A Reef in the Sky...scaper

[Acrotrdco]

Wow! Your tank, corals, fish and of course lights are awesome. Very nice colors your getting. Is there anyway you could take par readings, with just one or two lights on? maybe try the one with 40 degree and then 70 degree. Reason I ask, is I have a 36x36x18, though most of my rock is contained to close to 24x14 or so. I dont think one would work for me, but think 2 will. I dunno if a radion (1) will provide what I need for SPS down to the sand. I would rather spend 1099 on two of these, than only buy one radion then need another.

Thanks!

You can see PAR reading here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2065954

 

[dweathers]

Your photos and tank is simply amazing. Please continue to update this.

 

[andyrm66]

THats with all 4 though right?

 

[Acrotrdco]

Looks great ...but with LED your sand looks red, purple and blue in real life?

A photo speaks a thousand words, so I'll let my photos answer your question.

I'm using my D90 to take 3 sequential photos showing you the difference (including shadows caused by shimmering effect), under three different color temperature, using the same shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

This will cause the first few photos to over-expose, but since I want to show you what it looks like under the dimmer 20000K color temperature, the color that I usually take my photo, I must make sure all my photos are taken at the same setting.

This is with everything turned on at 100%, color temperature about 8000K:

This is with white dim to 75%, blue stay at 100%, color temperature about 12000K

This is with white dim to 50%, blue stay at 100%, color temperature about 20000K

The heavy purple tint comes from the 420nm Super Actinic, to my eyes it looks very blue with a tint of purple, but to the camera it is very purple. I have not used any red LED chips in my setting.

 

[sahin]

Darryl: this is a genuine effect of the LED's. On the units Howard has over his tank, the LED's have lenses on them, are not bunched up together in a tight formation, are single colours arranged out and hence conquently, at certain levels, the sand or substrate will show the different colours of the LED's.

This is something that you cannot avoid with multi point light sources where the LED's in this example are spread out in a grid sort of pattern.

I believe this is where the Ecotech Marine Radion is really good in having the LED's arranged in a tight formation, so even though there is the red and green LED's they are quite close to the other LED's so as to not create this effect.

I know this because I currently have a modified ATI Sunpower with 5xT5 tubes and 24 Cree LED's. When all T5 tubes are on, the effect goes away.

I also had a previous tank where I supplemented the metal halide with Cree Royal Blue LED's and I would get blue lines dancing around. If I had other colours; I am sure I would have seen those colours dancing on the subtrate too.

Howard, has done a great job explaining the effect. :thumbsup:

 

[Reef_Noob]

The photos are self explanatory.
As I had said before taking photos of LED lit tank is a difficult task to get the natural colour out. Howard has done a great job taking near to natural photos.
And sometimes it does require some colour temperature adjustments of the LEDs to get this done.
I have T5 led tubes, one with true actinic LED and another with blue and purple mixed. Though the blue LEDs appear blue to the eye, in the photos it gets a purple hue.

Requires lot of patience and lot of photos with trial error to get the settings right to bring out true to life SPS pics under LED. Howard has mastered that!

I did a test on my tank too after I read this post. When looking top down there is a mild bluish tinge to the sandbed. But on a top down photo the tinge is quite marked. This is only the case when looking top down and it must be due to the refraction. Viewing the tank from front the sandbed doesn't show any of this and only the shimmering shadow effect. This has been a new observation for me and a learning experience. Thanks for posting this guys!

Colours of a LED lit tank is mind blowing when viewed directly. But on photos it's not appreciated as much.
I said it before, but have to say it again...Howard's corals look so ultra cool in his pics so one can only imagine how much better it will be looking when viewed in real!! Eye popping for sure!!

 

[sahin]

Requires lot of patience and lot of photos with trial error to get the settings right to bring out true to life SPS pics under LED. Howard has mastered that!

I can certainly attest to that. My old Nikon D70 cannot cope with the narrow blue spectrum of the Royal blue and blue LED's. Even with various white balance settings I cannot get close to what Howard is achieving.

Colours of a LED lit tank is mind blowing when viewed directly. But on photos it's not appreciated as much.
I said it before, but have to say it again...Howard's corals look so ultra cool in his pics so one can only imagine how much better it will be looking when viewed in real!! Eye popping for sure!!

I lost ALL my SPS due to Dinos and other issues, but at their peak they had the most beautiful colurs. :headwallblue: I attribute some of success to LED's, hence why I have a hybrid light system.

 

[sahin]

Requires lot of patience and lot of photos with trial error to get the settings right to bring out true to life SPS pics under LED. Howard has mastered that!

I can certainly attest to that. My old Nikon D70 cannot cope with the narrow blue spectrum of the Royal blue and blue LED's. Even with various white balance settings I cannot get close to what Howard is achieving.

Colours of a LED lit tank is mind blowing when viewed directly. But on photos it's not appreciated as much.
I said it before, but have to say it again...Howard's corals look so ultra cool in his pics so one can only imagine how much better it will be looking when viewed in real!! Eye popping for sure!!

I lost ALL my SPS due to Dinos and other issues, but at their peak they had the most beautiful colurs. :headwallblue: I attribute some of success to LED's, hence why I have a hybrid light system.

 

[Acrotrdco]

I lost ALL my SPS due to Dinos and other issues, but at their peak they had the most beautiful colurs. :headwallblue: I attribute some of success to LED's, hence why I have a hybrid light system.

Ouch what happened Sahin??!