Coral lighting project

#1
Hey MASC,

I am doing a project in stats where I have to compare variables using a data set over 30 and test a hypothesis. I did the project already using lame text book data but since it isn't interesting I thought I would do something cool, measuring lighting vs coral growth in Colorado. Would you guys be interested in participating? If so I have 3 simple questions (you can expand as much as you like) to post or PM me if you like:

Watts per Gallon:
(Total watts of lighting / Display lighting)

Coral growth:
(avg amount of heads of Zoas and mm of SPS per year, or just 1 you know but please specify which)

Main type of lights:
(Led, MH, T5, other?)


If you have any questions feel free to ask. I understand there are some kinks to this, like exact measurement of coral, but I figured as hobbyist you have a good idea of your growth (plus the stats will polish the numbers to normalize the data as long as I have 30 participants and there is reasonably true data given, so if your off my 1mm or 1 zoa head it will resolve). Also I understand there are 100's of other variables many including water quality measurements, flow, etc.. but this is just one step of hopefully many as a club. If it works out we can collect lots of data!

Thank you very much,

Bill




Copy and paste this :

Watts per Gallon:


Coral growth:


Main type of lights:
 

sethsolomon

Hammerhead Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
Watts per Gallon: 5




Coral growth: 2-3 inches of sps every 6 months ish




Main type of lights: 2x 250w Halide 2x 50w blue LED supplement
 

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
I use a pair of 250W HQI and a 150W HQI over my standard 120G. 250s are 14K Phoneix and 150 is 20K Radium.

My acros about double in height and quadruple in branch length about every 5-6 months - growth is exponential, not linear.

I just measured my RR Flaming Yellow Orchid. .5 inch frag in Oct 2013 - it is 2" tall now with 9 branches all over 1" long. I guess that this is about 11 total inches (2 inches for the main and 8x 1 inch for the rest).

Might I suggest that you use PPFD from Sanjay's Light Site instead of watts per gallon, where you can. Then divide by square inches of surface area of the tank.
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/lighting

Mine (14K Phoenix DE on M80 ballasts) put out 87 PPFD (average) for the 250s and 47 PPFD for the 150W Radium. This is 221 total PPFD. My tank is .1918 PPFD per square inch.

For some baseline, a Kessil A350W has about 17 PPFD. A EverGrow/Reefbreeders 120W has about 21. A Radion Pro 15 has about 20. AI Sol Blue has about 20. ...all at full blast, which few people use. These were tested with an integrated sphere.
 
#4
Thank you for the reply's! Both of you are going to be above the standard deviation or two for sure! Jda, I will make an account so I can read the guide but from what was available was really helpful. I will attempt to make a reference guide so others can easily convert at a glance to get their value. Hmmm, if we can control the first variable (watts per gallon) to contain the differentiating value (type of light) together numerically we can change the comparative value to something more interesting than type of light..... Let me see what I can come up with :)

I guess we will have to make this fun and post pics if "ya got em" and Ill have to add a DBTC. Winner chosen by a random number generator of course :) So keep em coming!! (Please!)

I will have to check what the rules are on using my data as far is it being random but Ill post anyway:

Watts per Gallon: 4 (will update with PPFD if I work it out)

Coral growth: 1" of sps every 6 months, zoas grow about 3-6 heads per 6 months.

Main type of lights: Red Sea Power compact T-5 55wx2 and 1 ft of Illumilux led 6 cree XPE's.

Ill post up the DBTC when looking for comparison pics.
 
#5
DBTC Choice, CRW's Rainbow Prism Pallys

[attachment=68106:name]

Its the one left of the Orange Bam Bams and the winner will be randomly selected Dec 1st for anyone who participates is the data collection. It is a hearty coral that looks amazing with decent flow. If the winner already has it ill find something else in my tank they don't :)

Please help a guy out! All data will be anonymous on my paper although I will have a special thanks note to M.A.S.C. You can also PM me your data or ask questions if you like.

Thanks again!!

-Bill
 

zombie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
3.84 watts per gallon LED

3" per year for acros and millepora, 8" per year for digitata, zoas colonies multipy 8-16 times population every year
 
#8
Thanks, very cool! I thought we had more people with tanks LOL. I was barraged on Reef Central for asking the same question, and I asked for suggestions and was told to do a tang hand caught environmental impact study instead!!! I am going to take it local and randomized by you guys if I can get 30 sets of data that is....:)

So If you are thinking that the data is rough, you are right, it is, but after doing 10 or so double variables, if this one works out, we can really make some high quality assumptions then test those if we get serious about it. For now all I want this to be is fun, while I do a project most people are dreading, and for you guys. It is not a contest and no answer is wrong. The data in 30 sets, if normal, should already dictate 2% (60% of one person or 0.6 people) of us cant keep coral alive, LOL.

