drummereef's 180g in-wall build

[drummereef]

So does anyone have an issue with me transferring my Yellow Tang to the 180g before I pick up a cleanup crew? I can't imagine either stressing the bio load very much, especially a few snails. There hasn't been any algae cycles yet but I'm sure that's not to far off. I'll pick up a few snails along the way as the tank demands.


As long as the levels stay where they are for the next day or two I figured this would be a good weekend to git er done.

[Taqpol]

As far as I'm concerned, tangs can almost be considered part of the clean up crew! You're not showing any ammonia or nitrites, I'm sure the tang would love to "stretch its legs" in the much bigger tank, and besides its normal food It will love grazing on the various brown algae cycles that will be heading your way soon!

[Fishdisease]

If your params are good, the tang will be quite happy!

just an aside but I gotta comment on your name Taqpol. Both my wife and I are geneticists (pop gen folks), she's a phd and managing a lab currently, and I use to manage a gov't wildlife research lab. Good times....

[Fishdisease]

Oh and I had a question or you Drummereef...did you even consider LED lighting? I'm looking at doing a very similar project to yours (except my basement is currently unfinished so I'm really starting from scratch) and I'm getting caught up in the LED vs MH debate....

[tegee]

Brett...

As I mentioned a couple of times through your thread...I only had hours, not weeks to perform a complete change over and only lost one fish and no corals. So, yes your yellow Tang will be very happy in its new surroundings. Not to mention will help your tank cycle better and faster imho.

Good luck...

[Nanook]

Your tang should be fine in the new tank and will help it cycle a bit more.

[Greenmaster]

I know this question isn't directed at me... but current LED tech puts off more heat/less light per watt then MH. The biggest reason to go with LED is to create your own mix of light because LED's can be used to enhance a specific spectrum better then any other light source and can produce an exact wavelength at a better watt/heat ratio (that's why hospital OR's use them)

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by Taqpol

As far as I'm concerned, tangs can almost be considered part of the clean up crew! You're not showing any ammonia or nitrites, I'm sure the tang would love to "stretch its legs" in the much bigger tank, and besides its normal food It will love grazing on the various brown algae cycles that will be heading your way soon!

Well, tomorrow is the big day for Mr. Tang.

Originally Posted by Fishdisease

If your params are good, the tang will be quite happy!

just an aside but I gotta comment on your name Taqpol. Both my wife and I are geneticists (pop gen folks), she's a phd and managing a lab currently, and I use to manage a gov't wildlife research lab. Good times....

Originally Posted by Fishdisease

Oh and I had a question or you Drummereef...did you even consider LED lighting? I'm looking at doing a very similar project to yours (except my basement is currently unfinished so I'm really starting from scratch) and I'm getting caught up in the LED vs MH debate....

LED's are very cool indeed, but at the time I didn't (and still don't have, haha) have the knowledge, time, or resources to build my own fixture(s) the size I would need for my system. Maybe as the technology continues to develop, especially on the DIY hobbyist level, I might get my fins wet but that's basically why I went with MH.

Originally Posted by tegee

Brett...

As I mentioned a couple of times through your thread...I only had hours, not weeks to perform a complete change over and only lost one fish and no corals. So, yes your yellow Tang will be very happy in its new surroundings. Not to mention will help your tank cycle better and faster imho.

Good luck...

Thanks tegee! Tomorrow's the day. I'll post some pics when I'm done.

Originally Posted by Nanook

Your tang should be fine in the new tank and will help it cycle a bit more.

Great Nook. Thanks again.

[drummereef]

On another note... I removed all the coral out of my 40g today and brought it to the LFS for store credit. It was mostly LPS and Softies with the exception of some Orange Monti Caps. I won't tell you how much they gave me but.... Nice to have a good LFS in town. Probably should have kept some but I figured there no time better than the present to take the SPS plunge.

[Taqpol]

Originally Posted by Greenmaster

I know this question isn't directed at me... but current LED tech puts off more heat/less light per watt then MH. The biggest reason to go with LED is to create your own mix of light because LED's can be used to enhance a specific spectrum better then any other light source and can produce an exact wavelength at a better watt/heat ratio (that's why hospital OR's use them)

I've done a fair amount of work with LED light for reef aquaria usage, but I by no means consider myself a guru. Still, this sounds absolutely wrong to me. Cree makes LEDs that put off more then 100 lumens/watt, and I know that this was an astonishing figure that blew other forms of lighting completely out of the water. As far as the heat issue, LEDs do require more heat management then MH at the die end, but none of the light they produce is in the infrared range, which means the water is not heated as much by the presence of the light.

