Apollo Reef LED SolarBlast Dimable Review

[milonedp]

How many of these would you add for a 96 by 36 by 30?

I've sent a note to Apollo but wanted real world thoughts too...

Do you think I could go high off the water line by adding a few extra? 2 ft above, 3 ft above?

I'm starting to lean toward finding a solution that I can put up out of the way so I don't need to raise and lower the lights like I've been doing on my 180 and was starting to look at cannons until I got back to this thread (thanks spotter for putting me back onto this thread)...

 

[mrbncal]

After having my lights up for a week or so now, I am not unhappy, but I am a little bummed that the "orange" color that used to "pop" from the pavona and frogspawn I have are just a dull brown now. I am holdong out judgement until I am at full power but right now not 100% happy.

Anyone else encounter this issue here?

 

[mrbncal]

I should clarify that the brown color is during daylight hours. the moon lights make things "pop" and so do the blue only for that matter. But when its mid-day . . . .not so much.

Did not have this issue withthe t-5's i was running. Not a deal breaker yet. Just bummed.

 

[gcfiend]

I should clarify that the brown color is during daylight hours. the moon lights make things "pop" and so do the blue only for that matter. But when its mid-day . . . .not so much.

Did not have this issue withthe t-5's i was running. Not a deal breaker yet. Just bummed.

Interesting..I just got back in after a 2 year hiatus so I have nothing to compare previous coloring to on my corals.

What % of Blue and White are you currently running? Wouldn't bumping the whites up cause the colors to wash out even more?

I'm at 100% Blue and 65% white right now. I know things take a while to change so I'm holding at this setting for a couple months to see if things color up.

I agree though, when the Blues\Moonlight are on, it's awesome!!

 

[Dustin1300]

I can't say I have a lot of orange but the orange that I do have looks good in some zoanthids and Orange Digitata.

 

[Dustin1300]

Color in orange Lyretail Anthias looks good too

 

[mrbncal]

Interesting..I just got back in after a 2 year hiatus so I have nothing to compare previous coloring to on my corals.

What % of Blue and White are you currently running? Wouldn't bumping the whites up cause the colors to wash out even more?

I'm at 100% Blue and 65% white right now. I know things take a while to change so I'm holding at this setting for a couple months to see if things color up.

I agree though, when the Blues\Moonlight are on, it's awesome!!

Yeah I'm still in the ramping up phase. The lights have only been running 10 days or so. I just need to wait until everything is at full speed so I can adjust the channel percentages to taste. Right now the lights are at 65% blue and 45 white.

 

[mrbncal]

... do you happen to have pics of the full tank shot?

Here are a few pics, they are not good. Camera phone. But you get the idea.

Here is the problem I have not solved yet. When light cycle is at mid day greens show up well in fact color redition is pretty good all around. Everything except, Orange doesn't show up well. I have an orange/copper colored frogspawn that should pop like a new copper penny. It did with T-5's.

Frogspawn is in the lower left corner, this is actually pretty close to what it looks like in person.

There is a psammacora in this pic (the little lumpy thing almost in the center of this pic) that GLOWS orange under t-5s but is dirt brown under this light until whites go off. THEN it glows with just the blues.

So my solution is going to be adding back 2 t-5 blue plus bulbs in hopes of getting that color back. Will let you all know how it works.

In the mean time I am very happy with the lights. I am seeing good reaction from all coral in my tank. Good new growth tips on sps and the "little brown lumpy thing". So I have no complaints about growth and coral health. The room stays cooler and the evaporation rate has gone down, which is nice.

Really like the ramping up and down effect from the controller card. oh ...gotta go the whites just turned off and the oranges are out in full force...:celeb1:

 

[gcfiend]

Here are a few pics, they are not good. Camera phone. But you get the idea.

Here is the problem I have not solved yet. When light cycle is at mid day greens show up well in fact color redition is pretty good all around. Everything except, Orange doesn't show up well. I have an orange/copper colored frogspawn that should pop like a new copper penny. It did with T-5's.

Frogspawn is in the lower left corner, this is actually pretty close to what it looks like in person.

