Northeastgareef Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 Building another tank. Test fitting stuff up right now. I've used this design in the past and it worked great. Link to comment
emu1sive Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 Don't mind me. Just gonna sit here and watch. Link to comment
Northeastgareef Posted June 20, 2015 Author Share Posted June 20, 2015 Light fixture I made Link to comment
Northeastgareef Posted June 20, 2015 Author Share Posted June 20, 2015 2-stage filter rack. 1st section is skimmer and filter floss/ pad will go there. 2nd stage is where media can be put. I'm working on the inserts, they are clear plexiglass with holes drilled in them Link to comment
VW_TDI_02 Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 Can't wait to see it all put together. I'm interested in seeing how you mount the light. LED's can be a pain to light if you don't want to mount them to the ceiling. Link to comment
Northeastgareef Posted June 22, 2015 Author Share Posted June 22, 2015 Pics coming soon got it all put together and testing running Side detail Link to comment
VW_TDI_02 Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Just a heads up, you may regret going with that LED fixture. I have it over my freshwater tank (didn't have the 6500K version in stock then) and a few days ago I put it over the reef tank and it didn't look very good. When I raised it up like you have yours it looked much better but I'm not really sure how much you're going to be able to grow under that fixture. Still going to keep up with this thread. I've been tempted to take down my freshwater ten gallon that's currently using that fixture. Link to comment
Northeastgareef Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 I don't plan on trying anything too hard to grow first. I'd like to try some beginner corals that some ppl on this forum recommend on this forum that doesn't require extreme bright lights. The one I have shown I believe is 10000k whites and the blues are 400 something nm antic. Total power is 36 watts The corals recommend for me to try first was green star polyps, xenias and mushrooms. Any other recommendations would be great. If it's not enough I gave this some thought also about adding supplemented lights "diy" style. What's the most important combo of light spectrums to have good success. ? Link to comment
emu1sive Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 I say just throw a bit of everything in there and see if you get lucky Joke. I think that's a good plan, I started with a kenya tree, mushroom, and zoas. Link to comment
VW_TDI_02 Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 I don't plan on trying anything too hard to grow first. I'd like to try some beginner corals that some ppl on this forum recommend on this forum that doesn't require extreme bright lights. The one I have shown I believe is 10000k whites and the blues are 400 something nm antic. Total power is 36 watts The corals recommend for me to try first was green star polyps, xenias and mushrooms. Any other recommendations would be great. If it's not enough I gave this some thought also about adding supplemented lights "diy" style. What's the most important combo of light spectrums to have good success. ? I would look in the lighting section of the forum and there should be a sticky that describes the function of all the different wavelengths of light. Those are some good starter corals and they shouldn't need too much light. Kenya tree is another one that should be easy to grow. Also, while it says 36 watt, they don't run them that at full strength. The fixture is passively cooled and I don't see the heat sink being very large since the fixture itself is so small. The LEDs themselves are 3 watt LEDs but I would think they're actually running around 1-2W. Link to comment
righttirefire Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 So... here I go. Vw. I think that led with grow xenia, and mushrooms. I have a similar "Chinese/ebay" special over my refugium, 20 tall. No issues with the coral(xenia and mushrooms) or cheato. It puts out 1 watt per led. I don't have an awesome led over my main tank,24" fluval marine reef, 20 long. But grows LPS on my sand bed. Acans, torch, and hammer. Plus a bubble tip anemone. I think the $20 has been spend for the light. And you can have a couple months for tank dabbling before committing to a $200 or $700 light... personally I'm going Nano box quad... next tax season. But for $99 I'm happy with my light and evolution of my tank. Link to comment
