A Reef in the Sky...scaper

[canyousee]

Acrotrdco sweet set up love the tank, you have done wonders in such a small area. You seem to be the MAN in regards to MaxSpect LEDs I'm setting up a 300 gallon tank that is 30"wide ( front to back) 23"deep and 96" long I will be moving my animals from my 125 gallon tank a mix of sps lps and softies. Do you feel 2 of the G2-230 without optics would cover the tank? Also will the tank mount rails stretch far enough to work on a 30" wide tank? Thanks for the thread and info.

 

[Acrotrdco]

Wow - excellent build thread and great skill with the D90. Can't wait until I can get my reef running and I can try out my micro 70-180!

Thanks

As I'm setting up my tank, I'm obsessing about lighting right now. It looks like you're able to swap out LEDs at will with your unit. Is this due to your relationship with the vendor or is this a custom unit (forgive me if you've answered this already)? Your units look really slim which is great! How is heat? I have a bit of a challenge with canopy space on my 58 gallon oceanic - I'll need to redo it if I want to have any available space between the lighting and the water surface.

All Maxspect fixtures are built with a 3-pin connectors so that bulb replacement is simply plug-and-play, anyone can swap bulbs themselves. If you read the Maxspect thread you'll know more, it's pretty convinence and I'm seeing some other brand name starting to copy that idea, which is kinda weird isn't it, an idea coming from a Chinese manufacturer that other vendors are starting to copy LOL.

I don't have any issue with heat, the active fans are cooling the fixtures enough so I never have to worry about it, even in the hot and humid summer here in Hong Kong.

I live in the states and the latest and greatest we have are the Aqua Illumination SOL units. You may not know the answer to this, but perhaps others might - do the SOL units offer the capability to customize the LEDs beyond just the blue and whites?

On a separate subject; what are you using for lighting control?

The answer for AI Sol, is simply no, their Cree bulbs are soldered in groups of 3 onto a PCB and there's no way to swap to different color. In fact, if one of the 3 bulbs ever get burnt, you can't replace the single bulb, you need to replace the entire group.

The fixtures I'm using come with timer control on 3 groups of LED only, it doesn't have dimming and USB connectivitiy but at that price, I'm happy with what it's got.

Acrotrdco sweet set up love the tank, you have done wonders in such a small area. You seem to be the MAN in regards to MaxSpect LEDs I'm setting up a 300 gallon tank that is 30"wide ( front to back) 23"deep and 96" long I will be moving my animals from my 125 gallon tank a mix of sps lps and softies. Do you feel 2 of the G2-230 without optics would cover the tank? Also will the tank mount rails stretch far enough to work on a 30" wide tank? Thanks for the thread and info.

Actually, you'll get a lot more info reading this thread started by gambit, he's the guy who had been using Maxspect for over a year and he's the guru

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1817995

Your tank is HUGE dude! :lol:

For your tank which is 8' long, if you're going to use just 2x 230w you'll need to hang it a little higher up (like 8-10" above water) to cover the entire 96"x30" area.

By doing so, however, and without using optics, while it could cover the entire 96"x30" area, you should be putting your SPS on the top of your rockworks, ideally under the 30w bulbs to receive the most light.

 

[chriso316]

Had an ati powermodule in my shopping cart, read this thread, ended up with 8 cree Royal blue, 8 cree blue, 8 3w violet and 4 red replacement leds. Love your tank mate keep it up

 

[AlainD]

hi acro,
i post two times the question on the maxspect thread, but i have no answer.
Can you give me what you think.

i have a 48"x18"x24" tank and i have two g2-160w with 60 degree optics and 30w led. I keep sps on the middle of my tank. My soft coral are at the bottom. My last fixture was an ati with 6 t5.
How high i have to put my maxspect if i want to have good par with all the semi led on and not burn the sps when the 30w are on.
And how much time do you recommand the 30w to be on. I now that you light your 15w for 5h. But whit the 30w ?
I have the 60 degree optic for 2 weeks now at 6 inch of the water. but its narrow my light a lot in the center and the sps in front and on the back seems to do not have enought lights.

Excuse if my english is not pecfect, im french.

 

[Mandragen]

If you read the posts on the maxspect forum that have been said in the past you would find your answers. There have been mutltiple discussions on all those subjects within the past few weeks.

 

[Acrotrdco]

Had an ati powermodule in my shopping cart, read this thread, ended up with 8 cree Royal blue, 8 cree blue, 8 3w violet and 4 red replacement leds. Love your tank mate keep it up

Thanks Chris

hi acro,
i post two times the question on the maxspect thread, but i have no answer.
Can you give me what you think.

i have a 48"x18"x24" tank and i have two g2-160w with 60 degree optics and 30w led. I keep sps on the middle of my tank. My soft coral are at the bottom. My last fixture was an ati with 6 t5.
How high i have to put my maxspect if i want to have good par with all the semi led on and not burn the sps when the 30w are on.
And how much time do you recommand the 30w to be on. I now that you light your 15w for 5h. But whit the 30w ?
I have the 60 degree optic for 2 weeks now at 6 inch of the water. but its narrow my light a lot in the center and the sps in front and on the back seems to do not have enought lights.

