My pair of previously mentioned LED spotlights arrived today. Taking a quick peak at work, they appeared to be made with every bit of attention to detail and quality as they were reputed to be online. I plugged one into my coworkers desk lamp and may have unintentionally stunned him with the brightness. These guys are bright, no doubt about it.



I still haven't found the right fixture for mounting these over the tank. For temporary testing purposes, I used a standard reptile lamp fixture I had lying around from a previous turtle tank build. The following photos were taken with the same white balance and aperture, with minimal curve and level adjustments.

My 150 watt metal halide fixture with a 14k bulb:



The PAR38 spotlight in 20k with 40 degree optics:



As a color sensitive designer, I should have known better than to switch both the lighting technology and the color spectrum at the same time. I find the change to be more than a little extreme. The spot is about as tight as I expected at six inches off the water, but the blue is much darker than I anticipated. I expect this is exaggerated by the spotlighting.

Also I've noticed that shadows cast by corals and rocks within the light create an unnatural blue/yellow banding on the substrate and rock. This above all else is bothering me right now:



Even combining the spotlight with my standard MH fixture, the colors do not blend. The LED clearly overpowers the MH in the area of its spotlight, and the same blue/yellow banding is visible.

I will hold out final judgement until I can install both lights over the tank at the same time. How the corals react to two different light points will be interesting, but the most important factor right now is the overall aesthetic of the tank. I don't want to turn a decent looking aquarium into a dance floor with these lights.

Labels: Equipment, LED, Lighting, Reef Aquarium

Google has ended FTP publishing support for Blogger, a system I've been using for several years on this and other blogs. I've switched this over to their custom domain service temporarily, email me if anything is broken for you.

Apparently the "blogger bar" is no longer optional there is a simple CSS declaration to remove it. I'll probably look into moving to a more modern publishing system like Tumblr in the near future.

Labels: Site

After some deliberation, I've settled on an LED lighting choice: a pair of PAR38 LED spotlights from nanotuners.com. I chose a pair of the 20k lights, in 40 and 60 degree optics. I'm hoping this will give a much bluer appearance to my aquarium compared to the 14k bulbs I've been using in my metal halide fixture.



These bulbs offer some important advantages over the dedicated LED fixtures I was previously considering. And after reading this thread from the light's creator, I knew that intensity and coverage would not be an issue. If anything, I can expect these LEDs to provide more light intensity than my current 150watt metal halide over certain focused areas.

Price
At $120 each, these LED fixtures cost just a little more than a metal halide bulb. When you consider a usable lifespan of up to 5 years, that works out well for the wallet.

Flexibility
Using standard lighting sockets, these LEDs can be adapted to any tank size, unlike a dedicated fixture. If I need more light in the future I can simply add another lamp. If one LED burns out, the entire unit doesn't need to be serviced. Flexibility in positioning is also a big win with these LEDs. By raising and lowering the spotlight, intensity and coverage area can be dramatically changed.

Labels: Equipment, LED, Lighting

Labels: Random

March is the time of year when I need to think about ordering a replacement metal halide bulb for my aquarium (~$75). Getting ready for that, I took a look at my Sunpod fixture ($300), and noticed that the bolts holding the glass shield in place had corroded quite a bit. There was a little salt creep edging in under it. Additionally, only 2 of the 12 LED moonlights still work.

Labels: Equipment, Link, Reef Aquarium

After a battle spanning most of 2009, I am happy to report that the cyanobacteria plaguing my reef aquarium has finally been beat. I've been holding off on this post for most of the month of January, waiting to see if a relapse might occur. As it hasn't, I'm ready to summarize a struggle that occupied most of 2009 and how I finally won the war.

The biggest problem with a major algae outbreak in the aquarium is how demoralizing it can be for the aquarist. In the end, all the money and hard work we invest in this hobby is for the purpose of having a beautiful aquarium in the home. A tank overgrown with red slime is an eyesore, and after months of ineffective manual removal thoughts being to turn towards tearing the entire setup down, starting over, or getting out of the hobby altogether. The most important thing is to stay diligent, even if the process extends for months.

In this post I'll outline my thoughts around how the cyanobacteria formed in my tank, what methods failed to remove it, and how I finally succeeded.

What Caused the Outbreak
The cyanobacteria began settling in around June of last year. I attribute this to a combination of overfeeding and the loss of a fish that I was never able to remove, leading to a spike in nutrients from decomposition. Additionally, I was having some serious detritus issues, lacking a proper way for exporting the organic matter accumulating within my tank.

Another mistake I made was not removing the cyanobacteria immediately once it began forming on the substrate. I was not aware of how tenacious it can be once it begins growing within an aquarium. Manually removing as much as possible as soon as it becomes visible within the tank should be the number one priority of a reef keeper.

What Didn't Work
Most of my posts on this blog over the last half of 2009 involved various attempts at defeating cyanobacteria:

Rising Nitrates
In April I started to note my nitrates rising. I replaced my RO filters, which needed to be done anyway, but testing revealed this wasn't the source of the nitrate issue. In hindsight it was more likely detritus build up and overfeeding leading to the rise in nitrates.

