Beeker's 200g DD PAR38 lit Reef

[beeker]

i somehow misplaced the S hooks so i couldn't get the 4th track up last night, lol

New shots

i raised the lights to about 5 inches above the water, the spread is better now and the spot effect isn't as great, i'm going to be leaving them here until i see how the sps frag on the bottom of the tank does over the next week this will be my gauge to wether the lights have a high enough PAR at the bottom of the tank

here's some new shots

this is with 6 bulbs over the right side and 2 over the left

 

[slief]

Looks great!! It seems like you could use wider spread optics. Seeing yours really has me thining that 16 par 38's might just be enough for my setup if I arrange them correctly. Is your cabinet lighting the Par38's shining through the bottom of the tank?

 

[Rickyrooz1]

Following along, I want to use LED's too.

 

[beeker]

Looks great!! It seems like you could use wider spread optics. Seeing yours really has me thining that 16 par 38's might just be enough for my setup if I arrange them correctly. Is your cabinet lighting the Par38's shining through the bottom of the tank?

Yep the sump is lit by the PAR38's only, thats only 8 Bulbs running it will be bright as hell once i get the other 8 fired up, lol

the great thing about the track lighting is you just take a bulb socket and turn it into the track and you're done, so you can always add more sockets to a track or remove them and arrange them to what you want, either more or less bulbs the ease of doing that is what makes this system better than most, it has 100% flexability

 

[beeker]

Just some more shots of the setup these were with my "Real Camera, lol"

This is no photo adjustment, my camera has a fishtank setting and that is what i used, to me this is the best representation of the color of the tank and corals/bulbs

I don't think a FTS will ever be possible they all come out like the sun, lol

 

[beeker]

 

[KRASHPD]

That looks fantastic. I think I'm going to go with the LED spots too. Did you just get the track lighting at lowes or home depot? Why did you go with the 40 optics instead of 60 or 80? Think it will make a difference in how happy the corals/clams are?

 

[mrwilson]

beeker, now that you've seen the 12Ks with the 40 degree optics, are you considering any changes with the optics or the color temp? (I'm going to play around with a 20K at 40, a 12K at 60, etc.)

 

[beeker]

track lighting can be bought at lowes thats where i got mine

it's 12 dollars a socket 10 dollars for an end connector for the track and then 25 for the 4 foot track

I went with 40 degree optics for the PAR i have a ton of Sps corals and very little Lps so i went with the 40 optics because i wasn't sure what the PAR would be or is 60 optics would have given me enough light at the bottom of 27 inches and that was my main concern

The spread of the 60 optics would have been better, but i don't personally know how much PAR would suffer with that optic and with having to penatrate 27 inches of depth

I'm getting a PAR meter from my local club this weekend i hope and i'll have numbers then, i'm going to take a PAR reading from my 29g BC at the bottom under the 150w MH and 24w T5 it has and then compare that with what i'm getting at the bottom of the 200g for PAR

with the way my clams reacted to the light i'd have to say i'm getting a decent amount more PAR than a 150w MH puts out and this is with the clams 33 inches from the PAR38's when they were around 10 inches from the MH before i moved them to the 200g

12k's look great, to me it isn't too blue and it isn't too white, in the future i might do a mix of 20k and 12k's i'm really just waiting to get an idea of PAR for these, when i get the numbers then i may change to 60 optics or order a few bulbs that have 60 optics, there's a ton of options with this setup which is a good thing i have a lot of room to work with

 

[mrwilson]

If the pics are any indication, it certainly appears that they are putting out a heckuva lot of light. It will be interesting to see what kind of par readings you get.

 

[beeker]

it's true in person it really looks like i have 8 250w MH's over the tank, but i like that effect, lol

 

[KRASHPD]

Thanks for the info Beeker. Your tank really does look great.

 

[dastratt]

Hi I haven't seen the PAR 38s yet are you saying that the PAR 38s are available at Lowes or Home Depot or (if that was just the tracks) where is a source for that?

 

[beeker]

Hi I haven't seen the PAR 38s yet are you saying that the PAR 38s are available at Lowes or Home Depot or (if that was just the tracks) where is a source for that?

the PAR38's are available from nanotuners or nanocustoms not lowes

the track setup i bought from lowes, i posted the info up in the PAR38 thread in the lighting forum

 

[KRASHPD]

Did you get the rest of your bulbs in and installed yet?

 

[beeker]

Won't have the last 8 bulbs for another month or two going to take me awhile to get the funds available, in the time i'm waiting i'm transfering corals from my main 29g over to this tank(few frags a week), so hopefully in 2 months i can have almost 100% of my coral out of the 29g and then around that time i should have the funds to get the second set of lights

 

[beeker]

New Pics! 4-8-10!

New Pics! 4-8-10!

Red planet and purple acro (been there for 4 day so far)

My Beautiful elegance coral seems to be loving the LED's it's been in the tank since saturday

 

[beeker]

Orange hammer

My tiny elegance next to the big one this tiny one has been thru hell but it's looking a ton better under the led's than it ever did under my MH, i've had this one for 3 months or so and it's been under the leds for about 7 days now

Tiny elegance again

 

[beeker]

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

while your getting the par meter i would also get a killawatt meter too...16 of those bulbs will be close to maxing out that circuit i would think....atleast here, you are only allowed so many devices per circuit..

LOL perhaps my head is on backward to night...

looks awesome though...