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Alex’s IM 150 EXT

Currently, the main activities for this tank are the following:

1. Rethinking the lighting options for this tank, as per this thread: https://www.bareefers.org/forum/thr...elix-controlled-by-a-hydros-controller.36549/

2. Considering a new lid, as per this this thread: https://www.bareefers.org/forum/thr...dy-recommendations-and-lessons-learned.36154/

And resolving some HLLE issues impacting my zebrasoma flavescens due to potentially overuse of GAC, further explored here: https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/return-pump-speed.36594/
 
Received the first Quanta ATLAS (https://www.quanta-lights.com/products/quanta-atlas-sps) a few days ago, and was able to make it work with the Hydros X4 controller 0-10 V port. It was not self-explaining, but I received great help from someone who had these already installed and has been running them with Hydros (Josh Linton, https://www.reefcultureco.com/), recommended by Luca. This video was helpful too:

The light is as massive (love the industrial look) and I was very much impressed with the light scheduling setting Hydros offers (templates for Fiji light schedules etc), since I was expecting them to be bare bones settings. No need for a finnicky light manufacturer app which you may or may not like.

All of this made me order a second ATLAS , which means I will replace the Reefis (which are still running great, by the way). The only reason I replace them is because they would not fit together, and I was confronted with a decision to order 2 Reefis or two ATLAS (same price), and the two ATLAS seem to provide a better coverage with less shadowing, specifically when adding two light bars.

I have not mounted the ATLAS yet since I need to raise the mount so that the end of the reflector is 10 inch above the water height. Orderded 537 mm 2040 Alumnium Extrusion bars here: https://www.zyltech.com/

Lastly, Luca said to me yesterday that he is working on a 3-D printed mount that will allow to mount the helix to the atlas and it will be perfectly aligned and look sharp. That is exciting news, as this was the remaining issue with completing the light setup. Once this is out I will add two Helix Blue (https://www.quanta-lights.com/products/quanta-helix).

Will post pictures when this is set up.
 
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Received my monthly (every 5 weeks) Reef ICP Total ICP results from Fauna Marin today and will start posting here as I have by now a good handle on how to address this. It took 6 days to get the results (sent Thursday morning, received Wednesday morning), which is very good, and still hopeful there will be a West Coast collection point soon.

Overall, happy with the progress, but continue to see several 0 values on trace elements which are detectable by the ICP (some are not). Also, still working on getting Nitrate below 10.

I am going through the results 1 by 1 and compare them with previous months, as well as Fauna Marin target parameters and Natural Seawater reference values. Based on that, I determine next steps.

I will adjust the ongoing Balling light dosing with the Balling light trace calculator according to the Molybdenum, Iodine and Strontium values, and setup new solutions based on higher amounts. The nice thing about this is that you do not need to setup an entire new dosing solution but can adjust the current solution.

For one time dosing adjustments, I will not use Fauna Marin but Captiv8 products. For this, I will send Captiv8 my ICP results and they will send me back the one time dosing recommendations (which are based on natural sea water parameters).

All of this is not perfect, but seems to be working.

For example, a torch I bought at the CFM went through several hours of sitting in the car, then a couple of additional hours sitting in a container wating to be dipped, and then was dipped with three different dips before put into the tank. It opened within less than an hour without the lights on (maybe out of desparation, maybe because it was happy to be in there, who knows :)). Same with NPS and even one of the mini Milli Acro frag I bought from Kay which opened up almost instantly.
 

Attachments

  • 12 Sep 2024_ICP FM_IM 150.pdf
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Coral reefer said:
Nitrate less than 10 why tho?
Click to expand...

Valid question. Probably because I love a good challenge :).

Seriously, though, I have been reading more German literature recently (Brockmann, others), which seems to have more up-to-date books. None of them recommend going above 10 for SPS with a 10-20 acceptable range, except for FOWLR tanks. I started at 30 and was able to reduce nitrate levels each week by 10% gradually. I reduced feeding by quite a bit and want to go back up slowly after reaching 10 with feeding.