Originally Posted by Fishdisease

just an aside but I gotta comment on your name Taqpol. Both my wife and I are geneticists (pop gen folks), she's a phd and managing a lab currently, and I use to manage a gov't wildlife research lab. Good times....

Hahaha, you're the second person in all of RC to comment on the name. When my co-workers found out about my screen name they made fun of me, but I play a few different games and am active on a few different forums and Taqpol is NEVER taken.


/hijack

Brett, looks good! Make sure to take a picture of the tang in his new home. Its so great that you have good fish stores, I hope the ones down here turn out to be half as good as the ones I left.

[Greenmaster]

Originally Posted by Taqpol

I've done a fair amount of work with LED light for reef aquaria usage, but I by no means consider myself a guru. Still, this sounds absolutely wrong to me. Cree makes LEDs that put off more then 100 lumens/watt, and I know that this was an astonishing figure that blew other forms of lighting completely out of the water. As far as the heat issue, LEDs do require more heat management then MH at the die end, but none of the light they produce is in the infrared range, which means the water is not heated as much by the presence of the light.

The 100 lumens/watt is somewhat misleading. Generally that light output is with only a 15-25 degree spread of light. Some MH have similar lumen/watt output. I believe that within the next year or two the LED's will improve to 200 lumens/watt. There are some 100-110 lumens/watt out there right now but they are around $5-10 a watt where as the normal LED's are around $1 per watt but only put out 70-90 lumens or if you buy the larger dies that have like 20-100 watts per die you are looking at closer to the 60-70 lumen/watt range. I also don't know what LED's you are testing but all the 6500k (white) LED's I have tested put off infrared... per lumen they seem only slightly less hot (infrared) then MH. In my build I am using some LEDs but MH is going to be my main light source. Over the next two years though I would love to slowly replace my MH with LED's as the performance increases. Just a bit of background I also am not a guru but I have installed LED lighting in my house (kitchen/living room) and plan on using it for some of my tank lighting.

sorry for hijacking your thread I just know lots of people are following this awesome build and I feel it is important to have accurate information, especially when it involves new tech.

[Taqpol]

Originally Posted by Greenmaster

The 100 lumens/watt is somewhat misleading. Generally that light output is with only a 15-25 degree spread of light. Some MH have similar lumen/watt output. I believe that within the next year or two the LED's will improve to 200 lumens/watt. There are some 100-110 lumens/watt out there right now but they are around $5-10 a watt where as the normal LED's are around $1 per watt but only put out 70-90 lumens or if you buy the larger dies that have like 20-100 watts per die you are looking at closer to the 60-70 lumen/watt range. I also don't know what LED's you are testing but all the 6500k (white) LED's I have tested put off infrared... per lumen they seem only slightly less hot (infrared) then MH. In my build I am using some LEDs but MH is going to be my main light source. Over the next two years though I would love to slowly replace my MH with LED's as the performance increases. Just a bit of background I also am not a guru but I have installed LED lighting in my house (kitchen/living room) and plan on using it for some of my tank lighting.

sorry for hijacking your thread I just know lots of people are following this awesome build and I feel it is important to have accurate information, especially when it involves new tech.

I don't want to start a long debate, especially in someone elses thread, but I am confused. Any information I have picked up about LEDs has been from the massive LED thread in the DIY forum. I do know for a fact that many people who have switched to LEDs from MH have reported that their tank temperature no longer fluctuates as much as it did during the day/night cycle, and I was pretty sure this was attributed to much less infrared in the spectrum. As I have no means to measure infrared or any spectrum of light, I cannot confirm this, but by looking at the data sheet for the Cree XR-E Cool white LED published by Cree (definitely a biased source) vs. the spectrographic plots made by Sanjay Joshi of various MH lamps I can see that the MH's have spikes in the spectrum past 700 nm that I do not see in the Cree spec sheet. I guess the lack of temperature swings could also be from using ~72 watts of LEDs (24 bulb emitter with 60 degree optics) to replace 250 watts of metal halide. As you mentioned with the lumens/watt spread of light, the aforementioned LED system will have much less spread then the comparable MH, but still enough spread to not look weird over a tank if mounted at the correct height.

I absolutely do not think everyone should jump on the LED bandwagon, as there are pros and cons to both forms of lighting. As of now this technology is definitely unproven (I'm pretty sure Soundwave's system has been running healthily for over a year on LED light alone, but a year is not really long term yet) but I feel that the potential is amazing and if you can support the up front cost the potential for return on investment is there.

