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Question about a frag/grow tank

Bruce Spiegelman

Bruce Spiegelman

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I was looking for a nice used Ro/DI unit on CL yesterday and ran across a four stage Spectrapure almost brand new for $50.00. It came bundled with a JBJ 28G nano-cube tank and stand. I wasn't going to turn down what was effectively a free tank, stand, heaters, etc. all in excellent shape.

The tank comes with a nice metal halide equipped hood and that's where my question is. I'm flirting with the idea of setting it up as a frag and grow tank, but curious if I'll run into issues moving corals from this tank once they've grown to my main display tank which has four Kessil 360's.
 
not that I have much experience with LED's, but I recently (within last yr.) switched from MH/VHO to all LED. And, needless to say... I lost a lot of coral. :(. I had zero experience with LED lighting, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to save on my electricity bill. when I made the switch, I slowly started losing corsls. To tell you the truth, I'm still not sure where I went wrong. All I can figure is the intensity was totally different. I'm still having problems with the LEDs and coral health, but at least I haven't lost a coral for quite awhile. just be very careful when moving your livestock from one type of lighting to another. The acclimation feature that comes with most brand LEDs are your friend.
 
You have to start much lower than you think is correct. Even with a par meter I would drop it another 10-15%. LEDs are very penetrating and par meters can't seem to measure it accurately.


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I don't mind putting another Kessil on it. I was just kind of hoping for faster growth in a frag tank than I'm getting in my display tank.Should I consider a Kessil and augment with a two bulb T5? Or will I run into the same issue moving things into the display tank?
 
The Leds will grow coral just as fast as MH or T5. If you are not getting growth in the DT and the lights are sufficiently strong, you have other issues.


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Bruce Spiegelman said:
I was looking for a nice used Ro/DI unit on CL yesterday and ran across a four stage Spectrapure almost brand new for $50.00. It came bundled with a JBJ 28G nano-cube tank and stand. I wasn't going to turn down what was effectively a free tank, stand, heaters, etc. all in excellent shape.

The tank comes with a nice metal halide equipped hood and that's where my question is. I'm flirting with the idea of setting it up as a frag and grow tank, but curious if I'll run into issues moving corals from this tank once they've grown to my main display tank which has four Kessil 360's.
Click to expand...

What a deal! I just got a biocube 29g off craigslist with stand, pumps, heater, Kessil A150 off CL. Thought I got a good deal, but I paid more than "free." Gonna use it for QT in the garage.
 
One thing I am really starting to believe is that the wide vs limited spectrum makes a big difference to light acclimation.
The theory being that corals can adjust to different light intensities pretty well normally.
But that adjustment is based on wide spectrum sunlight, and is confused by the tight royal-blue spike of most LEDs.

Thus you need to start at really low levels with LEDs and very slowly work up.

Since Kessils are a bit more full spectrum than the cheap ones, you should have less of a problem.

But I do think you will have some short term issues going from MH frag tank to LED display tank.

So my opinion would be to match the lighting.
 
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