Plasma Experiment

[Troy Valentine]

SYSTEM INFO

Tank: 60gallon Corner (41" at widest point)

Sump:Matt Monster Custom Acrylic

Return Pump: Panworld 40px

Powerhead: 1-Tunze 6045

Protein Skimmer: None, however I have a Matt Monster Needlewheel in the sump just in case things get too hairy.

GOAL
Use Dipan's DIY Plasma/Led fixture, pulsing Xenia, decent flow, and patients to bring a system back from the brink.

SYSTEM HISTORY

The current system was setup March '08. Its only purpose was to be a Xenia refuge. A hypnotic pulsating forest with as many Xenia species as I could find. The tank did well for years running virtually skimmerless, and completely self sustaining, with just a few fish to produce enough bio load to feed the system. However In the last 4 months I started getting massive diatom blooms, particularly Dinoflagellates. Try as I may I couldn't kick the bloom. I did everything from massive water changes, skim with an oversized skimmer, to change the photo period. I then read a post by a fellow Maastard about the trouble he was having with his TEK fixture, and specifically the ones without a build-in fan. It never crossed my mind that it could be the fixture, after all I just replaced the bulbs with 4 new ATIs 4 months prior to the bloom. So I added an external fan and that seemed to stop the bloom for a while, but the tank's health wasn't improving. The Xenia had stopped pulsing, and all the snails died within a matter of weeks. The ecosystem was breaking down fast. I needed a drastic change....
Proper lighting is key to any reef, and this would be a perfect time to experiment with a new type of light. A light that would produce a full spectrum similar to that of the sun. This would increase the metabolism of the system, and speed the recovery from the sandbed up, the smallest to the largest organism. Plasma/Leds would get this done for me. Also in my experience Xenia grows best under a 400 watt 6500k Iwasaki. This was as close to a 400 iwasaki you can get without the heat and electricity.

PAR READING

Due to the design of the parabolic reflector, and the placement of the Plasma bulb/Leds it changed the way the light was reflected. Instead of the light having the highest par under the point source like SE or DE bulbs. The highest incidence of par were found at the parimeter of the reflector. So I took reading from the center of the 19.5 reflector, also the front and rear of the reflector.

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For now the reflector is sheilded with an 1/8 sheet of glass. I plan on removing it in the future and taking additional par readings.

Huge thank you to Dipan for selling me the fixture, and allowing us to use his par meter. He's a real class act.