Jacob’s Blog

I finally got my second Aquamaxx 14k bulb… just in time for the first one to shift to purple :(

I’ve only had the first bulb in use about 100 days before it changed from a nice blue spectrum to this purplish pink. It flickers sometimes and shifts back to blue~ish then back to purple again later. I’m frustrated and wish I hadn’t just purchased a second one of these bulbs, I’m hoping it was just a fluke. Here is a picture of the tank with the Aquamaxx bulbs on the ends and the Iwasaki in the center. You can’t really tell from this pic but the bulb closest to the camera is looking all violet right now. I’m talking to Marine Depot about the bulb and weighing my options…

Lighting Installed

It seemed like the day would never get here… but finally I have my lights running. Although I won’t use them until my air exchange system is completely running I do have pictures to prove their existence to all of my non-believer buddies! I would have liked to have these up and running about 4 months ago but a few design changes and minor set backs held me up.

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Not much progress to report on the tank, “real work” and other projects at home have been keeping me busy. I did change my mind on the lighting setup. I was planning on running all T5’s but decided to go with halides at the last minute. My bulb choice was the Iwasaki 175w 15k. I’m running them on the new model Icecap 175w electronic ballasts. The spectral data and PAR numbers can be found on Sanjay Joshi’s site here.

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Aquarium Lighting

So far most of the decisions in this project have been tough ones to make, lighting was definitely no exception! My current tank setup uses T5 high output fluorescent lighting. The only lighting more efficient right now is LED, which is very new technology, and very costly. Although I did consider metal halide lighting I recently settled on an 8×39w T5 setup by Icecap. Under normal circumstances the lamps are 39 watts each but the Icecap ballasts really get them cooking at 60w each. The Icecap reflectors are among the best made right now, making this a powerful and very efficient setup. Below is a drawing, looking down on the top of the tank, that shows the layout I’m planning to use (click image for more detailed view).

Lighting Arrangement (Click for detailed image)

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