The things I learned from Anthony Calfo

One of the benefits of serving as a local trustee or other board member role is that you get opportunities like this.  We went to dinner with Anthony and Randy twice and while the conversation was much broader than just reef tank stuff, we all got the opportunity to talk to them and get our questions answered.
Serving the club has benefits and if anyone has any interest in doing so, make your interest know!  We're always looking for people to help us out in a variety of capacities.
--AJ

 

I just bought some Reeflux 20K's for my build after you couldn't say enough good things about them in the bulb thread a week or so ago.  I'm looking forward to seeing them in action soon!
--AJ

 

Something that I learned from Anthony is that you should consider running multiple skimmers on your system. He said this for a couple of reasons:

1) After cleaning your skimmer, there's a break in period when it doesn't collect very well. Having a second skimmer collect during that time will keep your water quality better while the other skimmer breaks in again.
2) Different types of skimmers will collect different types of skimmate. A pin wheel skimmer will collect different kind of skimmate than a beckett or mesh wheel. He didn't say exactly why, but it stands to reason that it's because of how the bubbles are formed.

If you decide to put multiple skimmers on your system, you don't need to size them both for your total water volume. One should be properly sized and the other a bit undersized. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting recommendation.

He also mentioned that most aquarists don't understand the value and benefit of using ozone on their tanks. He also said that there's a lot of mis-information out there about ozone generators and that some of the hobbyist devices that are out there are not good. This goes hand in hand with your ORP readings as an indicator of general water quality. Kind of ironic since I know a lot of us discount the value of using ORP probes and generally ignore this number. Since I really don't understand this topic (aside from the very basics that Anthony was mentioning this weekend), I'll be spending some time researching this.

Great information. I got much more out of his talks and conversations this year than I did last year. Well worth the $$ to bring him in.

--AJ

 

AJ and Robyn, have either of you two used Radiums? Also, I know AJ's used XM 20Ks, but Robin, have you ever used XM 20Ks? It would be good to get a comparison from people who have used both!

 

Sounds to me like Sone has tried a greater variety of bulbs than anyone else I have heard from. I would ask his opinion.

--AJ

 

Agreed, Sone has listed all the top bulbs that he has tried and certainly has experience there, probably more than any other reefer that I know of. I bought Reeflux in the beginning (I used T5's on my 90 gallon before I went with the MH's on my 210 gallon) because I wanted the exact same look as a certain person's build on Reef Central. Ironically enough, that person Jeremy went on to work for Mike at Reef Specialty. I've never been dissatisfied with my bulbs however I have nothing else to compare to. I specifically wanted a crisp white with a blue tint.

 

Adam, if you want more blue, go with the XM 20K. They appear to be more blue and dim than the Radiums due to it being more blue. Personally, I like the Radium and I use 4) 54W T5s to tweak the color just to how I like it.   The graph below shows the output of both bulbs on an electronic ballast.  As you can see, the Radium has more PAR than the XM but the XM will have more blue.  Visit Sanjay's page to check out the different combinations.  Link

 

Yea I've been using Sanjay's link for a couple weeks but couldn't really make sense of it. I didn't really realize you can compare two different bulbs like that! So is PPFD equivalent to PAR then? Thanks for the help Sone!

 

Yes, PPFD is the measurement of PAR. I copied this from the FAQ on his page.

What is difference between PAR and PPFD?
PAR is the Photsynthetically Available Radiation which is all radiation between 400-700 nm wavelength range. It can be measured in several units. Just like distance can be measured in feet, meters, etc. PAR can be measured in different units used to measure radiation. When PAR is measured by the number of photons falling on a given area in a given amount of time, this is called PPFD and the units used are micromoles per meter square per second.