Whoa!! I Need To Get On Here More Often!!
Well I definitely don't give a damn about that substrate line, lol. It's almost been a year come this Fall, so the fact that there is a line at all is a sign of impressive diligence on my part, lol. I do agree however that otos can pretty much survive almost anything and when I give them algae wafers, forget about it!!! At night Ive seen them go crazy over those things, lol!
Now all you need is that glass ADA feeder. :biggrin:
Yes, I think you're right, but at the moment, I'm using ELOS vacuum sealed packets and my Rasboras go
crazy for it!
Beautiful tank!! Took me forever to read this whole journal. Lot's of ups and downs for your setup in the past year.
The reason I came across your post was because I searched GroBeam. Last week I purchased a GroBeam Ultima 1500, if you haven't heard of it it's the upgraded version of the 1,000.
I originally purchased one grobeam, problem being my tank being a 20 gallon long, it's 30" long. There is not enough spread with just one tile. Now that I received my second today, it is very bright!! Now keep in mind I purchased the tiles since I require high light to grow a HC carpet but am starting to think I went overboard.
I've been trying to determine the proper height above my tank. I have the same ceiling cable mount as you, and today mounted 12 inches above the water line, so 2 feet from the substrate total. I'm starting to think based on your results that 100% power is overkill especially on such a shallow tank. I think I'll run 50% for 3-4 hours, then 2 hours 100% then 2 hours back to 50%. Curious what you think at this point after experiencing the strength of these lights. Any advice would be great. Thank you
Did you get the dimmer? Can you add it later?
I'll try to reply to both of your comments at once; Yes, I don't run my 2 tiles at more than 80%
ever. I learned very early that I could achieve very high growth (at a high CO2 rate) initially, but that things would wind down precipitously after 6 months at which time I had to dramatically stop all liquid ferts and reduce the light intensity to 75% full time to avoid algae. Part of that rationale was related to the fact that my substrate was not Aqua soil, but also to the fact that the light intensity was driving everything in "overdrive" and to achieve equilibrium necessitated something having to give. In this case it was a dramatic reduction in biomass volume and liquid ferts (I dosed
nothing but K for weeks) combined with stability in CO2 concentration. I can't being to imagine what the 1500 tiles must be like, OMG! a 50%-100%-50% ratio would sound good though I'm tempted to recommend less depending on your biomass load. You really have to have a LOT of plants to accommodate that 100% photoperiod (depending on the duration and length of exposure)...It was very much a balancing act, but things have certainly balanced themselves out by now.
There is someone in the UK, George Farmer, who has the same lights. He took PAR readings and got 50 PAR @60 cm(or about 24inch) that's extremely high light. Just for your reference.
That's very true. I don't think I would ever run these at 100% intensity unless I absolutely had Aquasoil (and even then only in short, mid-day bursts, but never 100% of the time). Which is NOT to say that having 2 tiles isn't beneficial. I think that having the spread of light is more important, depending on the relative length of the aquarium (thus my decision to buy a second tile, though I didn't need the additional intensity, but spread of light to the furthest reaches of the aquarium).
I did not purchase the controller it's expensive. With two tiles you need two timers if you want 50% to 100% output control. You just swap the connections to the bricks and one timer will control the inner most LED's of both tiles and the other timer can control the outermost LED's of the two tiles.
The only info I was able to find about height was that George Farmer write up where he had two TMC 1,000's at 60cm. Keep in mind the new 1500's are even stronger!
I already have hair algae growth coming from my HC, it hitched a ride from the nursery. Snails too. My setup is a week old fyi.
Yeah, I won't
ever try 100% intensity again; the multi-controller is
WAY overpriced but I bought it and the initial set up is a REAL
PITA but once done, its effortless to maintain. Once you go LEDs like these, you never go back, IMO.
I swear by that thing and love it.
On topic:
Tank is looking great man. That fern was a monster!
Thanks. Yet that fern was a monster but this CO2 diffusion and circulation + the lighting is already making me look at it and wondering how long it will be before I have to chop it in 1/2 again, lol!! I hope this answers some of your questions and I'm happy to reply to whatever additional queries you might have; these GroBeam tiles have definitely convinced me of the value of LED lighting's ability to replace the wattage heavy CFL and even Halide lighting.