Mat's 255 Gallon Rimless Aquarium Build

So far so good. Yes I am. I think it will take about a month for the corals to grab the color from the actinics. I was running my MH's without actinics for about 4 months. Each unit is $1200/piece.
 
Did you use a par meter to check the strength of your new leds. Might want to start the light intensity lower and over time ramp them up. Also get ready to check your peramters often when you go from mh to led esp your dkh.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I was unaware of any issues with parms changing. So what does the DKH do? Does it go up or down? Any reasoning why? I will keep an eye on them. May need to update the kits to be safe.
 
Yeah, when I switched to LED's I had both Alk and Ca consumption go up due to increased growth rates I think. [smilie=smile.gif]
 
LOL. I'm looking forward to the problem.

No, I dont have a PAR meter so I dont know what it was before or after. I guess I should have bought one to see the differance. Well I didn't start the LED's off at a low level as everyone suggested. I approached this by reccomendation in another way. What I have done is that I ramp the whites up from 0% to about 70% thorough the day simulating Dusk to Dawn and peek of the day. So basically they get a good dose of light for about an hour a day at peek. The software lets you set what percentage of each bulb you want throughout the day in up to 14 steps.

So you can do the folowing say on cool white. This is just an example using 5 of the 14 steps. You can detail it as you want up to 14 steps.

Example Settings:
1. 8:00am 0%
2. 12:00am 15%
3. 4:00pm 65%
4. 8:00pm 15%
5. 10:00pm 0%

So if you set the one color up like above, there is an algorythm on the software that will step the light throgh equal icrements from 0% to 15% in setting twok, and it does this for each setting, thus giving you a gradual graph going through the settings that you set.

So bascially its not just like setting your lights at say 40% and they stay there all day.
 
Well after getting all the lighting up on the aquarium, I actually decided to get the camera out this morning before work and take a few picks. This is a shot of my clam waking up.
 
This is one of cristata's or branching octopus corals. It has really doubled in size. The color on this one like a bright gold with blue back ground. Really loving this one now.The growth patter is kind of weird. It will grow one large branch and off the branch will be 2 or 3 smaller ones. This guy is starting to take up allot of room. I have had to move a couple corals so far.
 
Wow those look great! What are the names for the first chalice with the yellow eyes and the last one with red eyes?
 
Welcome to the Mitras club! The lights and coloration is awesome and from what I've seen in my tank parallels MH's. Let me know if you see any coloration change. I've got mine up to 80% output and my ponape BN is getting a little to pale for my tastes. If I van find room I may move it down and turn up the output to 90%. What vendor did you use to purchase them?

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I can't wait to see how your tank and corals react to the new LED's. The pics look awesome and have some great color. I dont know anything about LED's so pardon my stupid question but is there a way to tell if you have them set on 10K, 14K, etc? Also, how old were your bulbs in your halides before the change?

Sorry about all of the questions but Ive been thinking about LED's but need to read up on them before I can make any decision.
 
Thank you.

The first coral with the yellow eyes is my AKA Bryans hybride Watermelon Chalice. You can see it when I first got it on page 3, on my jan 1st 2011 post. It has grown out and colored up to be a really nice show piece. I really like it. The second coral with the red eyes is a Jason Fox Hippie Magic chalice.

WEll so far believe it or not, my SPS have actually started to grow from the tips a bit since I added the led's. I'm surprised about that. Thanks. On the mitras, it has a color illumination program that allows you to see what spectrum you have the lights to. You can put them at what ever you like. So yes is the answer. The bulbs I had for the MH's were around 4 months old I believe.
 
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