I am in the camp low (not ultra-low) nutrients since I believe in the rock absorption theory (A.Glaser, Meerwasserchemie), which is called out as the root cause for old tank syndrome and sudden crashes of tanks that were very successful previously. Therefore, I pay particular attention to the nutrients (and traces) so as not to be overly high.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Valid question. Probably because I love a good challenge :).

Seriously, though, I have been reading more German literature recently (Brockmann, others), which seems to have more up-to-date books. None of them recommend going above 10 for SPS with a 10-20 acceptable range, except for FOWLR tanks. I started at 30 and was able to reduce nitrate levels each week by 10% gradually. I reduced feeding by quite a bit and want to go back up slowly after reaching 10 with feeding.

I am in the camp low (not ultra-low) nutrients since I believe in the rock absorption theory (A.Glaser, Meerwasserchemie), which is called out as the root cause for old tank syndrome and sudden crashes of tanks that were very successful previously. Therefore, I pay particular attention to the nutrients (and traces) so as not to be overly high.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. I always want at least 5 and consider 10-20 to be a sweet spot for mixed reefs.
Do you try to match nitrate to phosphate in a certain ratio as well? Phosphate was/is always harder for me to control effectively
 
Coral reefer said:
Fair enough. I always want at least 5 and consider 10-20 to be a sweet spot for mixed reefs.
Do you try to match nitrate to phosphate in a certain ratio as well? Phosphate was/is always harder for me to control effectively
Click to expand...
The goal is to keep it between 10 and 20 with increased feeding. I have also been adding more corals recently and will continue to add more to help with the export.

Regarding the balance ratio, yes, I do target the 90-110 ratio between the two (not Redfield). This is a bit tricky though since Hanna seems to be overstating Phosphate by quite a bit, 30-40%, so knowing what true phosphate values are is delayed until ICP results.

I actually struggled a lot with lowering Nitrate, while Phosphates seem more clear-cut to manage, in terms of options. Other than water change, there are not great solutions or the solutions are more complex for Nitrate than for phosphate from my research.
 
Coral reefer said:
Fair enough. I always want at least 5 and consider 10-20 to be a sweet spot for mixed reefs.
Do you try to match nitrate to phosphate in a certain ratio as well? Phosphate was/is always harder for me to control effectively
Click to expand...
I've never personally tested for nitrates beyond occasion spin test i've gotten at Neptunes where they measure it. I used their test only as a source to compare to my own testing results. Is this something I should get a kit for and pay attention to? And would salifert or hanna be the more desired?
 
Alexander1312 said:
The goal is to keep it between 10 and 20 with increased feeding. I have also been adding more corals recently and will continue to add more to help with the export.

Regarding the balance ratio, yes, I do target the 90-110 ratio between the two (not Redfield). This is a bit tricky though since Hanna seems to be overstating Phosphate by quite a bit, 30-40%, so knowing what true phosphate values are is delayed until ICP results.

I actually struggled a lot with lowering Nitrate, while Phosphates seem more clear-cut to manage, in terms of options. Other than water change, there are not great solutions or the solutions are more complex for Nitrate than for phosphate from my research.
Click to expand...
I had good results with dosing vinegar. I think I was around 25-30 ml per day for my 360 gal system. Kinda seemed like sps polyps were out more when I was doing it. Mind story was there was more food (bacteria) in the water for them
 
MichaelB said:
I've never personally tested for nitrates beyond occasion spin test i've gotten at Neptunes where they measure it to compare to my own testing results. Is this something I should get a kit for and pay attention to? And would salifert or hanna be the more desired?
Click to expand...
I like the salifert low range version just fine. Nice to check on occasion. Not something I’d really worry about if your tank looks fine and you do regular Maintenance imo
 
“ I believe in the rock absorption theory (A.Glaser, Meerwasserchemie), which is called out as the root cause for old tank syndrome and sudden crashes of tanks that were very successful previously.”
One guys theory is considered the root cause of OTS? Interesting !
Any chance of a link in English ? This has been discussed for years on the threads..Many tanks 20+ years have shown no signs of OTS which some say maybe bacterial possible but so many factors!
You will love the wrasse mine our model citizens and jump in munching nori with the tangs
Thanks
 