[Greenmaster]

My Last post on this. I do not believe that 72w of LED is anywhere near 250w of MH. (72w LED at 100 Lumens/watt is only 7,200 Lumens, 250w MH is 21000 Lumens) The difference in wattage is enough to make the difference in heat. MH do have more infrared then LEDs but LEDs do still put off infrared just not a spike in one wavelength. For corals if there is enough food they don't need as much light... I would like to know what his light levels were in his tank with MH and what they were when they changed to LED. I am waiting on the manufacture of my tank and have not purchased my MH lighting yet so if you could get him to PM me about his experience that would be awesome. I still have my doubts that the lighting is comparable but I'm interested. Also everyone is still learning and this is a developing technology.

[drummereef]

UPDATE:


Say hello to my little friend...

[rs1831]

Sweet!

[Greenmaster]

Looks amazing although the fish looks lonely I think it needs some friends :-) How long you going to wait to add more livestock?

[tegee]

Looks great Brett......been 10-weeks know for me and my rock has finally lost that white color. A new build is draining and exciting at the same time:-).

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by rs1831

Sweet!

Thanks rs1831.

Originally Posted by Greenmaster

Looks amazing although the fish looks lonely I think it needs some friends :-) How long you going to wait to add more livestock? [/url]

Haha agree! I figure it will be a little while before I add any more fish. I'll let the tank settle in just to make sure the bio filter is keeping up. I will probably add some snails in the next week though. How long would you suggest waiting?

Originally Posted by tegee

Looks great Brett......been 10-weeks know for me and my rock has finally lost that white color. A new build is draining and exciting at the same time:-).

Yes it is. Do you mean you are getting coralline algae on the rock now?

[drummereef]

So I'm considering selling my Aquacontroller Jr and upgrading to the Apex Lite system. What's everyone's thoughts?

[Taqpol]

Hahaha, not really a "little" friend, is he? How long have you had that guy?

I bought an APEX but haven't actually received it yet. I think that the features/price of it blows the other controllers out of the water. Plus, if you are even remotely programming savvy you can make it do some amazing things.

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by Taqpol

Hahaha, not really a "little" friend, is he? How long have you had that guy?

I bought an APEX but haven't actually received it yet. I think that the features/price of it blows the other controllers out of the water. Plus, if you are even remotely programming savvy you can make it do some amazing things.

Hehe, I've had my yellow tang for 5 years give or take. I'm pretty sure by the way he was swimming around last night he likes the new tank waaaaay better. Did you get the Apex or Apex Lite Alex?

[Taqpol]

Full on Apex. I forget what all the lite was missing, but it was a much better deal to get the standard Apex.

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by Taqpol

Full on Apex. I forget what all the lite was missing, but it was a much better deal to get the standard Apex.

From what I saw on Neptune's site it was missing ORP monitoring and Tunze wave control. Just don't know if I can swing the extra $$ for the full Apex and don't really know if I'd ever use the extra features on my system anyhoo... at least at this point. But I think the Lite is expandable via the modules. Just not all in one box.

[tegee]

Originally Posted by drummereef

From what I saw on Neptune's site it was missing ORP monitoring and Tunze wave control. Just don't know if I can swing the extra $$ for the full Apex and don't really know if I'd ever use the extra features on my system anyhoo... at least at this point. But I think the Lite is expandable via the modules. Just not all in one box.

I think you are correct Brett......the Apex Lite is missing one additional port and for someone like me (a Tunze fan) is can't control Tunze's, which is obviously a huge feature for me. But I do think you can upgrade and/or expand with some add on equipment through Neptune.

And BTW.....only a little coraline algae at this point. The color of the rock must be from other bacteria and alike. I just put a couple of more pieces of live rock so I am hoping that it will help spread the coraline a bit more.

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by tegee

I think you are correct Brett......the Apex Lite is missing one additional port and for someone like me (a Tunze fan) is can't control Tunze's, which is obviously a huge feature for me. But I do think you can upgrade and/or expand with some add on equipment through Neptune.

And BTW.....only a little coraline algae at this point. The color of the rock must be from other bacteria and alike. I just put a couple of more pieces of live rock so I am hoping that it will help spread the coraline a bit more.

Perfect, thanks for the info tegee. I do like my Vortech controllers and don't have any controllable Tunze pumps at the moment, just the two Nano 6025s. I've always dosed 2 part so a calcium reactor was never part of the plan but adding more another pH monitor wouldn't be difficult with the available modules I guess. Depending on the price I can get I'm 98% sure I'm going to take the plunge.