VW_TDI_02 Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 So... here I go. Vw. I think that led with grow xenia, and mushrooms. I have a similar "Chinese/ebay" special over my refugium, 20 tall. No issues with the coral(xenia and mushrooms) or cheato. It puts out 1 watt per led. I don't have an awesome led over my main tank,24" fluval marine reef, 20 long. But grows LPS on my sand bed. Acans, torch, and hammer. Plus a bubble tip anemone. I think the $20 has been spend for the light. And you can have a couple months for tank dabbling before committing to a $200 or $700 light... personally I'm going Nano box quad... next tax season. But for $99 I'm happy with my light and evolution of my tank. Well if you go back and read what I wrote, I never said that he wouldn't be able to grow corals with that light. My original criticism of the light was actually how it made the tank look. The reason is simply that the LEDs are spaced very far apart so if you have them close to the tank, you can very easily see exactly where each of the blue LEDs are as it has a cone of blue light in that section. I also stated that when you raise it up as OP did, it lessens the impact of this and looks better. Assuming you read my original post then you would also have seen where I specifically said that I wasn't sure how much OP would be able to grow under the raised lights. Obviously raising the lights reduces the ability for the light to penetrate to the sandbed and without a PAR meter, we won't really be able to know. Regarding the 3 watt LEDs, that' simply a fact. They do not run the LEDs at 3 watts because they would simply overheat and would not last very long. Especially since it's a passively cooled fixture. A great example is with the Marsaqua panel. They go by a bunch of brands but they're all pretty much the same. Some have them labeled as 165 watt and others 120 watt. The only difference is what they're advertising. Both of them have 55 LEDs and all of them are 3 watts but they aren't run at 3 watts. They actually run the LEDs a little over 2 watts and that's where the 120 watt comes from (55*2.18 = ~120). The same thing applies to this fixture and maybe even more so since it is passively cooled. Those marsaqua panels typically come with two fans to keep them cool but the LEDs are also much closer together. I think it's safe to assume that this fixture has LEDs running around 2 watts each. I'm not really sure where that came from about the price of the light. I never recommended or even said anything about spending any amount of money on a new light. I'm happy you can grow corals with that light but I don't see what it has to do with OPs tank or this discussion. Link to comment
Northeastgareef Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 Sorry I know this topic has gone a little off road, and I'll ask for more info on this on another section on the forum for more in depth and do some more research myself. But all in all great info. Thanks Link to comment
Horerczy Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Regarding the 3 watt LEDs, that' simply a fact. They do not run the LEDs at 3 watts because they would simply overheat and would not last very long. Especially since it's a passively cooled fixture. A great example is with the Marsaqua panel. They go by a bunch of brands but they're all pretty much the same. Some have them labeled as 165 watt and others 120 watt. The only difference is what they're advertising. Both of them have 55 LEDs and all of them are 3 watts but they aren't run at 3 watts. They actually run the LEDs a little over 2 watts and that's where the 120 watt comes from (55*2.18 = ~120). The same thing applies to this fixture and maybe even more so since it is passively cooled. Those marsaqua panels typically come with two fans to keep them cool but the LEDs are also much closer together. I think it's safe to assume that this fixture has LEDs running around 2 watts each. To add further to this I have a version of the D120 that I put to a kill-a-Watt and found my fixture to only be drawing 102.3W at the plug at max output so sometimes even the 120W pay is a lie. Link to comment
VW_TDI_02 Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 Oh, I had a question about your lighting stand. How stable is the light? I'm not talking about will it hold the weight but rather does it easily rock back and forth? Say, if you happen to pump the tank and the light begins to swing a little? I've been looking for a way to hang pendant lights on a my 20 long and yours looks fantastic. Link to comment
Northeastgareef Posted June 27, 2015 Author Share Posted June 27, 2015 It does rock back and forth, but it was a quick route to get it going, I plan to add more stable mounts to the light lasted on, but I may hold off and see if this light will even do what I want it to do before investing maching time into it. Link to comment
VW_TDI_02 Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 It does rock back and forth, but it was a quick route to get it going, I plan to add more stable mounts to the light lasted on, but I may hold off and see if this light will even do what I want it to do before investing maching time into it. Gotcha and like I said, so far it looks great! I'm excited to see how it looks with some rock in there. Link to comment
Northeastgareef Posted June 29, 2015 Author Share Posted June 29, 2015 Well here's the tank set up and running. 12 pounds of live rock and 10 pounds of aragonite. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.