Beware the Shallows

[jedimasterben]

Nice Bass you got there ben, i love them guys.. been doing really fine with mine just getting chase alot by the orange-tail damsel that's all. You're wiring is out of control. i can not top that with you. lol

 

You should see my computer

[eitallent]

I had the same issue , Ben. It did not help my purple gorgs when I placed directly in strong flow (bending in the flow). It actually looked like it abraded some flesh off of them. When I moved them to an area with strong but not direct flow and upped my lights they seemed to do better. They are not out of the woods though. I bought these in my LFS and they had just come in from the gulf. So not aquacultured so prolly not gonna make it.

[Acielot]

You have a PM.

[jedimasterben]

I had the same issue , Ben. It did not help my purple gorgs when I placed directly in strong flow (bending in the flow). It actually looked like it abraded some flesh off of them. When I moved them to an area with strong but not direct flow and upped my lights they seemed to do better. They are not out of the woods though. I bought these in my LFS and they had just come in from the gulf. So not aquacultured so prolly not gonna make it.

I hope it makes it!

 

 

 

Hey everyone, guess what....

 

 

 

 

Of course, I managed to accidentally pop off half a dozen lenses, so I'm having to re-silicone them on, but tomorrow after work, she's getting hung

 

Also, I put the LDD boards inside the very top slot of the Makers. They'll not only be close to the LEDs, but they'll get airflow from the fans, so they'll stay nice and cool. Won't be easy if I need to change out one of them (the boards have a bit of silicone holding them in place), but shouldn't need to.

 

 

 

The tank was ok when I got home. That gorg looked even worse than it did yesterday, and my macros from ReefCleaners are all but dead, but they didn't really make the shipping. I don't know what is going on with them lately, but I've been ordering macros left and right without anything to show for it other than cactus caulerpa.

 

 

[eitallent]

I can mail you some macros, Ben. Let me know.

 

[jedimasterben]

 

That would be awesome! Let's see what I can do about this algae growth first, otherwise it may just get smothered. :/

[jedimasterben]

Tried to hang the lights just now... and the mounting system works exactly like I thought that it wouldn't. Packing up the whole thing to take to my parents' house to see if my dad can help me make something.

[jedimasterben]

Got it hung and up and running. My grandpa didn't put the eye bolts in the right places, so I was freaking out for a bit when I went to hang it up (my blood sugar also measured around 50, so that explains why I couldn't come up with a solution). My dad suggested just swapping around the non-eye-bolts and they'd line up properly and should hang without twisting. Got home ~30 minutes ago and BOOM!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The light is not perfectly level from front to back, but it is just a couple of degrees off, which I'm fine with.

 

As for looks, it's pretty damn awesome, but it shows how absolutely terrible I seem to be at planning and execution. Wires still running everywhere, not planning out where the power supply for the fans would go and where their wires would chill out, etc.

 

I also either didn't do my angle calculations correctly, or the angle of the heatsinks is farther off that I'm thinking it is, as the far left and right edges of the tank are dimmer than the center, and PAR is around 1/3-1/4

I changed the LDD that the arrays run on. PAR would have been astronomical with all 1000mA (700mA for the violet). I am running the four BXRA at 500mA each (in parallel on one 1000mA LDD), the 12 M at 700mA each (on three LDD), the cyan and blue Rebels at 1000mA (each their own LDD), and the HV at 700mA (on two LDD). I ended up only needing two LDD boards and only one 7.3A power supply instead of two, so that is nice.

 

As it is, with all the LEDs at 100%, it is a nice crisp white with a blue tint. The above pictures are damned friggin terrible. On top of that, I took the old lights down at 5:30 and didn't get these lights on until 9ish, so the corals were all closed and the fish were mostly asleep. Color banding is minimal, but shimmer is as expected with LEDs.

 

For PAR, measuring all LED strings at the same time, and not correcting, in the center 24" of the tank, it is an even 500 PAR, and the height of the sensor didn't seem to matter much, PAR only drops by 25 or so going from 3" under the water to 9" under. Going off-center from that 24" area, PAR drops off very quickly, going down to around 100-150 on the edges of the tank. The edges are noticeably dimmer, but edge-PAR is still better than most people's lighting

Overall, I'm happy, and it is definitely different and will take some getting used to, but I like it and it looks like a definitively positive change.

[jedimasterben]

Also, a liter of 1tsp kalk water doesn't make the pH budge. The water is also ridiculously murky, I tried mixing it and mixing it when I first put it in and it didn't really do anything, the water still looks a bit like watered down milk.

[metrokat]

Oh good you got the light all hung up. How are you going to clean up all that wiring and what is that doohickey on the one end of it? A fan?

[jedimasterben]

Gotta take it all down now. Wife hates the whole thing, which, after I got it ready to hang up, I expected. Looked great sitting on the table... hung up, not so much of that.

