Refugium lighting??

[Rock-N-Ruin]

I just set up a DIY (old aqualan) 7 gallon (at water line) refugium, it is and is gravity fed and is about 1 foot above the main display.. current lighting is a T5 36" long/about 20" too long and 1 all glass 20" bulb, also have penn plax in the bulb collection, I was wondering if I could put a 150 MH abve it about a foot?? Peace, Jeff

 

[clayswim]

It depends on what you have in there. If you only have macro algae then you should have plenty of light already. I have a 10 gallon QT tank with chaeto algae that's flourishing under a 10W CF bulb from Home Depot. Obviously a halide would work, but it might be unnecessary.

Clayton

 

[CarlaW]

Gotta agree with Clay here. You should be fine with the T5. Unless you are gonna make a frag tank out of it, leave the halide off, it will just cost you more money.

 

[Blazer88]

I tried using 6500K 13W PC's with no luck. I found a 5700K CF 75W bulb from Fry's Electronics in Renton and it has been working great. I use one of the cheap round clip-on reflectors from Home Depot and it's been growing like a weed. My Chaeto has probably doubled in size within a matter of weeks. I didn't have any noticable growth when I was using the 6500K PC's. What color temperature is the T5?

 

[charlyclown]

As Clay said, about 1 Watt/gallon is about the right amount.
I use two PC's with 60 Watt total for my 45 G refugium. If it's planted, make sure you have high enough flow through it or the Chaeto will hardly grow. In my experience, that seems to be > 8 - 11 x tank turnover/hr. Do the math and/or measure with a bucket. 6700 K is pretty good, but I used successfully 4000 - 6000 K bulbs (cheaper), just make sure that you replace the bulb(s) every 6 - 12 months.

 

[Rock-N-Ruin]

my flow through the refugium is roughly 600 gph, it is fed from the main display by 2 maxi jet 1200, I think their 290 gph each, the fuge is about 8 gallons, I don't really want to stick another powerhead in my tank... I have 2 bulkheads in fuge, only one in use, had gurgling noise with both, due to lack of flow.. what do you guys think: is 600gph enough for that little fuge. Jeff

 

[charlyclown]

It all depends on the size of your display tank.
What is the size of your tank?
You can calculate your flowrate here:

http://reefcentral.com/calc/hlc2.php

Since your refuge is ~ 1 ft above the tank, you get ~ 190 GPH from each maxiJet 1200, with a total of 380 GPH or less.
Probably that's fine with a tank of 50 G or less.
For that size of tank, you probably don't even need an extra powerhead in the refuge. I have 1500 GPH flow through my 45 G refuge for a 100 G tank and I do not have any extra powerheads in the refuge - flow is really good

Probably, it's more efficient to just cover up the refuge if you have lots of turbulence since that's going to increase the CO2 concentration in the water and thus promote plant growth.
That's sometimes not an option if your tank temperature is already high (MH say hello here since it decreases water evaporation and can therefore increase the overall temperature in the main tank.

 

[Rock-N-Ruin]

Maxi Jet 1200 are 295 gph... I just looked at the box, I have about 8 in stock..Therefore I have 590 gph into fuge, would I have less commin out,if so I don't understand the physics of that...Jeff

 

[charlyclown]

295 gph is at 0 ft.
The maxiumum head for this pump is 69''. (see http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=AS1117) That means if you place your refuge 69'' above your tank, you will have 0 GPH flow. That's simply physics. See it that way: the water gets speed(energy) from the pump, that's in this case equal to 290 GPH. If you direct it then up, it's like throwing up a ball, it initially has high speed (here: 290 GPH given by your pump), but gravity eats it up until it eventually becomes 0 (highest point or maximum pumping height here). At 1 ft, you are at ~190 GPH, that means gravity ate 100 GPH from your flow. If there was no gravity, you would have 290 GPH and you could throw a ball up and would never stop (well, if there was no air friction). My return pumps have 2500 GPH at 0 ft, but since they have to pump up the water 4.5 ft up to the tank, I get only ~1500 GPH back into my tank.
If this was confusing, maybe this will help:
http://www.aquariumpros.com/articles/headpress.shtml
Again, http://reefcentral.com/calc/hlc2.php is easy and gives
you a good estimate.

Karl

 

[Rock-N-Ruin]

so since iam using 2 pumps, that puts me at roughly 380gph up stream, i understand what your saying,,, sorry about the misconfusion.....Jeff

 

[Rock-N-Ruin]

that does explain why 2 overflows made the toilet flushing sound, not enough gph. so i went to one overflow and tried it with one maxijet, but still wasn't enough, 2 works perfectly with one overflow plugged and one open, I didn't take into account for the 1.5 foot upstream for loss.. thanks for clearing that up for me.. I am not a newbie to freshwater/marine but when it comes to plumbing i sure am the king newbie.....again thanks Karl.. p.s. when I plumb my 100 for a closed loop, I may need some advice...Jeff

 

[clayswim]

I agree with Karl on the color temperature. 4500K to 6500K works fantastic for a couple of reasons. First, they have more red in the spectrum; which the plants will utilize much more efficiently than mostly blue. Second, the PAR rating is extremely high on lower temp tubes, which provides more usable light.

I don't think CO2 is a huge concern with macro algae. If I remember right most macro algae create their own CO2, just like many plants. In those cases they don't require supplemental gas.

Clayton

 

[Rock-N-Ruin]

Ok, I may have bulbs in that spectrum, if I don't, I have a 150 MH (i know we discussed this before) but it's old and it's an AQI ballast by PFO: one of the older ones, it's supposed to be good for growing out corals cause of the yellow spectrum. At least that's what Karla at PFO told me. If I was to put it about 18 inches above the algea, would that work for now??? just an idea, trying to figure out what to do with these old Halides and wouldn't mind trying this! Unless it's a no no. Thanks for all your help guys... Jeff

 

[clayswim]

Sure, it'll work. Most algae loves light, it just doesn't require lots of it.

Clayton