MichaelB said:
I've never personally tested for nitrates beyond occasion spin test i've gotten at Neptunes where they measure it. I used their test only as a source to compare to my own testing results. Is this something I should get a kit for and pay attention to? And would salifert or hanna be the more desired?
Click to expand...
I am currently limiting the amount of testing that is non value adding and focus on the key tests and perform them weekly except Alkalinity, which I test twice a week, and MG, which I test every three weeks or less. I do test Nitrate weekly as I consider this a core test.

You can just observe your tank and not test and wait until something happens and react, or see trends which you do not like and proactively address. I prefer the latter. It takes not a lot of time, and I use Hanna.
 
It took a while to get to this point, but I am super happy with the outcome of replacing my Reefi lights. For the record, the Reefi lights are great and much less obtrusive than these lights. They have their own control app and can change the light spectrum, which these do not have.

The current setup is the following:
- Hydros X4 controller
- Two Quanta ATLAS, 240W max per light, 14k non-adjustable spectrum. I have limited their max power currently to 150W (manual setting on the light).
- 0-10V dimming on the Hydros with BOLUS light schedule alignment, starting with 80% of 150W per light for 2 hours, followed by 3 hours of 66% of 150W, and then ramping down until the end of the light cycle.

Since there is now a mounting solution available to mount the Helix light bars to the ATLAS directly, I have also ordered two 35-inch Helix Meso Blues for front and back (currently discussing with Luca if I should do the Helix ReefCrest instead since I prefer the less blueish light, but he previously recommended this setup/combination of lights to me.

There are more details to this setup if anyone wants to use these.

This is an early morning shot 5 minutes after the lights turned on (no filter was used).

IMG_7006.jpeg
 
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Love it! I'll have to check these out in person because Luca modeled the spectrum after the 14k Phoenix (or Ushio?) halide bulbs. Those were my favorite.

I have the Quanta Pro meso blues and they are very blue on their own. I have to crank my Kessil whites way up to compensate since I can't dim the Pros like the Helix.
 
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CaseyP said:
Love it! I'll have to check these out in person because Luca modeled the spectrum after the 14k Phoenix (or Ushio?) halide bulbs. Those were my favorite.

I have the Quanta Pro meso blues and they are very blue on their own. I have to crank my Kessil whites way up to compensate since I can't dim the Pros like the Helix.
Click to expand...

Being the LED version of a halide seems to be the key selling point. After all I heard and read about Halides, they seem to have been the best lights (with some drawbacks)—these were before my time, so all this is only anecdotal.

You are welcome to check them out in person anytime.
 
CaseyP said:
Love it! I'll have to check these out in person because Luca modeled the spectrum after the 14k Phoenix (or Ushio?) halide bulbs. Those were my favorite.

I have the Quanta Pro meso blues and they are very blue on their own. I have to crank my Kessil whites way up to compensate since I can't dim the Pros like the Helix.
Click to expand...
Kessil can make 14k fixed spectrum versions of their lights too now. The Academy is using them on their big tank.
 
Measured the PAR as per the current setup and it is much stronger than anticipated, keeping the same amount of power/watts output as the Reefis.

I have measured at 66% of 150 watts total power per light and it produced between 400-500 PAR (half way or even lower), up to 600 on some areas, while almost not dropping anywhere (!) lower than 300 - which is now a bit of a problem for the gonies since there is only one place really where I could consider putting them.

On the bright side, the acros seem to love this. I have seen more growth on them after 4 days of operation compared to several weeks previously. I knew my light was insufficient (not a Reefi problem but how I had them setup and mounted) but I did not know how much of a difference this makes.

Sill I will need to tune them down for now. Will show more specific measurements after readjusting them.

Edit: And purchasing two 35 inch Helix yesterday could have been a mistake - not sure what they would need to do really.
 
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