Cali Kid Corals

Initial impression of Orphek Atlantik V4

Bruce Spiegelman

Bruce Spiegelman

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The light has only been fully running on the frag tank for about 4 weeks. I gave the initial frags about 3-4 weeks of an acclimation period. I didn't expect I'd be giving any kind of a review after only one month as my normal experience has always been that when most corals are moved into a new environment with new lights, etc that they no-grow phase for up to 6 months or so. That hasn't been true with this light and I'm a little flabbergasted by it.

Note that this is just my personal observations and mileage may vary.

I didn't so any counts of initial heads of Zoa types put in, but I am "sure" tha I have a number of new heads on all colonies. I have a small "colony" of Magicians that I picked up from Kremis and my recollection is it was 5 heads -- now it's 8-9 heads. SPS frags are showing good growth tips, but again I never measured.

I would chalk all that up to wishful thinking except that I can visually show growth on a few chalices that are already encrusting new frag squares that they've only been on one month. All chalices show growth, but the pics below show them encrusting and growing onto the one-month old plugs. I think that's fairly significant in a new environment for corals that usually grow very slowly. If you look at the pics you will see the front edges of the corals spreading nicely and in a measurable fashion.

So take it with a grain of salt at this early stage, but I think it's pretty exciting. On the other hand, I am definitely biased. I paid a lot of money for this damn thing and am invested in it working. :)

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I must say I have been intrigued by those lights. Perhaps they really do work.

Nothing like a brute force solution - Throw LOTS of different colors out there.
Having 16 colors is certainly different than the old cool-white + royal-blue.

That said ... infrared? I don't see that penetrating very far in water.



So how is the disco effect?
I see a tiny bit in those pictures, but looks pretty good.
Do you have a lot of surface agitation?
 
Kris got them on his tank for awhile and he likes them. I have one on my soft as well and it's been great. Going to cover that tank to sps soon. Will love to see the difference compare to the radions I have on my main tank.


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rygh said:
I must say I have been intrigued by those lights. Perhaps they really do work.

Nothing like a brute force solution - Throw LOTS of different colors out there.
Having 16 colors is certainly different than the old cool-white + royal-blue.

That said ... infrared? I don't see that penetrating very far in water.



So how is the disco effect?
I see a tiny bit in those pictures, but looks pretty good.
Do you have a lot of surface agitation?
Click to expand...

Very little disco effect. In fact, not enough that I even notice it. I had to go look after you posted asking the question, because it's never really registered on me. However, the surface agitation on this tank is fairly light as well otherwise I get too much salt creep from splashing in this tank.
 
Yes -- the compact. I ended up with the coral growth program and after reading a lot of other success stories I added the max cloud feature. I have always figured those things were lighting "snake oil" and have no clue if it's actually helping, but I like what I see so far of the light in general.
 
Thanks for sharing Bruce

I’ve thought about those lights but my top concern is the light separation, seeing dancing individual colors on light backgrounds, like sand. I think I can see it on your white frag plugs, looks like they are smeared with rainbow sherbet. If they made a diffuser or otherwise blended the leds better it would probably help a lot.

My other concern is that it would lack the shimmer that I like, but that is probably an unavoidable trade-off for the better light coverage and shadow reduction.

I thought about adding their light bar to my Kessil AP700s to try to get the best of both worlds, similar to the T5/LED hybrid so popular now. But the light separation still gives me pause.
 
JVU said:
Thanks for sharing Bruce

I’ve thought about those lights but my top concern is the light separation, seeing dancing individual colors on light backgrounds, like sand. I think I can see it on your white frag plugs, looks like they are smeared with rainbow sherbet. If they made a diffuser or otherwise blended the leds better it would probably help a lot.

My other concern is that it would lack the shimmer that I like, but that is probably an unavoidable trade-off for the better light coverage and shadow reduction.

I thought about adding their light bar to my Kessil AP700s to try to get the best of both worlds, similar to the T5/LED hybrid so popular now. But the light separation still gives me pause.
Click to expand...

It's a good point. Obviously not an issue really in my bare-bottom frag tank. I'll be interested in seeing Robert Brilliantes set-up in hos new 500 gallon. He's using half a dozen of the full-size Orphek's plus Kessil AP700's mixed in. Also bare bottom though, but a lot of rockwork.
 
It’s great when the lighting works out. Your frag tank looks great! Corals look healthy and, just as importantly, frag tiles look healthy (nice assortment of coralline growth and no visible pests :)
 
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