The official "What I learned at MACNA XIX" thread!

[melev]

One guy set up a cute little Pico in his room.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...9#post10791509

[vessxpress1]

Thanks for the compliments Marc! Great thread.

What I learned...

1. BIG +1 on the long stop lights in Monroeville. When leaving town, I bet we waited almost 20 minutes total, at 3 lights.

2. Stony corals may very well cease to exist in the wild, 'in my lifetime', because the pH of the oceans keep falling from CO2 absorption.

3. Bulbs last a lot longer than we thought. Some 20k bulbs actually increase their output in the red spectrum as they age and life can be extended by lowering the bulbs over time, if possible.

4. The future of LED bulbs looks to be limitless.

5. How important it is to set custom white balance on your camera and also how important good flash is to photography. Slave flash a must if the camera accepts it because all factory flashes are not good enough, reguardless of camera.

6. Clams can get anywhere from 200 to 300% of their energy needs from light alone and do not need supplemental phytoplankton at all, at any size , if light is sufficient.

7. There is no definitive answer on how much or how fast any particular species of clam will grow. Three clams spawned from the same cells from the same family, grown in the exact same location and conditions grew at 3 vastly different rates.

8. Despite a few hardy, deeper water species, few clams will thrive or survive, under flourescents alone and if you try it with any type, it is a gamble with the odds stacked against you.

9. In some countries, bristleworms are considered a delicacy and anemones have been harvested and fried up for human consumption.

10. And last ( but certainly not least)... I had an interesting discussion with Dennis from DT's. He was talking about their phytoplankton and how on reefs in the wild, many corals actually receive some nutrition from the vast amount of fish waste in the water surrounding them that can't be duplicated in an aquarium without having issues.

He said he had a discussion with Dr. Ron Shimek one time and learned that fish only digest roughly 10% of their food, meaning the waste is highly nutritious to other reef inhabitants. To enforce the point (of poor digestion) he said that a school of fish were observed in the wild, gorging themselves on a swarm of mysis shrimp, to the point where live mysis were actually exiting their rectums.

I have to say, after a long, serious discussion, that one caught me off guard and I laughed hard.

[Chong27]

I learned that i'm not the only addict, lol

Also learned that u really dont need to change bulbs as often as everyone says.

[jnarowe]

cool deal on the pico. I can't believe a 200g zero edge was raffled off...freak me out that would make a wicked clam tank!!

[agoutihead]

how does that zero edge thing work? does it just over flow on the sides like one of those infinity bath tubs?

[GreshamH]

Yup, just like a 4 sided infinity bath tub

[HBtank]

Originally posted by vessxpress1
Thanks for the compliments Marc! Great thread.



8. Despite a few hardy, deeper water species, few clams will thrive or survive, under flourescents alone and if you try it with any type, it is a gamble with the odds stacked against you.

Any more details? Did the amount, reflectors, type (PC, T5, VHO or even overdriven T5) and spectrum of bulbs selected not matter at all? Did the presenter say it was something inherent to flourecent technology? Because it seem the intesity debate is pretty overdone...

[vessxpress1]

Hey HB, the presenter was James Fatheree, an expert on clams. He did not go into detail on what type of flourescents, or which may or may not work. He did not deny that some clams from a few different species, would be hardy enough to survive under flourescents alone. But your chances weren't very good of finding one. He said there will always be exceptions to the rule.

As an example, he noted how in the wild, large groups of clams may be primarily found in 5 ft of water, with a few of them living in 25 ft of water. Theoretically then, you have to say the range of this type of clams goes down to 25 ft of water, but they were not in abundance at that point. In fact there were very few. So you have to take the information with a grain of salt.

The main point he was trying to get across was that MHs for clams was a can't miss proposition. While there would never be any gurantees using only flourescents over any species of clams.

He said he will be conducting a study this year at a university with multiple tanks, plumbed together using the same water.

The test occupants will be groups of the highest light demanding clams and the lowest. PCs, T-5s, T-5s with reflectors and MHs would be used. He said he will start them at the top in the beginning and then drop them down to the bottom towards the end of the test which they will run for a series of months. Growth will be measured weekly. He expects that some will not survive. He hopes to have the data compiled by next year's MACNA.

[HBtank]

Thanks for the info. I guess many of the people with the higher end T5's are kinda guinea pigs as well..

Thanks again.

[agoutihead]

I had the impression that T-5's were a totally separate lighting from compact fluorescent.

So in all actuality, they are just super-charged compact fluorescents?

[HBtank]

No, you were right, they are seperate. The form of the bulbs is very different.

[jnarowe]

GreshamH: Empty your mail box!! I just lost a long reply, and I doubt I'll ever remember what I wrote.

[bleedingthought]

How much were the corals/frags going for in comparison to say, your average LFS prices or even online prices?

[agoutihead]

when you say form, do you mean shape, or technology? (obviously T-5's are better technology, but is it of the same technology family as compact fluorescents?

[Conceyted]

Originally posted by bleedingthought
How much were the corals/frags going for in comparison to say, your average LFS prices or even online prices?

Generally they are very cheaply priced. However, this year I found them to be overpriced for what they had. Nothing I saw was extremely spectacular and I ended up going home with no corals simply because I saw nothing I liked.

[HBtank]

Sounds like my last 10 trips to the LFS. lol

But I bet they did not have 1-2 corals you did want that were marked "display only" though... I hate that...


I would have gone for the techie stuff and speakers anyways..

[HBtank]

Originally posted by agoutihead
when you say form, do you mean shape, or technology? (obviously T-5's are better technology, but is it of the same technology family as compact fluorescents?

Shape. THey are in the same "family" just like the ones you see everywhere..

[GreshamH]

Originally posted by jnarowe
GreshamH: Empty your mail box!! I just lost a long reply, and I doubt I'll ever remember what I wrote.

sorry Cleaned up a bit

[vessxpress1]

Originally posted by bleedingthought
How much were the corals/frags going for in comparison to say, your average LFS prices or even online prices?

On day one, I found a 3x4 Rainbow echinata that is really nice. The guy didn't have a price on it and asked what I thought it would be worth. We agreed on 80 bucks and that was easily the best deal I got. The rest were in line with what you'd normally see. I didn't find any steals.

[dbartco]

the good- open bars, coolers, prices, people

bad - crowded hallways and noise during speakers, changed speaker talks,

I learned:

- paxil works for fishies
- how much par and coral color are related
- LED's can easily cause temp blindness
- I still can't sing karoke!
- Natty Bo beats Iron City ale
- that getting out livestock from a zero edge tank reminds me of a Duece Bigalo scene...
- tons more to lengthy to list

[Conceyted]

- paxil works for fishies

care to elaborate on that?

[dbartco]

Mike Paletta talked about giving to his fish to sedate and catch an elusive fish (angel?). He did not give dosage in the talk.

[Spracklcat]

He actually said Prozac, another serotonin reuptake inhibitor.

[HDAlien]

For those of us who couldn't attend MACNA, what *is* the expected life span of bulbs before they should be replaced?

[Conceyted]

Originally posted by HDAlien
For those of us who couldn't attend MACNA, what *is* the expected life span of bulbs before they should be replaced?

Differs per bulb, but there were no numbers given as far as x amount of years. He even stated that each bulb, though they might be the same manufacturer and specs, had different responses. However, his study clearly showed that the par values rarely fell, and the power consumption grew as the bulb aged. He stated he doesnt change his bulbs in any less than 14 months.