 

 

Basically just going to transfer it to a 'regular' plate heatsink and make a thin canopy to enclose it, maybe 3" tall or so.

[metrokat]

Your wife. She's alright Benny.

I was already on my way with a beating stick.

[Squared]

maybe you should try to put those wires in a sleeve or something

[jedimasterben]

Your wife. She's alright Benny.

I was already on my way with a beating stick.

 

Oh, don't get me all excited!

 

maybe you should try to put those wires in a sleeve or something

Nah, won't particularly help. The fixture itself is what looks like garbage. I could, theoretically, just wrap the heatsinks and mount with wood, but it would be a waste of the Makers heatsinks. Oy.

[MGDMIRAGE]

Looks nice, now all you need is a camera that can pick up the colors!

[Lalani]

Holy snickers, clean your counters!

[jedimasterben]

My wife had made dinner and was baking, she uses at least half of the dishes in the house to do both at the same time

[Lalani]

Geezus dude. Teach her how to cook.

 

 

 

[jedimasterben]

I don't particularly know how to, but I certainly don't use as many dishes

[Chadf]

See this aluminum sheet bent into a "U" with the bullard sticker on it. Would you want a piece of that to cover your light? If so what dimensions does it need to be?

 

[Giga]

Just use that brain of yours before you hang something. View each thing-even just hanging a light- as steps. This was you can break down each part of the fixture and come up with something great! I would show you what I came up with but done want to spill the beans on my project just yet. I'm sure you'll make something great!

[jedimasterben]

See this aluminum sheet bent into a "U" with the bullard sticker on it. Would you want a piece of that to cover your light? If so what dimensions does it need to be?

 

It wouldn't look worse than what I've got now

 

Just use that brain of yours before you hang something. View each thing-even just hanging a light- as steps. This was you can break down each part of the fixture and come up with something great! I would show you what I came up with but done want to spill the beans on my project just yet. I'm sure you'll make something great!

Yeah, I use the brain a lot, but it pretty much all goes into the LEDs themselves. Basically just gonna make a thin enclosure for it all.

 

 

 

Good news and bad news. Good news, the chalk bass are becoming less shy and are eating anything I put in the tank. The scooter is also eating mysis now. Bad news, the remaining Lori's anthias hid all day instead of being out and about, and would not eat. Le sigh.

 

Did a 100% rescape. Took out over 1/2 the rock in the tank, and put in one larger rock that I had in the tank before I acid bathed everything. That rock is large, but still perfect, looks awesome. I'm not 100% pleased with the scape as it is now, but it's damn close... at least what I can see of it anyway, I scaped until it got so cloudy I couldn't see what I was doing anymore.

 

These are the best I could get, photoshop wouldn't do anything with all the blue.

 

 

 

 

 

One more thing - I absolutely love having the light hang so high above the tank! I can put my head over the entire tank and get the top-down perspective without bashing my head on something!

[Squared]

If you ran it without optics, how low would it have to be to get the same amount of PAR?

 

Also, do you still have the tang? I like that tang.

[jedimasterben]

 

If you ran it without optics, how low would it have to be to get the same amount of PAR?

I never tested the whole thing without lenses. I'd imagine if I hung it 12" above the water and ran the strings high, I'd get good PAR. As it is, 500 PAR evenly across most of the tank, regardless of height, is ridiculous lol. Light spill from that would be pretty ridiculous, like my old array was. I really like running with lenses, as not only can I hang it very high to get a great top-down view of the tank, but

 

If I'm going to be changing anything on the light (remounting and enclosing), then I'm going to actually go with less LEDs. My 12x Luxeon M royals at 700mA are equal to 8x M at 1000mA, so that will reduce complexity and reduce the number of drivers that I need, and reduce the amount of CB needed. They'll only be a bit less efficient at the higher current (35% more light, 48% more power, 597mW per watt versus 545mW per watt).

 

Some renderings I've been working on in Adobe Illustrator. The Top layer is the LED layout, and the colored circles represent two things. The larger, black-outlined circles are the LED spread at the bottom of the tank when the light is suspended 18" above the rim. The smaller, white-outlined circles are the LED spread when the light hits the top of the tank.

 

NW BXRA, Ledil Brooke W (50°)

 

 

RB M, Ledil Minnie WWW (63°)

 

 

CB Rebel, standard 60°

 

 

HV LGB, Carclo Ripple Wide (44°)

 

 

And something, I'm considering testing out, putting Carclo elliptical lenses on the HV, would be 47° x 8° spread.

 

 

This is what the light spread looks like from them on a white LED:

 

Would keep almost 100% of their light in the tank.

 

Also, do you still have the tang? I like that tang.

I do not. I've tried three times, and they just stop eating after a week or two and die within a couple of days. I don't think powder browns are very hardy, may be one reason why I very, very rarely see them in tanks.

[Squared]

Sorry to hear that, and it sucks about the anthias too.

 

I see what you're saying about the optics on the LEDS...nice drawings.