gallon, 40 gallon sump, 3 250 W MH + 4 80W ATI T5's, MTC MVX 36 Skimmer, Apex controller Aquamaxx T-3 CaRx

Current Tank Info: A 2 Barred Rabbitfish, Red Head Salon, Yellow/Purple, McMaster Fairy, Possum, 2 Leopard Wrasses, Kole, & Atlantic Blue Tangs, 2 Percula Clown, 3 PJ and 1 Banggai Cardinalfish , Swallowtail, Bellus and Coral Beauty Angels

Last edited by hkgar; 04/16/2018 at 02:06 PM.
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