There is a psammacora in this pic (the little lumpy thing almost in the center of this pic) that GLOWS orange under t-5s but is dirt brown under this light until whites go off. THEN it glows with just the blues.

So my solution is going to be adding back 2 t-5 blue plus bulbs in hopes of getting that color back. Will let you all know how it works.

In the mean time I am very happy with the lights. I am seeing good reaction from all coral in my tank. Good new growth tips on sps and the "little brown lumpy thing". So I have no complaints about growth and coral health. The room stays cooler and the evaporation rate has gone down, which is nice.

Really like the ramping up and down effect from the controller card. oh ...gotta go the whites just turned off and the oranges are out in full force...:celeb1:

Keep us posted Mike on the T-5 Supplement for color. I'm interested to know if it will pop out the remaining colors.

 

[mrbncal]

Forgot to mention that I am not done with the install. Still need to build the canopy that will hide all the equipment and also run the cords down the pipe out of sight. I have increased the blues intensity to 70 % also.

 

[chadfarmer]

+1 on clarifications. Can you also include your tank sizes/depths as the depth matters a lot when your talking about height of the fixture! My frag tank is 18" deep but yours might be 12", etc...

tank is 200 DD lights run at 70% blue 50% white all sps

27 inches deep 17 inches over water

frag tank cut down 120 to 12 inches tall

55% blue and 40% white lights 20 inches over water

seems less lights is bringing out more color in corals


I have the first dimmable unit with no red

 

[gcfiend]

tank is 200 DD lights run at 70% blue 50% white all sps

27 inches deep 17 inches over water

frag tank cut down 120 to 12 inches tall

55% blue and 40% white lights 20 inches over water

seems less lights is bringing out more color in corals


I have the first dimmable unit with no red

Wow.. A lot lower % than expected and way less than my settings at 100% blue and 65% white on a 24 inch deep tank. How long has it been running at the 70\50 ratio?

 

[jwoyshnar]

Wow.. A lot lower % than expected and way less than my settings at 100% blue and 65% white on a 24 inch deep tank. How long has it been running at the 70\50 ratio?

I run mine at the same ratio 70/50. Any higher and the corals seem to bleach a bit.

 

[vbsaltydog]

The fixtures come as 2/3 blue so 100% on both is ~15k , running them at 70% blue and 50% white takes that well above 20k

I know everyone likes the "pop" but I find the tank more natural looking with the blues running lower than the whites, closer to ~12k

I run them more blue in the morning/evening and much more white mid day.
My high noon is 100% white and 35% blue.

 

[gcfiend]

Good info guys!
I've got the new one with the Red in it, hanging 12 inches above the water. Only about two months in with mostly Frags so it's hard to tell right now if I have too much light. I noticed things coloring up nice at 100B\65White but some just started to go from good color to pale. 70/50 seems like the consensus so I'll try those setting for a while to see if things color up better.

 

[gcfiend]

Good info guys!
I've got the new one with the Red in it, hanging 12 inches above the water. Only about two months in with mostly Frags so it's hard to tell right now if I have too much light. I noticed things coloring up nice at 100B\65White but some just started to go from good color to pale. 70/50 seems like the consensus so I'll try those setting for a while to see if things color up better.

Oops. When I say "guys" I'm being gender neutral

 

[chadfarmer]

i have been running apollo dimmables since feb

running at 70 for about 2 months and that seems to be just right for a lot of corals

i started at 90% because 2 apollos replaced 4 AI units

 

[gcfiend]

I've read that at 100 percent blue and white it produces 15,000 K. What would be the ratio for 20,000 K?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[Dustin1300]

3 RBs to 1 Cool White. Below is good reference:

http://reefledlights.com/ledmytank/

 

[gcfiend]

3 RBs to 1 Cool White. Below is good reference:

http://reefledlights.com/ledmytank/

Thanks Dustin,
So my math really sucks.. If I wanted to play with percentages on our lights to get a 20K (or closest to it) , what would I have to dim my whites to get 20K.

If Blue is at 100%:

Would Whites dimmed to about 67% give me the closest to 20K?