The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread

Found this.
Maybe I'll convert my system to T5s.

After a little pricing things out I think I'm O.K. with my setup.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by BC-Axeman

Found this.
Maybe I'll convert my system to T5s.

I worked at Sylvania in St. Mary's, PA a number of times over the years. Lots of time it was for long periods. They made me say "lamp" and it still gets me. No one knows what I'm talking about when I say lamp.

I'm very inclined to believe the email verbatiim. I can't even begin of a reason why someone would make all that stuff up, especially if they have nothing to gain.

If you wondeer if Sylvania really tests bulbs, I can tell you that the right rear of the St. Mary's plant has a GIANT area devoted solely to burning and testing lamps. I can't even take a guess at how many lamps are in there, or how many hours they've been burning, but there's also guages and dials everywhere. They burn lots of lamps there that they don't even make at that plant, so they must be a regional tester? Don't know.

I think I'll pull my hood off tonight and work on it a bit. Lisa agreed to help me. I'll replace what tubes look like they need replacing, and put a label on the hood so I know what I changed and when. I might just go ahead and replace everything if enough are rough looking, and get a fresh start.

Pending Brad's input.

lol

[shilala]

I decided to go ahead and replace all my bulbs, throw away the two that are shot, and keep the rest. I'm going to make use of the awesome packaging F&S sends to store the old bulbs.
I think what happened is last time I replaced 6 of the 8 lamps cause I checked online and that's what it said the light used, I never even looked. That'd make sense as to why two are shot and 6 look great. (Online it says my fixture uses six bulbs, so I imagine that's what I ordered.)
Lisa says she thinks I replaced the bulbs last year around Christmas. I seem to think that's about right.

[OLS]

Haha, you know me, got to SOUND superior if I can't BE superior. I always used the term lamp, cause in TV
we are always replacing tungsten lamps in our fixtures when someone trips over a wire and drags a light stand
to the floor with a crash and a pop and a flash of light. I ought to know I have blown up more than my share.
When you pay 3 for a dollar it's a bulb. When you pay 45 dollars for one, it's a LAMP, lol. But hearing that,
I would imagine that it could well be true that the last time I was actively buying lamps it was in the HO SHO days,
and I got my knowledge from that time of the hobby. Now I need to update my BS to match the reality, although
it would stand to reason that there was spectral shift if all of a sudden out of nowhere you are growing hair algae
like a hermit. Of course, there are 10 other reasons that could all be in play, lol. I DO save all my old lamps,
cause in my heart I do not believe a lamp is dead til you drop it or it gets a flicker and a black end on it.

[OLS]

Oh and Scott, just because I spout something doesn't mean I ACCEPTED it, hahaha.
I have a reef cycle that makes me one of the bad people. I have a great reef until
my laziness just gets out of control and everything degrades. Same is true with lamps.
I HAVE three changes of lamps, cause I bought them on closeout. BUT I will replace
them all after one year. Then in three years, I am just gonna put the first set back in, hahaha.

[shilala]

Thanks, my brother.
I still didn't order lamps, I was waiting for you to weigh in.
My hair algae bloom was due to moving, plus I let my ro/di unit lay around for a couple months all full of water and it wrecked the membrane. All I did was order new guts for it and replace 60 gallons of water (so far) and my hair algae problem is gone.
The brown diatom goo is almost history, too.

I talked to Lisa and we figured we'd get all the bulbs, then keep the six that are still fine. It makes sense since we have a fresh start on everything. If I have a burnout, I'll just replace it with one of the lamps I put in storage, I figure.

I'm absolutely amazed at what my corals are doing now that I've righted all my screwups. My tongue coral is ready to crawl out the tank. It's HUGE. Everything else is just going wild. If I improve the lighting, it'll only get better.
My new glass top is coming today, too. It'll replace the one I broke.

So all is well in fish land once again.
Thanks for all the help, Brad. I genuinely do appreciate your input and your knowledge, it means a lot to me. It helps to know how it used to be done, and why. The "why" is the biggest part. If I know why I'm doing what I'm doing, I can make anything work. You're where I get my "why?"

[OLS]

Originally Posted by shilala

You're where I get my "why?"

Well then you are FU@#*& son. Fish killer, lol. I am not sure how I killed my last outbreak of hair and
purple slime. I DO know that changing over to the 20 long made it necessary to replace 95% of the
water, derh, maybe that had something to do with it, lol. I swear I took my lettuce coral from one
barely living polyp to almost being back to full size. I was shocked that it re-encrusted the old skeleton
like that, I am sure it's not using the old holes, but who knows. I hate having this albatross
around my neck, especially as I get close to wanting sdesparately to move out of this town.
But I look at the various items still with me and think, "ehh, they're worth it."

Originally Posted by OLS

When you pay 3 for a dollar it's a bulb. When you pay 45 dollars for one, it's a LAMP, lol.

'Zackly!
In electronics it's always a lamp, a bulb is an envelope.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by OLS

I hate having this albatross
around my neck, especially as I get close to wanting sdesparately to move out of this town.
But I look at the various items still with me and think, "ehh, they're worth it."

