Blog Comments

I was the exact same way, I refused to purchase a pump that was so expensive, however after 6 years in the hobby, I reluctantly bought a used mp40 and fast forward to today, I have 2 mp60's and 2 mp10's in my tank.

Not sure if I agree with the high sticker price but I agree that they are great pumps.

I realize it's only been a week, but are you seeing any change since you added the glass?

Currently I am running 3 blue plus, 2 fiji purple, and one guisenman that brings out the yellows but with them being blue plus rather than just actinics is probably going to be a bit stronger in my case. My particular light fixture has a lexan shield to keep the fixture clean. I would say that if I am having an issue with a 6 bulb fixture being possibly too strong on my 75 gallon then definitely take my current predicament into consideration when light fixture shopping, for the record mine is a currentUSA fixture. I am really crossing my fingers with this glass cover.

First, I mis-spoke earlier. Tuan only has 4 T5's over his 40 breeder.

I assume you're only interesed in light aclimation. I placed the frags where I wanted them right from the start. Then only used half my lights for the first day, gradually bringing the rest on an hour longer each day after.

What spectrums are you running? Tuan and I are both running 2 actinics, 1 Figi purple, 1 10,000K lamps.

I'm also considering a glass shield below my lights when I build my 75 set up, that was more to keep my reflectors clean than for UV shielding. I believe Tuan's fixture has some kind of shield under the lamps, but I don't know if it's lexan or glass. Lexan doesn't stop UV, glass does. My tank has nothing but 4" of air between my lamps and the water.

Phil

I have placed the glass back in between the light and the tank and reset the lights so that all six bulbs come on for about 4 hours together so I will observe the corals to see how they respond.

Thanks for the reply phil. The only reason I stated that I didn't think that is was my bryopsis battle is because I was bleaching them up high in my tank last year before the first sign of bryopsis ever showed it's ugly face, not saying that the aftermath isn't a contributing factor at this time mind you. The lights right now sit 3-4" off of the water and the highest I have ever had any coral in the tank would still be a good 7-8" from the top of the tank (thats the current montipora I have never had an acro or millepora that high) meaning that when it's all said and done thats 10" from the lights, so I personally am leaning against a single spectrum possibility once again not saying that it's not it but I have my doubts about that being my problem right now. I may look at re installing my glass tank cover that I originally got with my tank to see if that helps at all crossing my fingers.

Did you or your friend have a sealed tank? How do you acclimate your sps? and how long did it take you guys to move your corals from lower in the tank to higher? Did you have to move any lower to prevent bleaching and then re acclimate them to a higher location?

Again thanks for reply Phil I would have responded back sooner but we went to the Tennessee Aquarium here locally in Chattanooga (my son loves it there) and I had to go look at some successful fish tanks but I really do like the idea of adding the glass back over my top and I will see if that helps.

cyano, I ran 4x54 T5's over a 55 gal tank with no adverse affects to anything. Including a Pocillapora and birds nest that're growing like a weeds. A friend of mine has 6 T5's over his 40 breeder and his center piece is a gorgeous tourquoise staghorn Acro, the top of which is only 2" below the surface now. Both of us run our lights 3 to 4" above the water, with good reflectors. He's using a Sunlight Supply fixture, and I'm using Icecap retrofit kits. We both run all our lights for most of the day.

I know Marc has stated a couple times he think UV is the culprit (there's a comments to that effect in Eric Borneman's book too). But I've studied lighting design and wave propagation (in electromagnetics not water), and I can't see a couple more inches of air reducing UV at all. If you're worried about UV, you might try putting a glass shield between the lights and water. Cheap glass will filter out nearly all of the UV.

That said, if the light is the problem at all, I wonder if the reflectors might be the problem. If you have really good reflectors, you might be getting only the spectrum of 1 lamp on a specific coral. Raising the lights would help them have more overlap before the light hits the water.

