Experimental Lighting

[CollegeReefer]

This is a post by a member of our reef society (madison reef society). I found this very interesting and thought i would share it with all of you. This is just copied and pasted.

Lighting (thread name)

On reading the earlier thread on lighting I though maybe is time for me to come clean on my non-conventional lighting setup on my display tank.

I am using 6500K daylight spectrum household compact fluorescent bulbs that screw into standard light bulb sockets. I look for them to go on sale at Walmart or Menards. If I find them on sale I can get them for ~$1.5 each. I think they are ~26 Watts with the claim that they are equivalent to a 100 W incandescent bulb. I use 16 of these over a 135 gallon tank along with two VHO Actinics.

For the first year I ran only the daylights and had ricordea and SPS in the tank. They all thrived, good color and growth. I slowly increased the amount of actinic over the subsequent years as I expanded the tank inhabitants to include representatives from every possible niche. LPS, anemones, SPS, Tridacna of all flavors and a few soft corals. All have been thriving. My current lighting has been in place for almost 2 years now. The 6500K Walmart daylight bulbs have been on the tank for ~4 years. This lighting was an experiment that proved to work well.

I have no objection to MH or T5 except for the cost of MH, to purchase and operate. I was really just looking for a cheaper do it your self thing.

For the first year or two when someone would ask me what type of lighting I was running I just said "it is experimental." I did not want to listen to various fish store employees or others tell me how wrong my lighting was and what I should not keep.

When I started in the hobby, a couple of days ago, there were no bulbs made for reef tanks. We used philups actinics with GE daylight, chroma 50s and If I remember right chroma 60s- typically in the 4' 40W flavor.
On my early reef tank I ran two HO 60W actinics with four 40 watt bulbs over a 90 gal tank. Nobody even sold wet/drys you had to make your own. And Imagine, I think there was only one protein skimmer manufacturer.

Sorry for reminiscing, my point is that we were able to keep our corals and other inverts alive and healthy using techniques other than the many "must have," without the current cliche' "you might sustain your coral but it will not thrive unless". Don't get me wrong we have come a long way but techniques seem to be "in fashion" until some new thing comes along. Few of the techniques I employ are considered current best practice. Though I am always looking for simpler, less expensive and more effective ideas. This forum has been a source of several - Thanks.

Mark

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here is a link to a recent set of photos of the tank. If you scroll through them the whole tank is shown in three consecutive photos. I think the link below is the first in the series.

Photo's of tank

I change the bulbs on a rotating basis and try to change them every 4 months to be on the safe side. They likely keep there spectrum a bit longer but they are not expensive. I have noticed that if they are older bulbs, maybe 6 months they are not as blue in spectrum as the fresh bulb. They tend to yellow with age.

These cheap lights do their job. I watch my corals to for indications that my water chemistry is good. They are my best indicators of whether my maintance, water changes, and such are lacking. I usually tell people that whether they have T5 MH or compacts they keep just about anything and that water chemistry is the trick. I have noticed some animals look better under the MH in my frag tank and vice versa for others but most things are healthy regardless of which tank they are in.

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I am not one for re posting something, but seeing this was on another forum i thought it would be ok. If any of you mods have a problem with me posting this please pm me.

[oddselection]

Cool, I've heard rumors of this but not any major success. Looking at what you've got, my dream 30gal will probably need to have 4 CF bulbs and two or three 15w atinic strips.

Luckily, I have the flourecent ballasts for the atinics, but I was wondering, can they be strung together to one cord?
Also, where can I find incandecent oulets or whatever they are?

[Mazzy]

Nice tank and great job on the lighting. I am not electrically inclined so I could probably never do it but I agree that you don't need the "latest trend" to get the job done. Because I'm not good with the electrics I did choose a
T5 fixture (full hood not retro). I bought it used and IMO got a really good deal on it. I personnally wouldn't go with MH cuz of cost and heat issues but that's just me. I hear they do make things look better.
I am just setting up my tank so I can't truly compare lighting effectively BUT I can say that the little zoa frag that a nice reefer threw into the bucket with the sand I bought from them does have a more flourescent look to it under the T5's as opposed to my PC light fixture (PC was 2x96 & T5 is 4x36 on a 50 breeder).
Anyway, congrats on the great tank and more cost effective lighting!!