I think I mentioned I was bagging this whole fish tank lifestyle from hell when I got married. I was moving from PA to OH and that was my chance.
Lisa absolutely insisted I keep it going. She thought I was quitting cause she didn't want it, so she insisted I keep it going cause I loved it. Problem is, I didn't find that out till later. I moved it all and went through great lengths cause I thought SHE wanted it.
So now the 700 pound dirty pig is five feet behind me making noises, waiting for it's chance to wreck the house, vibrating up a storm, wanting fed, and waiting for me to dump another $170 bucks into it.
Ahhh, the riddle that is love.

[OLS]

If I could see a large pile of money needing to be spent, you can bet I would get rid of it all. I think if I had to move
out of town, they'd be S.O.L. But for now, my purple mushrooms multiply about one every three months, and
things are not so bad that I think everyday about breaking it down. I will say that if I ever have a PERMANENT
home that I paid for and now own, I would knock out a wall and have all the plumbing and access far out of
sight and just a window and no vibrations or waterfall sounds ar anything around ME. And small! I first started
out in the 20 I have now, killed everything cause I added stuff early, then went to 110 cause "I was smart now", lol.
Dumped all that 8-9 years ago or more, and like I have said, for some reason a year and a half ago, thought I
should turn some dry white rock and a obsolete skimmer into a base for buying all new everything else....sheesh.
Oh the money I would have.

[shilala]

This money hole is only 90 gallons. Can you imagine what the 240 gallon guys spend? Worse yet, can you imagine the time? The mere thought makes me shiver.

[OLS]

I think when I finally get my dream home, for which I will sign the papers, come home, cough up a speck of
blood and find out I have lung cancer, I will make it between 40 and 55 gallons. Against all the arguments over
how more water makes mistakes happen sloower, etc, all fine arguments, there is also the one that says 'you
don't HAVE to have it all", you just have to be satisfied with what you can afford, and afford to maintain,
both time AND money-wise.

There is a 500 gal tank at my LFS that someone gave up on. I could probably get a good deal on it. The owner showed it to me and my first thought was you needed SCUBA to clean it.
I go months without doing anything but feed my tank and add makeup water to it, only cleaning it because of company. If it is likely something will die then it did already.

[shilala]

I picked up a few more corals down in Mogadore the other day. Finally got some yellow polyps. I forget what the other two things are called.
We got a shrimp and a spiny urchin, too.

I spent money on more cigars.

[shilala]

Lance, I've got so many freakin cigars that I can't even find them all. I did buy five or six boxes of "save for later" stuff last week, though.

Now I'm really strongly considering LED lighting for the tank.
Will you guys please take a look at this for me, and see what you think?
Here's where I am so far...
I'm trying to figure out how to get from watts/gallon to lumens/gallon to size my fixture. I already plan on getting the biggest one at that Foster Smith link cause I think it'll fit my tank.
The reef capable lighting are rated for 50,000 hours, which is 17 years of 8 hour days. Right now I run a little over 8 hours, but I need to back that up.
The fixture is $365, you never replace bulbs. In 17 years, I'd spend somewhere between $1600 and $3200 for t5 lamps. I'd also have to replace the fixture at least twice, and that'd cost about $1,000.
So it's t5's for $2600-$4200 or led for under $800. (Apparantly I need two fixtures because these things really focus the lights into a very thin, straight down wall of light.)
With two fixtures, I'd be down to 108 watts from my current 432 watts, so I'm looking at 1/4 the energy use and I'm guessing 1/4 the heat.

Being that I was already going to spill $200 for tubes, I'm really looking at $530.00 to make this upgrade. I'm sure I can sell my 48" t5's on Craigslist or to one of the reefers in my club, bringing down the price even more.

The one drawback is that there's a polycarbonate lens on this thing that creates a "realistic ocean shimmer effect" that is only realistic to people who have never been in the water. It's more like a strobe light cranked all the way up to max, almost constant on, or at least that's how I perceive it when I look at them.
I'm hoping that's more prominent with one light than with two.

Will you guys please take a look when you have time and let me know what you think? I could use a bunch more negatives so I can weigh this out a bit better.

Lumens per watt, LEDs are the same as T5. LEDs randomly go bad for no apparent reason. They actually do generate a good deal of heat. 100 watts of LED is the same lumens as 100 watts of T5s. This is what keeps me from upgrading. HIDs are the most lumens per watt and I get about two years for about 100 bucks. I have 2 80 watt CFs that run pure actinics for color affects with two 14k HIDs. $150 every two years. Yep, 960 watts. Along with the main pump, skimmer pump, two little pumps for the calcium reactor and a circulating pump in the tank, a chiller and two 230 watt heaters, I need my own substation to run this rig.
Happy reefing!

[shilala]

Lance, From what I ciphered (before I went insane from reading light buld tech specs) is that led's give up 166% more lumens per watt at minimum. The biggie is that the lumenosity is focused and drills way deeper into the water.
That said, I could find nowhere where an outfit would say "just use led's on your tank". The best outfits say you should use them to compliment your other lighting for technical reasons as an advantage.
They just aren't ready for primetime yet, period.

If you're trying to use a watts per gallon comparison, led's require 14-28% of wattage for the same amount of useful light.

Here's an awesome writeup on all types of aquarium lighting. The reading is about as dry as a popcorn fart, but there's lots of great info if you can stand to read it. It's recent, and was just updated 4 days ago.

All that said, the two fixtures I picked should be a good direct replacement for my t5's. I'm not gonna chance it, though. I'll just get some new lamps and keep this fixture for another four years if it'll last that long. By then, price should come down and all the bugs should be worked out.