Hey where is everyone at the frag swap?

[Graham]

I found this interesting:

Originally Posted by HFG

T-5s do not loose intensity or spectrum over time.

That is just not possible. Color shift might be minimal, but how can there not be intensity loss? They operate on the same principle as any other fluorescent light.

[Sea monkey]

Originally Posted by HFG

The, "T-5 aren’t intense enough for clams or SPS."-thing is BS. T5s with the right reflectors , have a load of PAR.

i have to agree with this statement from my own experience. while this is no scientific test or anything visually my 8x54 (432) watt T5 fixture is both brighter and has a much larger light coverage than my 2x250W MH's

in the t5 fixture i am using all cheep $10 GE 65K HO T5's and they are not over driven. not sure what ballast they use but here is a link to where i got the fixture. http://www.customaquatic.com/customa...dexid=lt-t5-sy

I am using a 500W 2x250w PFO ballast for a XM 10k bulb and a Iwasaki 65k

*Note* the 500W MH ballast cunsumes 13% more power than the T5's 432W ballest

*edit* . after posting this i did notice the t5's are a few inches closer to the water......

[Sea monkey]

Originally Posted by JnS

well lets see them

ok : )

the factory was way more impressive than i could have ever imagined . they said they do about 6000 packages on a slow day and have a 12,000 package capacity. they have 120 phone operators on site and more off site in case they lose power/phones at one location and they do over 50% internet sales ..... when a invoice is pulled they scan it and then scan a plastic tub . the tub is then tide to the order and starts down the line . at each station each tub is scanned and allowed to move on , if the computer says it needs something from the station it pushes it in so a worker can find the item in one of the three or so lanes in their station , put it in the bin and send it on to the next station. they said that 20% of the items they have in inventory make up for 80% of the sales so they made this thing called the green monster. When a bin gets to it the worker scans the bin and then on the selves behind them a red light lights up telling the worker what they need, when they take it out the next red light turns on showing them the next item .... the whole thing is really impressive .

they put this in four years ago and before it they just had a ton of people running around looking for items all over and could only do about 4000 items a day. With the same amount of people they can do 12,000 now meaning they increased working productivity by 300% ...... that's just insane.

also no employee is exempt from warehouse work . that means Internet designers, phone operators, managers .... everyone has to work in the warehouse now and then .

[Sea monkey]

here are two pics from the outlet store they had open to the public.





they had fish tanks everywhere, in every building but these two were the best by far.

[Sea monkey]

the aquaculture facility was super neet . its a series of 18 tanks split between two floors . each floor has three tanks in three rows lined up end to end. tanks are about about 3'x5'. each tank has two 400W DE HQI lights on track movers. They said they used these to avoid having to use 3 or 4 lights. eliminate hot spots and limit the amount of cooling needed.


Each tank has about 6 inlets for return water and what looked like two 4 inch pvc overflows.



they keep the tanks on a 12 hour light cycle and as one floor turns off the next turns on so the PH is stable. there is also a quarantine room where they keep all the corals for a while to make sure they are not sick and to treat them if they are. One tank in there was using T5 lights to help them get used to bright lighting before they move them to the 400 DE HQI's



each series of 6 tanks(three on top, three under) has its own filtration system. 3000 pounds of live rock. a 6-7 foot tall skimmer , large calcium reactor , kalk water for top off, ozone, a home type air conditioner for a chiller. sure I'm missing some stuff here , feel free to fill us in if i'm missing something.

[Sea monkey]

well that's it , hoped ya enjoyed my internet mini tour of their plant : )

BTW I'll post new pics of the t'5 VS MH when i get my camera back

[Amand]

Wow thats a pretty impressive setup. Has anyone heard if it will be open to the public at all. Or if this was just a special occasion because of the frag swap

[HFG]

Did you have to take a picture of the fat man touring the warehouse!?!?!



I am pretty sure that he said t5s neither loose intesity or spectrum shift. He explained how T-12 and T-8 have a burn off. Its importiant to remember T-5 really only have no connection to the technology of T-12/8. Thats importiant in understanding spectrum and life of the bulb. For intensity its the thin profile and reflective mathamatics. Thats as far as I can understand, from there I just have to trust folkes results... and my handy par meter.

Jerry has the audio files and the word doc for the Ice Cap presentation; best to read the stuff yourself. .

On a side note. I have 2 atinic, one blue something and 3 days GE. I swiched out 2 of the Days for 6500k Suns and it bleached both my SPS.

Bah, back to work

[Fahz]

OK now that the pictures are out of the way, which they may not be to happy about by the way. If you want to find the primo corals look at there Divers Den area. Steve and I got to cherry pick some pieces, lets say we didn't have enough money to buy everything we looked at. Since they are just starting out the selection is only going to get better.

Fahz

http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden...3635&subref=AD

[Sea monkey]

Originally Posted by Fahz

OK now that the pictures are out of the way, which they may not be to happy about by the way

i asked if i could take pics at the factory and they said no problem so i assumed it was ok at the coral farm. i took the pics above at the farm and then the tour guide poked me and said they would rather i didnt take any more : ) was't a big deal , i would have deleated them if they had asked.

[Fahz]

Sea Monkey no problem I just know they were concerned about a lot of their technology, as it is a lot of original ideas. It was really a big deal for them to share this with all of us. Even the warehouse, no one gets into so you got to see something special. If you were at the banquet you heard this is a first for a big company to put something like this on. It was a real honor to work with them on this and pull off some think that was just an idea in less then a year.

fahz

[JnS]

I did not see anything in the pics that are differnt from other aquaculture places....what is the new technology?

HFG- do you have writen permission to put the audio files up? just want to be safe