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First LED steps with my little reef

Posted on by RalfP
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Hey all,
after playing around with some LED fixtures above the fragtanks for quite a while, I decided to use this lightbulb change cycle, to reduce the amount of small bulbs, using LED instead. A small, 24Watt T5 costs nearly as much as a 54Watt one, so bulb-cost per Watt is really bad with the small ones.
LED should last for several years, not the %&ยง# 6 months for the blueish T5s.

The bulbs on the pic have already been changed in this cycle, the LED are the new “to be changed next week” ones.
The bulbs on the pic are:
4 with 4*54 Watts [2*AquaScience blue / 1*AquaScience special / 1*Giesemann Aquapink]
1 with 4*24 Watts [2*AquaScience blue / 1*AquaScience special / 1*Giesemann Aquapink]
4 MH (HQI) 400 Watts [2*Giesemann Megachrome coral / 2*Giesemann Megachrome marine]
4 LED spots max. 90 Watts [Kessil A350-Tuna Blue] ( http://www.kessil.com )

bulbs



I am really curious about the new light colors.
For now, there are the old 4 lamps with 4*24Watts T5 each, in order to let the coral adapt to the newly changed bulbs. I’ll give them a week or so.
The Kessils have separate adjustable “blue” and “white” channels. For a start, the white will be set so something around 60%, the blue 50%.
With this, power consumption should be lower than the stated max. 90Watts and also lower, than the 4* (4*24Watts) T5s with LED having more PAR.

kessil5


New “Dreambox” arrived

Posted on by RalfP
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The new filter box from Royal Exclusive finally arrived. It took 2 months and not the promised 2 weeks.
I am in the process of installing it now, water is already flowing through and the skimmer is working.
Now the electrodes, water replacement, automatic water change etc. will be installed.
It’s 200x74x49cm and the biggest pipe connector is 63mm in diameter.


dreambox1


Redoing my discus tank

Posted on by RalfP
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Downstairs, I was keeping a heavily planted and lighted 180x60x60cm freshwater tank with some discus and other fish. In order to being able to keep the plants, there were some minerals and hardness in the not colored water.

blackwater1
blackwater2

Having my wild discus (Blueface Heckel from Rio Negro) in mind, I decided to redo the tank and turn it into something Rio Negro biotope like. That’s nearly no hardness and minerals in the water, no plants, lots of wood, leaves, yellowish sand etc. etc.
The river biotope is called “Rio Negro”, because there are lots of humic acids and tannins that add color and lowers the pH.
In my case this is done with different leaves and the wood (moor). Later, the filter will be prepared with peat.

The Heckel discus and also about 50 blue Neon Tetras (Paracheirodon simulans) from the previous setup are swimming in 200 liter plastic rainbarrels. The rainbarrels are connected to the two box filters, that will later be reconnected to the tank.
For now, tank has to cycle and fish are very slowly adapted to the new tank water in the meantime.
Think I’ll still have to wait a week to move them in.