Personally, I have trouble believing we could produce too much light, or UV, with our T5's for SPS corals. Most of these species live on the reef crest in the wild, where they're exposed to the direct sun with little or no water over them at low tide. Sunlight is 100 times more intense than any fluorescent at 5,000 footcandles (~50,000 lx) and 10X the the UV.

I'm getting ready to set up a 75 myself, I'll be moving the current four T5's over to it, and adding 2 more. I have a low ceiling, where the tank is going, so my lights will again be only 4 inches or so off the water. I'm planning to have mainly SPS corals up high, so I'll keep you posted.

Personally, I'd suspect the bryopsis, and your battle with that, may have had more of a detrimental effect on your corals than your lights. Be patient and let things stabilize for a bit.

Phil

I absolutely love the vortech pumps. I have a pair of MP40s on opposite sides of my 100g and use them in 40% reefcrest mode (anti synched). After a little initial set up to teach them how to make a "wave" (in instructions), I have two 1 inch standing waves bouncing back and forth across the tank. I love the look. I do not think you will be disappointed.

Thanks for the comments so far guys, I personally chose to take the plunge due to the capabilities of the pump itself as far as a more random flow and with my tank having a lower flow than my few sps seem to like any way it seemed like a no brain er but honestly that is still stinging my wallet. It will not arrive until probably Wednesday which means I won't be able to install it until either that night or the next day (I don't see myself waiting till the next day.)

I guess to give a quick update on other news I think I am finally starting to see some real results with my bio pellet reactor and my skimmer is broke in as well so water quality seems to be getting gradually better. A little diatom bloom has been observed as well as a small cyano here and there but nothing worth treating, just some symptoms that I am attributing to the bio pellet reactor. I will probably add a couple more fish soon since my bio load is boarder line ridiculously small and hopefully soon with the addition of the vortech my tank will be at peak efficiency.

Looking forward to making my purchase in the next couple months. Once I have my MP40/MP10 combo I will more or less be ready to start my tank. Until then... Looking forward to more comments here.

I've got an MP10 and absolutely love it. I've got my 227g tank currently. I've got much of the equipment as well... the biggest expense I have left is the powerheads. And it'll absolutely be Vortechs. They do more than move water!

It sounds crazy to say, but the best thing is the look of the pump. My tank looks SO much better without that powerhead in there. Until they add powerheads just laying there running at the bottom of the ocean I'm not going to want them in my tank! Side note: I'd love if someone would just dump tons of frag plugs in the ocean too so that those would look natural! Haha. They move an absolute butt load (and that's a lot) of water and they can do it in multiple patterns and intensities that their research shows beneficial to a tank. They're legit. Good purchase. ;-)

Congratulations on the promotion...I don't have first hand experience with the Vortech power heads, yet, so I'll be interested to see what others have to say. That said, the 3 biggest reasons I decided to go with Vortech's on the tank upgrade were (1) they have a much smaller foot print in the tank than comparable options, (2) no heat transfer, and (3) to get the same amount of flow from a closed loop was very similar up front cost, but the closed loop pump would have used much more electricity to get the same flow.

Blake

yes sir midnight, I was pulling literally ballpark cup full of the stuff out every couple of days only for to return at full force and in more and more locations in the tank. I still have a couple of very small patches (as in a few strains here and there) of the stuff left that I will target with some peroxide, right now I am just letting my tank have a week break before I finish it off then hopefully I will never see it again. One more note not just the CUC will touch it when it seems to detoxify, even the yellow tang will eat some of it but it can not be too long.

Now, that is some serious bryopsis!

I don't know why but you can only see the pictures I posted in the comments section if you log in, so unless someone knows how to remedy this you must log in to see the pictures

I would like to add that the very top picture is how think it would get only after a couple of days before I started dosing, it smothered and killed a rose millepora I had been keeping for quite some time.

Me neither. I'd like to though. This sounds pretty cool.

I can't see the pictures?

Low Magnesium is usually the culprit of bryopsis. Found out I had a bad test kit when I had bryopsis. now it is all gone.