Coral can be resilient

A SPS coral fell over onto my scoly a few weeks ago and damaged the flesh down to the skeleton. It stayed shrunken up for days. A few weeks later, it was fuller and bigger than it had ever been. Click on the pictures for a larger view:

Zoster (Pyramid) Butterfly

A few days ago I added a Pyramid Butterfly to my reef. He is in the center of the picture. Click on the picture for a larger view:

Going back to my old lighting

Well, I have decided to go back to my 150w Hamilton Reefstar pendants. I did get more growth with the 250w bulbs and LumenArc reflectors, but the negatives were not worth it to me. I have a short canopy and short tank, so the 250w's were really heating up the water, even with fans blowing in and air blowing out into the attic. I ended up staggering my lighting to keep the water cooled down, and that was even with the A/C running at 72* in that room. I did not like my lighting being staggering on/off, and my tank getting up towards 82*. With the 150w's, I could keep the tank around 79*, without having to keep the ambient room temp cooled down. Plus the LumenArcs took up so much room in the canopy, there was no room for VHOs to run before and after my halides were on. So I basically had light in my tank for 6-8 hours, then it was dark the rest of the day. With the 150's, I could run then for 8+ hours and have supplemental lighting to let me see the tank when the halides were off. All in all, the cons outweighed the pros of my experiment going the higher lighting for my SPS tank. I did well with 150w MH before, so there should be no problem now. My tank is only 18" deep so there is no need for blasting light. I can lower my pendants closer to the water if I want a little more par, as I have them on a chain system as shown below. i have now lower them down about 4-6" closer than they were before.

3rd and last LumenArc pendant installed

About a week or so ago, I got my last Lumenarc pendant installed, and Radium bulb added. I have been acclimating the tnak to the new lighting with eggcrate light diffuser and screen. Every week I take a piece of screen off, to let more and more light in each week, so as not to bleach the coral with the new higher lighting. Its been going well so far. An update on my biopellets. They have been running for about 4 weeks now. I am having to scrape algae off my glass alot less now, from every 2 days,down to about once a week. Also my phosphates are down to .03 wiht no refugium and no GFO running.

I may redo my 'Aquascape'

Seeing some recent pictures of people tanks on the Reef Central website, I am inspired to redo my aquascape. Its not that I don't like mine, but I think it could be much better. I have alot of room in my tank, so I could make a much better structure than rock stacked along the back wall of the tank. I would like to break up the 'wall' into sections.  Here are a couple of examples that I think look great: (you can click on the pictures for a larger view)

Tank Build Thread

If anyone would like to see my tank as it started from scratch, here is a link to the thread on Reef Central.

OneReef's 150g Tank Build

2nd LumenArc reflector installed

I now have my second LumenArc reflector installed. I am now just waiting on getting a Radium bulb to put the third reflector in.

I have added a 2nd Lumenarc, I still have to add the 3rd reflector and bulb. Everything is much brighter! I have a few sheets of screen and eggcrate up right now to acclimate. Par has drastically changed.
Here two Par Meter readings, one a 250w SE Radium 20K bulb in a Lumenarc reflector, on 250w Hamilton magnetic M80 ballast. The other is a 150w DE Phoenix 14K in a Hamilton Reefstar pendant (hammertone finish), on a IceCap 150w electronic ballast. Both were taken at the same distance, at the waters surface. Can you guess which is which?? LOL