Cyanobacteria is one of the greatest nuisances to a reef hobbyist, until now. Chemiclean by Boyd Enterprises will eliminate cyanobacteria within 1 - 2 doses. Follow the instructions per volume of your aquarium, remove the carbon & turn off the skimmer. Within a week, problem solved the cyano is gone and you can replace the carbon, turn the skimmer back on and do a small water change. If it returns in the next few weeks, repeat the process and you should not experience any additional outbreaks.
Also, an increase in flow or current and higher alkalinity will reduce the chances of future outbreaks.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
To LED or not to LED?
It has been 5 months now since I first installed LED lights on one of the reef tanks at CleanMyAquarium.com. The lights I installed are 60 watts ea. consisting of either:
- 10 x 3 watt Cree XP-E white & 10 x 3 watt Cree 450nm Blue (60 degree lens)
- 10 x 3 watt Cree XR-G white & 10 x 3 watt Cree 450nm Blue (90 degree lens)
Here is what I have witnesses thus far:
- The lights have a very strong intensity directly beneath the bulbs. The spread on these lights is not very good, creating dark areas in the corners and under the horizontal supports across the top of the tank. They do create a nice shimmer with enough turbulence on the surface of the water.
- SPS corals are exhibiting nice growth directly under the LED lamps. Corals just outside this intense zone are stable, but not showing much sign of growth. I believe the sps would soon die if left in the darker areas of the tank, so they have been removed.
- LPS & soft corals are reacting well throughout all areas of the tank, even demonstrating lengthy polyp extension in dark areas that read as low as 30 par (reaching for the light?).
- All corals have nice coloration...about equivalent to 14k halide lighting.
My conclusion is that to have a tank with lighting that is visually appealing with an even spread, energy efficient & healthy for all types of corals, I would suggest a mix of metal halide & LED lighting. I have now added metal halide lighting on a 5 hour schedule to supplement the LED's which are on a 12 hour (white) & 14 hour (blue) schedule. I will report back the progress in a few months.
Does anyone have a similar or different experience with these lights?
- 10 x 3 watt Cree XP-E white & 10 x 3 watt Cree 450nm Blue (60 degree lens)
- 10 x 3 watt Cree XR-G white & 10 x 3 watt Cree 450nm Blue (90 degree lens)
Here is what I have witnesses thus far:
- The lights have a very strong intensity directly beneath the bulbs. The spread on these lights is not very good, creating dark areas in the corners and under the horizontal supports across the top of the tank. They do create a nice shimmer with enough turbulence on the surface of the water.
- SPS corals are exhibiting nice growth directly under the LED lamps. Corals just outside this intense zone are stable, but not showing much sign of growth. I believe the sps would soon die if left in the darker areas of the tank, so they have been removed.
- LPS & soft corals are reacting well throughout all areas of the tank, even demonstrating lengthy polyp extension in dark areas that read as low as 30 par (reaching for the light?).
- All corals have nice coloration...about equivalent to 14k halide lighting.
My conclusion is that to have a tank with lighting that is visually appealing with an even spread, energy efficient & healthy for all types of corals, I would suggest a mix of metal halide & LED lighting. I have now added metal halide lighting on a 5 hour schedule to supplement the LED's which are on a 12 hour (white) & 14 hour (blue) schedule. I will report back the progress in a few months.
Does anyone have a similar or different experience with these lights?
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Hello & welcome to the cleanmyaquarium.com blog!
This blog will be used to post information, field questions and communicate experiences related to the aquarium & reefkeeping hobby.
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