Thanks again everyone!

Bill
 
#9
400w hqi mh at 14k over 30 gallon frag flat.

Comes out to about 13.3wpg give or take for water volume displaced by rocks and the frags themselves.

Have seen phenomenal growth per my light cycle. SPS that I can manage to keep alive I have seen grow 3 inches in the last year. Zoas double colony size almost every two months and my frogs spawn and hammer I see new heads every 4 to 5 months, acans about every 3 months months I see a new head or two. My bubblegum monster chalice went from 3 eyes to about 40 (lost count when it all started to blur together) in the last year
 

J.guokas

Cleaner Shrimp
M.A.S.C Club Member
#10
4.25 watts per gallon (radion over a 40 gallon)

When my tank was at it's prime and not neglected I was seeing new zoa heads at least every week to couple of weeks. Sps that I could keep track of were growing about 1/2 and inch every 2-3 months.

Ecotech radion.
 
#11
Very cool thanks for adding some data sets and the PM's as well!! I've got so much HM, papers and test to do right now its crushing. I will be cutting off the data in about 2 weeks, that will give me 3 days to compile all our data and make my Stats report. Right now we need 20 more data sets just to make it work, I'm sure we will get them there is a lot of tanks and great people in this club.
 
#13
Thank you!

I showed my prof the stats so far, he said it was looking great and gave me ways to deal with data issues on the growth variable. Keep em coming please! I know its just something that might not look so amazing and who cares but if this goes well we can add the other variables in later to get some linear data. If not, its just an easy DBTC, which I am going to have to add some more to :). Only 17 more to go!
 

MuralReef

Administrator
Staff member
M.A.S.C Club Member
M.A.S.C. B.O.D.
MASC Vice-President
#15
Watts per Gallon: 4.07
Growth: fast growing SPS 1 cm every 2-3 weeks Slow SPS 1cm every 4-6 weeks zoas and palys new heads every 1-2 weeks
Lightning: 5 250 watt HQI 4 14K Phoenixes 1 10K Ushio. 4 54 watt T-5 2 purple 2 blue
 
#16
Thank you very much for responding! Anyone else wish to join, were halfway there with 15 more to go!! Time is unfortunately a factor, the 2nd is the cut off for data collection. So if you want to be part of science, get on the cool boat now!
 

Miah2bzy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#17
Coral lighting project

4.6 watts/gallon 2x150w phoenix 14k de on my 65 gallon upgrade
Zoas and palys averaged 1 polyp every 10 days and 2-3 polyps on the frags that were 6+ every 14 days on average.
I had just started sps when I took down the tank.
Previous 30 gallon tank before upgrade: 120 watt full spectrum led
Zoas and paly averaged 1 polyp every 20 days or so, larger colonies 1 polyp every 12-14 days.
I know my tank husbandry wasn't great on the 30 and I saw a big difference when I added my ATO on the 65.
 
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#18
Sweet!! 14 to go!! BUT ONLY 2 days left!!! I added some sweet bam bams to the dbtc list for your efforts!! If I get all 30 I can start the project Wednesday giving me one week to calculate my *** off. If I don't ... Well I don't want to think about that. But either way you guys get sweet coral.

Remember the data is submitted totally anonymous, you can pm me or email me directly ghxst7@gmail.com. I am sort of perplexed at the moment why we have so many tanks, great people, active members and b.o.d. in the club with so few willing to spend 2 mins for so many great reasons??!!! Yes I'm calling you out! Maybe it's because I'm not a badged member? Help me fix that!!, 14 more members post, pm or email me and I promise to get badged immediately! !!! Omg fun

THANK YOU!!!!
 

zombie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#19
Given how much more data you need and how little time you have, I would post in reefcentral or reddit to get a larger audience.
 

TheRealChrisBrown

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
ex-officio
#20
I'm at 1.8 wpg

Zoa colony tripled in size from March - August, other paly growth was slow like doubled in size in 12 mos.

LED's, AI Hydra52.
 
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