Wasga

I just thought I would share my new frag. I have never seen anything like it. Its yellow with orange polyps.

I have done that with my JBJ ballast. I had a dual 96w pc ballast which I turned into a 4 x 39w setup. I wouldnt run 2 x 54w. The ballast may not be able to power the 104w of t5 bulbs. It will easily light 39w bulbs though, actually it will overdrive them.

I have used Red Sea salt before. Most of my levels were the same as they were when I was using IO salt. The corals all seemed to look the same. I decided to stick with IO because I could get the buckets which are better than using the bagsor those jugs. Most of the time, the diferences in salt mixes are minimal.

I finally had some time to expiriment with those ballasts. I got 2 pairs of endcaps and 2 different T5 bulbs. I tried a 24" first to see if it would even fire. All looked good. To my surprise, the 24" T5 produced a brighter light than a single 96w PC. The bulb seemed hotter than normal though. The next bulb was a single 36" T5HO. Again, it fired right away and was super bright. It was definatly better than the one of the PC bulbs and possibly as bright as two. After doing some rewiring, I decided to try 2 x 39W T5HO. Again, both fired and the light was brilliant. The bulbs were still a little hotter than I thought they should be. The 24" bulb surprised me the most. It seemed brighter with this setup than it did in the old T5 setup I am currently using. There was only one way to confirm this. I pulled my old retro setup out of my tank and checked the bulb with my old ballast. It was noticably dimmer. The bulb was just as hot as it was in the new setup when I was done, so I didnt worry about how warm the bulbs were anymore. I guess that was normal. I let the ballast run for a while to heat up. The ballast never got too hot to touch. The enclosure that it is in also has a fan on the end and airvents along the top. I dont see heat becoming a problem. As far as I'm concerned, the "engineer" that I emailed about this is an idiot. He told me that it wouldnt work at all. I sent him a picture of the "Dual 96W PC Ballast" firing 4 x 36w T5HO bulbs.... no reply. Now I have new lights and all I have to worry about is burning down the house.

I am also willing to donate. I have a dual 96w pc ballast and a berlin skimmer with no pump. I also can give you a cup of live sand and some macro if you need some.

As far as the lights... I would run the MH for 6 hours. I never had MH on that small of a tank but on my other tanks I ran them for 6 hours with the actinics coming on first then halides. The halides shut off first with the actinics shutting off in pairs to simulate sunset. My LED lights stay on 24/7. My total light period lasts for 12 hours.

I was trying to remember where I saw the tank with the external overflow. It wad Dhogan's tank. Its a nice idea and would save room in your tank. The only problem I could see is, it has more seams to leak from. It shouldn't be a problem if you know what you're doing when you silicone everything together. Thats the chance you have to take. I would rather have the overflow on the inside of the tank and let the bulkhead do the sealing. The overflow doesn't have to be big at all. It can be about the size of a cassette tape case. The only thing you need it to do is surface skim and keep your tank from back feeding to the sump. The only other thing I thought of is the drain. If you don't have a standpipe of some kind, it can get noisy. You need to design your overflow to allow enough room to add something if you need it.

You could always drill the back and make a small box inside the tank to surface skim. Something like this.

Hey John, I just reread your first post. I live right down the street from the school. I didnt realize thats where you worked. I have some used powerheads, a heater, and a 12g acrilyc tank that you can have. It never hurts to have backup items. Also, if you would, can you post more info on your tank in the forum. I'd like to know what kind of lighting and filtration you have and what you might need. This would let everyone know what to donate.

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If you have enough room in your sump, you can fill it with LR and keep it out of your display. If you do this you need small porous rocks.

Yay! More FR people. Welcome to WAMAS. When your tank gets ready for corals shoot me a pm and I'll see what I have to give you.

I emailed JBJ to see what they have to say. Hopefully they can give me a straight forward answer. The 432 bit is giving me the same info I already found. 4 bulb by 32 watts, hence the name 432. This is for T8 bulbs. All I want to run is a measley 78W of T5 which shouldnt be any different than the 96w PC that it was running. I'll just have to wait for JBJ to get back to me.

Im not sure... I know you can use an icecap ballast to power almost anything. I know that PC's are just T5's folded in half. Bulb diameter and 2 pins on either side are the same. Maybe I should just get an endcap and try it. The UL spec for that ballast show it as a T8 ballast. Most of the t5 ballast have the same ratings and voltage. I guess there's no harm in trying. I would like to run 4 x 39w T5HO actinic along with my 250w 10k XM. If I cant get these to work I'll just go get another retro.

I have two of the JBJ Model#TSS-196PBX ballast. The ballast are in a dual 96w pc ballast housing. I want to know if I can use them for a retro T5 setup, or should I just run PC for my actinic suppliment. Any info is welcome. Pic of the ballast.