Zeolites, Purigen and AlgaeFix
In June I tried reintroducing zeolites, to little effect on nitrates. I added Seachem's Purigen chemical filter media, which I believe helped stop the rise of nitrates, and temporarily reduced them. And finally, I tried API's AlgaeFix Marine, a chemical additive that was quite popular on the reef forums and supposedly could magic away any algae outbreak.

AlgaeFix did absolutely nothing against the cyanobacteria, and had only moderate success on the green hair algae. In addition, I noticed a die off in snails and some shrimp after two weeks of the recommended dose. I would not encourage use of this product, regardless of the positive things one might read on aquarium forums.

Bolstered Clean Up Crew
In July I brought in a larger clean up crew to deal with the detritus buildup and hopefully stir up the sand bed preventing cyano from forming. A large number of these snails died off immediately, something I am inclined to link to the AlgaeFix additive.

Manual Removal
By July I'd been reduced to manual removal, a process I performed at least twice a week for the rest of the year. Manual removal involved getting into the aquarium with my hands and a toothbrush, scrubbing the cyano off the rocks so it wouldn't overgrow corals, and removing large mats of the stuff from the substrate. Due to the decaying organic matter and constant water changes for removal purposes, parameters in my small tank were exceedingly hard to keep stable, and a number of corals were lost as a result.

Algae Filter and Vodka
In October I converted my filter into an algae scrubber with Chaetomorpha macro algae. I think this provided a marginal amount of nutrient export, and definately boosted the population of copepods and other beneficial bugs in the tank. But what ended up being the miracle cure was the addition of vodka dosing.

How I beat Cyanobacteria
I absolutely attribute the daily dosing of a small amount of vodka into my reef aquarium to the end of the cyanobacteria problem. Rather than butchering the explanation of how an organic carbon source like vodka effects an aquarium, I will link to an Advanced Aquarist article that will do a much better job:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/8/aafeature3/

For my dosing, I followed the regimen documented by Melev on his (infinitely useful) website. This schedule began with what was merely a drop of vodka per day, and built up to a full dose of nearly 1ml daily. By October 23rd I observed that nitrates, which had been close to 40ppm for the majority of 2009, had been reduced to zero. They have tested at 0 ever since.

I had long assumed that the nitrates were the primary source of fuel for the growth of the cyanobacteria. Confirming this, after the nitrates were testing at 0 I noticed the health of the cyano immediately decline. Once a very thick carpet of deep red coloration, it began to take on more of a browned out appearance, growing much thinner. Eventually it changed form, appearing as strands waving in the current rather than a thick mat covering the substrate. Manual removal went from a daily process to weekly, and eventually became completely unnecessary. By mid-December my tank was free of cyanobacteria.

Another good article on vodka dosing: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

Dosing vodka as a carbon source has cured my tank of nitrate issues, cyanobacteria and hair algae, and (indirectly) detritus build up. The corals, invertebrates and fish have never looked healthier, and I've been able to resume heavier feeding without issue. I would suggest researching this method for anyone dealing with nutrient and algae issues in a marine aquarium.

Labels: Algae, Chemistry, Maintenance, Parameters, Reef Aquarium

An internet buddy got a great video of a crab hanging out on the beach. At first curious, he turns surly around the 1:50 mark and kicks sand into the camera. This sort of behavior should be familiar to most aquarium hobbyists.

Labels: Invertebrates, Video

Battling cyanobacteria for six months can really drain the enthusiasm for aquarium photography, but with some careful cropping I was able to get a few decent shots recently.

Labels: Photos, Reef Aquarium

As a follow up to a post in April, I recently converted the Aquaclear filter into an algae tumbler. Stocked with a small amount of live rock rubble and a large ball of Chaetomorpha algae, lit by a 15 watt compact fluorescent light. After adding this Algae on Thursday, testing for nitrates has indicated that the algae is effective: test results dropped to <5ppm from 20ppm last weekend.



If this continues to be successful, I'm going to look into a smaller LED light source for a more streamlined look. The current fixture splashes some of the warmer yellow colored light into the tank.

Another issue I've been dealing with is dropping pH, which has dropped below 8 at least twice in the past month. I've responded by adding Seachem Reef Buffer every other day, and increasing my testing. I've been considering adding a pH probe to my controller to make monitoring easier.

Labels: Algae, Equipment, Parameters

My father teaches marine biology and oceanography at a college in Maine (an obvious gateway to this hobby), and something interesting is always happening in his lab. This week a friend brought in a species not generally considered native to the Gulf of Maine, a Balistes capriscus, the gray triggerfish.

It is a gray triggerfish, Balistes capriscus, and is about 12" long. They have a wide diet including algae, invertebrate (worms and sand dollars) banacles and arthropods. We're feeding it shrimp right now. It comes to the surface to take it but I've read they can give you a good nip with that beak and strong teeth. Apparantly they can produce some interesting sounds by grinding their teeth that are amplified by the swim bladder. They have been found from Nova Scotia to Brazil but 60 degrees F seems to be the minimum temperature they can endure. Picture is attached.

Labels: Fish, Photos