[vvolfe1]

LOL a buddy of mine runs them too. I run 2 for my fuge but was not brave enough for the main tank. I've seen some of the frags the writer has posted in the past and they are very top notch. The piks of his tank shows mostly softies. I'd have to guess that coral placement would be more critical with this type of lighting. On the otherhand thats why people should research where there livestock lives.

[s13]

Any chance of getting a picture of the light fixture?

[jasno999]

Originally Posted by CollegeReefer

This is a post by a member of our reef society (madison reef society). I found this very interesting and thought i would share it with all of you. This is just copied and pasted.

Lighting (thread name)

On reading the earlier thread on lighting I though maybe is time for me to come clean on my non-conventional lighting setup on my display tank.

I am using 6500K daylight spectrum household compact fluorescent bulbs that screw into standard light bulb sockets. I look for them to go on sale at Walmart or Menards. If I find them on sale I can get them for ~$1.5 each. I think they are ~26 Watts with the claim that they are equivalent to a 100 W incandescent bulb. I use 16 of these over a 135 gallon tank along with two VHO Actinics.

For the first year I ran only the daylights and had ricordea and SPS in the tank. They all thrived, good color and growth. I slowly increased the amount of actinic over the subsequent years as I expanded the tank inhabitants to include representatives from every possible niche. LPS, anemones, SPS, Tridacna of all flavors and a few soft corals. All have been thriving. My current lighting has been in place for almost 2 years now. The 6500K Walmart daylight bulbs have been on the tank for ~4 years. This lighting was an experiment that proved to work well.

I have no objection to MH or T5 except for the cost of MH, to purchase and operate. I was really just looking for a cheaper do it your self thing.

For the first year or two when someone would ask me what type of lighting I was running I just said "it is experimental." I did not want to listen to various fish store employees or others tell me how wrong my lighting was and what I should not keep.

When I started in the hobby, a couple of days ago, there were no bulbs made for reef tanks. We used philups actinics with GE daylight, chroma 50s and If I remember right chroma 60s- typically in the 4' 40W flavor.
On my early reef tank I ran two HO 60W actinics with four 40 watt bulbs over a 90 gal tank. Nobody even sold wet/drys you had to make your own. And Imagine, I think there was only one protein skimmer manufacturer.

Sorry for reminiscing, my point is that we were able to keep our corals and other inverts alive and healthy using techniques other than the many "must have," without the current cliche' "you might sustain your coral but it will not thrive unless". Don't get me wrong we have come a long way but techniques seem to be "in fashion" until some new thing comes along. Few of the techniques I employ are considered current best practice. Though I am always looking for simpler, less expensive and more effective ideas. This forum has been a source of several - Thanks.

Mark

-----------------------------------------------

here is a link to a recent set of photos of the tank. If you scroll through them the whole tank is shown in three consecutive photos. I think the link below is the first in the series.

Photo's of tank

I change the bulbs on a rotating basis and try to change them every 4 months to be on the safe side. They likely keep there spectrum a bit longer but they are not expensive. I have noticed that if they are older bulbs, maybe 6 months they are not as blue in spectrum as the fresh bulb. They tend to yellow with age.

These cheap lights do their job. I watch my corals to for indications that my water chemistry is good. They are my best indicators of whether my maintance, water changes, and such are lacking. I usually tell people that whether they have T5 MH or compacts they keep just about anything and that water chemistry is the trick. I have noticed some animals look better under the MH in my frag tank and vice versa for others but most things are healthy regardless of which tank they are in.

--------------------------------------------

I am not one for re posting something, but seeing this was on another forum i thought it would be ok. If any of you mods have a problem with me posting this please pm me.

Do you have some pictures or do it yourself tips cause I woild love to try something like this. I want to eventually get a 70 gallon setup and I have found some that are not all that expensive but the lighting is killer. If I could make somehting like you have work it would save me so much money. How did you group all the bulbs together???