Excuse if my english is not pecfect, im french.

I used the rail mount for my fixtures so they are about 3-4" above water level, that seems to work fine for me.

If you're using optics on your 30w, you might want to put your corals a little bit further down because it's REALLY bright, maybe 8-10" under water.

Using optics would definitely reducing the coverage as the light are focused into a center area, so you'll need to make any necessary adjustment to the position to make sure your entire tank is covered.

 

[canyousee]

acrotrdco thanks for the lead on gambits thread and feedback I will post on gambit's thread. Mike

 

[Acrotrdco]

Time for an update!

 

[Acrotrdco]

 

[Acrotrdco]

 

[westreef]

Wow, awesome pictures!!!:beer:

 

[sahin]

Wow beautiful!!! You are best photographer on the net so far that I have seen who manages to take excellent photos of corals under LED's. It is so damn hard to get the white balance right, but you are doing it fine.

These pics are your best yet.

Can you share in some detail how you sort the white balance out? Is it done on the camera or do you shoot in RAW and then adjust manually via software? - I ahave a Nikon camera and so maybe I can set my white balance the same way that you do.

Also, do you use a camera top down box to get the crystal clear photo?

Would be awesome to know. Thank you.

 

[Napzard]

Sweet setup

 

[Acrotrdco]

Wow, awesome pictures!!!:beer:

Sweet setup

Thanks!

Wow beautiful!!! You are best photographer on the net so far that I have seen who manages to take excellent photos of corals under LED's. It is so damn hard to get the white balance right, but you are doing it fine.

These pics are your best yet.

Can you share in some detail how you sort the white balance out? Is it done on the camera or do you shoot in RAW and then adjust manually via software? - I ahave a Nikon camera and so maybe I can set my white balance the same way that you do.

Also, do you use a camera top down box to get the crystal clear photo?

Would be awesome to know. Thank you.

Thanks for your compliments, I'm not really a photographer, I've just spent months after months experimenting through trial and error, to come up with the correct combination of aperture / shutter speed / white balance / ISO and coloration until I got it right :lolspin:

I wanted to capture the photos so they look as close to what I actually see with my own eyes as possible, I used to use Nikon vivid mode when taking those shots, but the results aren't always better, and it also gives a very artifical look and feel, so I've switched back to standard mode since then.

Just to give you an idea, this is taken with Nikon Vivid Mode:

This is taken with the standard mode:

I like the latter not only because it's a lot shaper than the former (it took alot of practices), but without using vivid mode the color looks more natural and now resembles 90% of what the frag indeed looks like in my tank with my own eyes.

Since our tanks are usually very bright (lit by lighting fixtures) so I usually use very high shutter speed with relatively low ISO and small aperture.

These photos were taken with around 1/250s up to 1/400s shutter speed, aperture is usually f/8-11, ISO is no higher than 800, tho I like to use 400.

I also use 10000K color temperature white balance, and use a tripod when I'm taking FTS, with manual focus, VR turned off and timed shutter to capture that crisp shot.

When I'm taking tank top shots, I've to rely on auto-focus and VR to get those photos, so I usually take up to 20 photos in high-speed sequence, and then pick the one that looked the best. I didn't use any camera box, I just used a 4"x3" small glass aquarium that I used to keep some small freshwater fishes, it worked well without having to spend a fortune

I don't take photos in RAW because it's too much work, I just take them in JPG then use the auto-adjust function in Nikon Capture NX to balance everything.

 

[BowieReefer84]

Great tank. I have my LED's running for only 5.5 hours per day. I need to bump that up after seeing that you are running them much longer photoperiod.

 

[Acrotrdco]

Great tank. I have my LED's running for only 5.5 hours per day. I need to bump that up after seeing that you are running them much longer photoperiod.

Definitely, you can run 100% intensity for 4-5 hours a day, then suppliment it with some lower intensity for another 4-8 hours a day.

I'm running 13 hours photoperiod a day, but only 5 hours at 100% intensity.

 

[Haksar]

Love your tank,great build and superb pictures.
I would love to see your tank in person when I visit HKG.

 

[Acrotrdco]

Sure Haksar, gimme a PM prior to your trip, let's see if we could arrange something.

p.s. if you're lucky and visit HK when the LFS is stocking up SPS colonies, I could show you to the store and try to drop your jaw

 

[gorally]

I have been reading this thread and your set up is really nice. Did you get your light from fish-street? Recently I query the Maxspect and they suggest the KEY to me. Have you ever see the KEY in action? I like the Maxspect because they have the high watt blub and optics. I am rebuilding a 72" and thinking to use LED to replace the old MH fixture. BTW, you live in Shatin? Nice view of the river

 

[Mikey122687]

Do you ever have this problem from using NP pellet?