Latest and greatest: 30g build

reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
Waiting for the mail to arrive...... the bulb is supposed to be here today. sooner is better but the mail usually arrives around noon or later here. I can't wait to instal the bulb and fire it up so I can adjust the height and figure out if I need to set up some sort of glare shield so we aren't blinded whilst sitting in the living room. so the pendant is all torn apart glass cleaned. waiting for the mailman to arrive. You ever notice how many vehicles go by that sound exactly like the mail truck?
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
the rock with the foriminiferans


and found this little guy cruising the glass a minute ago. He's about 3/16th of an inch long if that.


life on the big reef ahh I missed my marine tanks.
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
well they certainly didn't waste any profit on packaging.


Scary moment, the inner box is smashed almost flat... really?!? who the eff doesn't use a hard cardboard tube to ship halide bulbs?


Surprisingly the bulbs works but I am definitely complaining to the company it was obviously abused in transit so I can't trust the reliability of the bulb. just one usps bubble envelope for shipping protection, no other protection or padding at all.

it is bright, color seems to be closer to 10k than the 14k bulb I ordered, but we shall see after the burn in time. I may have to add actinics to this tank to get the color I want. which is what I was hoping to avoid by ordering 14k.
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
and yes the light color you see is almost exactly the same as it appears to the naked eye. definitely closer to 10k I don't have much hope that its going to burn in bluer, usually they start out very blue when new and burn whiter over the burn in period.
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
yes proof positive that I am a cheap bastard, I went to a local pet store and raided their rubble pile where they throw all their D.O.D. frags (dead or dying) got a fair price on these 10 most likely not going to survive pieces. a couple should pull through but most of em are a gonner, but all else fails I got some extra frag plugs out of the deal, and we all know I'll quickly run out of those once this tank hits full swing in the next year or so.

so without further blabbering from me. my cool assortment of DOD frags.

Appears to be a porites maybe


encrusting montipora of some sort


Capnella? or another type of branching leather .


99%dead birdsnest


poccilpora of some flavor


semi-healthy looking shard of birds nest


another dead birds nest tiny bit of flesh on it.


another encrusting montipora I hope its a good one this one has a lot of potential.


I believe thats a holly wood stunner chalice with a couple good eyes on it, or some other name but its an Echinophyllia


another piece of the same type of Echinophyllia in far worse shape


I grabbed a piece of acropora that had no flesh on it but I can see dark in the polyp holes so maybe it will come back but I apparantly didn't take a pic of it. not worth taking a picture of 99% sure its gonners.

So place your bets on which ones survive!
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
oops I missed the healthiest one there is a piece of digitata i'll brb with a picture of that

you know I was joking when I said healthiest right? flesh on it but totally bleached


the acro figured since I was there I would snap a shot, totally dead but the polyp holes look dark so it has about a 5% chance of resurrecting.
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
I have to figure out my camera setting, auto mode is annoying some look perfect and some everything looks brown tinted.
been a long time since I tried to shoot under halides, and never before with this camera.
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
The second photo that I thought was an encrusting montipora definitely isnt, there are sweeper tentacles coming out of the polyps.... hmmmm
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
Apparently the bulb cannot handle its own heat, in a vented but not fan cooled housing. It kept kicking out every couple hours then firing back up after it cooled (which of course sucks for the burn in time on the bulb supposed to keep switching to a minimum for the first 100 hours. turning on and off too much when new isn't great for them). I put a small fan blowing across the housing and vents to see if it will stop it from kicking out. so far it's working.....
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
yeah I'm pretty confident most of them will a couple I don't have much hope for, but I would guess about 7 or more out of the group will live. since the tank parameters are in my range of what i consider perfect for growth. The only iffy part is the tank is younger than I generally start adding SPS.

And yes I go look at the frags every 20 minutes to see if I can notice any changes in appearance.

the dark poccilopora looks amazing compared to the photo i put on yesterday. thats a guaranteed live. same with the nice pink birds nest shard. but all of them have great extension (except that acro no sign of life yet) they should start coloring up over the next couple weeks I think, if I dont light shock and kill them.

They were ditched in the back corner of a tank really far from the t5-ho lighting and the bulbs on the tank are really old all in a pile with not great flow. of course in their minds everything was written off as Dead.

I'm running short days on the tank for now trying to avoid burning them only 8 hours of light. I will be increasing it as the days go by to my standard of 14-16 not sure where I will settle on this tank but being mostly sps probably 16 hours.
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
bulbs dead... crap... so much for buying a cheap bulb. called amazon got a refund ordered a new bulb form a different company hopefully that knows how to ship light bulbs, paid extra for expidited shipping. FML
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
less than Ideal. but it'll hold the corals over until a new bulb arrives.... yes thats a 2x 250W mogul sitting on top of another light for my other tank with only one bulb running.... at least the bulb is the color temp I wanted.
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
Got my new bulb in the mail yesterday... good color to it. too wiped for pictures. i'll try to take some this weekend. but hey the bulb stays running for more than an hour this time that's a bonus.
 
reefkeeperZ

reefkeeperZ

Member
good photosynthetic rate too, huge jump in early algal growth from the other lights, finally the tank can go through the ugly phase, so I can get that out of thew way. getting light algae on everything from the sand to the glass one of the rocks had signs of cyano when I bought it and now its sheeting off that rock. no sign of diatoms yet which is a bummer, I may have to add some silicates via tap water top off to promote a little diatomic action.

as well as time to get my hands on some macro algae for the sump.
 
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