[TheOldSalt]

You are talking to nobody jasno. The article is a repost from another article written by somebody else who was never here on this forum.

If anyone else decides to try this, bear in mind that it will take a LOT of bulbs to do the job, so it's very important that you wire it up correctly in order to prevent fires and other failures. Such an assemblage must also be shielded from saltwater spray.

Corals grown from small frags have a good ability to adapt to whatever light is available. Dumping a wildharvest coral into such a tank is a gamble, but as mentioned earlier, good coral placement can work wonders for this.

Finally, remember to keep your bulbs fresh by frequent replacement. The corals already in the tank can get by for awhile on "stale" lighting, but any newly introduced ones would likely not make it.

I really hate to see this type of thing encouraged, because the last thing this hobby needs is a bunch of people failing at it and making us all look bad. However, people will always try stuff like this anyway, and although most of them probably fail, sometimes nifty discoveries are made. Please note that this guy made a lot of his own luck by knowing what he was doing ( he's a fragger, after all ) and by having the discipline to do it right with things like keeping fresh bulbs in use. Please don't go trying this unless you are prepared to do it right.

[jasno999]

Originally Posted by TheOldSalt

You are talking to nobody jasno. The article is a repost from another article written by somebody else who was never here on this forum.

If anyone else decides to try this, bear in mind that it will take a LOT of bulbs to do the job, so it's very important that you wire it up correctly in order to prevent fires and other failures. Such an assemblage must also be shielded from saltwater spray.

Corals grown from small frags have a good ability to adapt to whatever light is available. Dumping a wildharvest coral into such a tank is a gamble, but as mentioned earlier, good coral placement can work wonders for this.

Finally, remember to keep your bulbs fresh by frequent replacement. The corals already in the tank can get by for awhile on "stale" lighting, but any newly introduced ones would likely not make it.

I really hate to see this type of thing encouraged, because the last thing this hobby needs is a bunch of people failing at it and making us all look bad. However, people will always try stuff like this anyway, and although most of them probably fail, sometimes nifty discoveries are made. Please note that this guy made a lot of his own luck by knowing what he was doing ( he's a fragger, after all ) and by having the discipline to do it right with things like keeping fresh bulbs in use. Please don't go trying this unless you are prepared to do it right.

Thanks for lettign me know. I don't see the harm in doign something like this. It is the same as a high powered floursent system but it is just more complicated. I think it is actually a good idea in terms of saving money just a nightmare to put together. I am thinkign about gettign some books on electrical install cause something like this really does need to be installed and wired properlly. I might eventually try this when I have a bigger tank but that will not be for a while. Just seems a lot more econimical to do something like this instead of paying 400-1000 dollars for a prebuilt system.

[s13]

I have a fixture similar to this set up on my 10 gal. I just used a bathroom wall fixture which was extremely simple to wire up to a 8" wall plug. black to black, white to white (no ground). Here is a picture of the light output. (excuse the messy/dirty tank)




I am just using 3 15w 6500k bulbs with an "equal" out put of 160W but only uses 45w. The complete setup cost me maybe $35. After I started using this fixture, my coral got exceptionally healthier. Just don't burn your house down!!!

[jasno999]

Originally Posted by s13

I have a fixture similar to this set up on my 10 gal. I just used a bathroom wall fixture which was extremely simple to wire up to a 8" wall plug. black to black, white to white (no ground). Here is a picture of the light output. (excuse the messy/dirty tank)

I am just using 3 15w 6500k bulbs with an "equal" out put of 160W but only uses 45w. The complete setup cost me maybe $35. After I started using this fixture, my coral got exceptionally healthier. Just don't burn your house down!!!

How did you do the wiring of the bulbs and all? Where did you buy the bulb sockets and how did you wire it all up together???? I need soem pointers. Feel free to e-mail me

Jason_Crandall@Hotmail.com

[s13]

Update on my coral growth. Everything is doing good, the mushrooms aren't opened up all the way in the picture but man do they get big. The xenia is definitely showing major growth!