Patrick's 81G - the last dance

[FinalPhaze987]

Any way to find out how many watts the lights are actually drawing at 50% or 100% since companies tend to bend the literature a bit.. Just wondering.. Sweet lighting reminds me of the first gen led horticultural grow lights..

Between the two of them my apex reads 146w at the plug. Both are at the peak of the photo period and running at 51% intensity in the ATI app. Being under driven hopefully equates to running cooler.

Last night, out of curiosity, i cranked them as high as 95% and got a reading of 890 in the front corner of the sandbed.

 

[FinalPhaze987]

A couple weeks with the new lights and everything has been going smooth. I changed the spectrum up a bit and reverted to a more 14Kish daylight, as the bluer program started to look like windex.

Intensity is sitting around 65% and I'm slowly ramping up my nutrients. Things started to pale in the first week and I found dosing made them perk up.

With some frags starting to take off, I'm beginning to regret some of the placement. Neighboring frags are growing into each other, some playing nice and some just outright aggressive and killing anything near it. The torts seem to play nice, as does PC rainbow. Validias and stags
, not so much.

Other growth shots of Vivids strawberry shortcake

November 2025

February 2026

April 2026

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Winning!
My compliments
That’s quite the acro “thicket”!

 

[Royce023]

Looking good. What profile do you run on the ATIs? I like SPS Plakativ +.

 

[FinalPhaze987]

Winning!
My compliments
That’s quite the acro “thicket”!

Hopefully i can keep this rolling!

Looking good. What profile do you run on the ATIs? I like SPS Plakativ +.

I ran a modified version of Tom's korallin with the blues turned up, now running the factory settings to whiten things up. I ran SPS Plakative+ on my gen 1s and got great results as well

 

[FinalPhaze987]

Fell victim to a couple bone headed mistakes over the past week.

I write the element on top of my element bottles and somehow switched the potassium with the flourine. Needless to say, I grossly overdosed the tank on potassium and didnt take notice till 4 days in, when all of my montis started receding from the base.

I lost and capitata and tropic thunder in the ordeal and was finally able to cease it after daily 50% water changes.

Lesson of the day....dose your elements one by one.

Amazingly, the acros remained unaffected.

 

[FinalPhaze987]

Just today, I had a chance to frag the red dragon.

Growth has been good on it:

September 2025

May 2026

While fragging, I was holding a freshly glued frag in the water and waiting for the glue to set. I reached over to grab some glue on the counter next to me and felt a strong Jolt go through my body and the tank shut down. It took me a minute to get my head straight and found that the GFCI saved me. I spent a good amount of time to find that I had an exposed extension cord that must have made the side cabinet live, and I completed the circuit with my other hand in the tank.

Second lesson of the day...GFCIs are lifesavers.

 

[FinalPhaze987]

Other than that, things are growing in nicely, despite the continuous warfare for space.

Bill Murray tabling over Hawkins

PC rainbow encrusting on a cali tort

 

[FinalPhaze987]

May FTS

 

[Adauqua]

Wow - Thanks God that you have GFCIs and are safe! This reminds me the devastating loss of MiamiReef on R2R because of electrocution

 

[FinalPhaze987]

Wow - Thanks God that you have GFCIs and are safe! This reminds me the devastating loss of MiamiReef on R2R because of electrocution

Im glad as hell i installed them everywhere around the tank. After the Jolt I recall the lights in the tank going out and muffled sounds of the wife yelling at me for my choice of words around the kids when it happened.

All the while, I'm thinking to myself "shit yea! Im still alive!"

 

[MolaMola]

Im glad as hell i installed them everywhere around the tank. After the Jolt I recall the lights in the tank going out and muffled sounds of the wife yelling at me for my choice of words around the kids when it happened.

All the while, I'm thinking to myself "shit yea! Im still alive!"

YIKES!!
Could you please explain the "extension cord that made the side cabinet live" situation you mentioned that caused your scary jolt? I would like to learn from your experience. SO GLAD you are okay! Also, your tank is amazing and what a joy that must be to look at in your own home. When non-reef friends come over are they amazed? Do they know they are live corals?

 

[PjFish]

Wow - Thanks God that you have GFCIs and are safe! This reminds me the devastating loss of MiamiReef on R2R because of electrocution

He was only 26! Rip

 

[PjFish]

Im glad as hell i installed them everywhere around the tank. After the Jolt I recall the lights in the tank going out and muffled sounds of the wife yelling at me for my choice of words around the kids when it happened.

All the while, I'm thinking to myself "shit yea! Im still alive!"

Wow thank God the gfci popped and just a shock!!
Look into duel function AFCI/ GFCI outlets or breaker that adds arc protection which causes fires and prevents similar situations like yours! This would have probably tripped when your extension cord made contact who knows when..
Blanket statement—Plus every couple months push test popping the circuit and reset gfci outlets since they can stick making them useless. Also no stable guns, cable tackers with cord management since can pinch cords tightly causing excess heat wearing down the case resulting in arcing or fire that will not trip a stand alone GFCI fyi.
My wife would’ve clocked me then yelled especially on Cinco De Mayo!
Glad nothing happened cheers!

​

 

[FinalPhaze987]

YIKES!!
Could you please explain the "extension cord that made the side cabinet live" situation you mentioned that caused your scary jolt? I would like to learn from your experience. SO GLAD you are okay! Also, your tank is amazing and what a joy that must be to look at in your own home. When non-reef friends come over are they amazed? Do they know they are live corals?

I had my brother in law test things out with a multimeter and he had me shut everything down. One by one, I turned things on and we were able to find this:

I had made custom extension cords for better wire management, that had very tight tolerances. When changing out my light setup, I must have ripped off the plug end that's held together with 3 sandwich style clamps.

Wow thank God the gfci popped and just a shock!!
Look into duel function AFCI/ GFCI outlets or breaker that adds arc protection which causes fires and prevents similar situations like yours! This would have probably tripped when your extension cord made contact who knows when..
Blanket statement—Plus every couple months push test popping the circuit and reset gfci outlets since they can stick making them useless. Also no stable guns, cable tackers with cord management since can pinch cords tightly causing excess heat wearing down the case resulting in arcing or fire that will not trip a stand alone GFCI fyi.
My wife would’ve clocked me then yelled especially on Cinco De Mayo!
Glad nothing happened cheers!

​

Ill definitely be looking into those. And YES, going to be adding a GFCI reset to my monthly task. If that hadn't tripped, I'd have been toast.

 

[FinalPhaze987]

I started to get tired of cleaning water spills and salt creep inside the grooves of the stand and picked up some plastic t slot covers. I have to say, filling in the gaps has been oddly satisfying.

Afyer a quick wipe down, good as new again. Best of all, no more having to jam a towel in the groove to clean it out.

Before

After

 

[tankguy]

Love the way your tank looks

 

[FinalPhaze987]

Love the way your tank looks

Thank you! Im excited to see your new build myself. Not too many of us here in Hayward, so if you need anything for it LMK.