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Coral Vue Hydros

1500ma LDD with Lumia 5.2


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I planning to use some PCBs that support the 1500L meanwell driver. Given that two of the Lumia channels are rated at 1500ma, I was considering getting some of those 1500ma drivers. However, my concern is that the voltage must be 36v not 48v. I plan to run 3 PCBs each driving 2 Lumia 5.2s totally 6 Lumias. I was hoping I could just use 36v powersupply to drive all channels, rather than a 48v, but given that there are channels rated at 18v, that would appear to max out the voltage at exactly 36v. I am guessing I should not do that, but am very interested in thoughts?

 

If I was going to use a 1500ma driver, would I need to have both a 36v and a 48v powersupply(s)???

 

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jedimasterben

I'm curious how tall your tank is to actually need to run them beyond 1A, much less beyond 700mA, which is much more common.

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its 24", its not a matter of NEED really....though I will say that while the PAR levels of these lights are good, they still dont compare to when I ran 400w halides on a my 75g tank that was nearly all SPS. I was getting about 1200 par near the water surface and about 400 on the sandbed. even 6 of these on a 6 foot tank seems to get you only ~100ish par on a 24" deep sandbed....would you agree

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jedimasterben

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/343127-lumia-52-pics-and-par-readings/

 

32" total distance gives around 100 PAR, yes.

 

 

The current data available shows that more light is typically less efficient - the coral can only use a certain amount, and beyond that the coral has to expend rather significant energy to get rid of the excess light as heat.

 

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2004/7/aafeature

 

https://www.reefs.com/magazine-parent/2013-2/light-intensity-requirements-of-shallow-tidepool-coral/

 

https://www.reefs.com/magazine-parent/2014-1/light-intensity-requirements-of-tidepool-coral-part-ii-porites-lobata/

 

 

Personally, I prefer to hit around 120-150 on the bottom of the tank at full output, and only have it there for a few hours daily, the rest spent ramping up and down. This gives the corals that can handle more light closer to their peak energy intake, and the corals that can't handle the excess as well enough time with the light lower to keep them from spending too much energy in the xanthophyll cycle.

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Here is my 75g. You may very well be right on the too much light thing.

 

IMG_1896.jpg

Unfortunateley for me, my inexperience (this was my first aquarium EVER), I had the opposite problem that most people have. My tank was actually too sterile. My nitrate/No4 were nearly zero. Both registered zero on my Salifert kits (back in 06-07). My colors were washed out...growth was slow. So i thought it had to be not enough light. So i converted my lights to what my buddy had, whos colors were AMAZING. He ran 400w XM20k.. so i replicated his setup. In retrospect, my problems were simply not feeding enough, and the lighting I had prior was almost certainly sufficent. For that reason, I am confident that the 6 lumias with 100par should be enough now....but my thought was why not get some drivers than CAN put out a lil more par if i choose...thats all. At this point its probably more trouble than its worth. I dont want to have to run two diff power supplies.

 

This was my buddy's tank I was trying to replicate:

DSC04483.jpg

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