new2u
New member
Howdy Y'all,
I just made the switch from dual 250 halides and twin 110 VHO actenics to a pair of 120 W dim-able pendants. In the process, I completely gutted my canopy to lower the shelf that previously held halides and reflectors to accomidate the new pendants. Since a thread is worthless without pics...
I currently have them about 8" off the waterline. This was just a number I came up with after a little experimentation with holding them and reading online. Is this high enough, or too high? The guy I bought them from had them about 2" off the water, and this just screamed wrong to me. I did a little research and found that this was probably "about" right. Heres the link to the pendant information.
http://shop.ledreef.com/Prism-250-250-2012.htm
I just went ahead and used the pre-existing rack from the halides, just to get the pendants up and running. If you didn't notice from the first picture, its one of those barred racks. Initially I had planned on removing some of the bars to increase the light output. However, after I put the pendants up on blocks my father thought it might not be nessisary. While I may be the mechanical engineer, he tends to be the resident expert on all things electronic and installation. Not wanting to argue with him at the moment, I'm more debating if removing half of the bars would be enough. I was thinking every other. Removing all the bars would make me a little nervous about the structural stability of the thing, and then there would be a possibility that the pendants could possibly fall through (they would fit, not that it would happen but...). Is half enough?
Also, before I cut the bars I wanted to make sure that I had the horizontal placement right. The pendants themselves are 11" long, and the tank is 48" long. Since that leaves 26" uncovered, I decided to go with 6" on each side, and 14" in between both. Does that sound about right? Or should I overlap more in the center.
Also while I was up in the hood I noticed the moonlights were broken, or barely working at best. On my old setup (I bought this one used) I had used some ghetto car parts to make blue LEDs for moonlights, but that was kind of more trouble than it was worth. I was browsing marine depot and found this coralvue moonlight strip.
http://www.marinedepot.com/CoralVue..._Kits_Lights-CoralVue-CV1911-FILTRTLE-vi.html
(I hope its okay to link to them since they're a sponser, if not please remove it for me mods)
Some of the reviews seem to comment that its a little too bright, I'm honestly not opposed to that as I'd like to keep it on 24/7 as a little supplementation, or possibly turn it off for about 6-8 hours at night if it is too bright. I like the pendants a lot, but I already have the blue all the way up, and the white is only up to about 2/3 and its a bit white as it is. If I want to jack that white up any further I think I'd like to get a little more blue. Does anyone have any experience with it, or recommendations on other options?
Finally, now that I've completely changed over my lighting I don't really know what I should do from a timing perspective. I had been running my halides like 8-9 hours a day, can I do the LEDs 12 hours with both on, or should I do like 12 actenic and 10 white ect.
Thanks!
I just made the switch from dual 250 halides and twin 110 VHO actenics to a pair of 120 W dim-able pendants. In the process, I completely gutted my canopy to lower the shelf that previously held halides and reflectors to accomidate the new pendants. Since a thread is worthless without pics...
I currently have them about 8" off the waterline. This was just a number I came up with after a little experimentation with holding them and reading online. Is this high enough, or too high? The guy I bought them from had them about 2" off the water, and this just screamed wrong to me. I did a little research and found that this was probably "about" right. Heres the link to the pendant information.
http://shop.ledreef.com/Prism-250-250-2012.htm
I just went ahead and used the pre-existing rack from the halides, just to get the pendants up and running. If you didn't notice from the first picture, its one of those barred racks. Initially I had planned on removing some of the bars to increase the light output. However, after I put the pendants up on blocks my father thought it might not be nessisary. While I may be the mechanical engineer, he tends to be the resident expert on all things electronic and installation. Not wanting to argue with him at the moment, I'm more debating if removing half of the bars would be enough. I was thinking every other. Removing all the bars would make me a little nervous about the structural stability of the thing, and then there would be a possibility that the pendants could possibly fall through (they would fit, not that it would happen but...). Is half enough?
Also, before I cut the bars I wanted to make sure that I had the horizontal placement right. The pendants themselves are 11" long, and the tank is 48" long. Since that leaves 26" uncovered, I decided to go with 6" on each side, and 14" in between both. Does that sound about right? Or should I overlap more in the center.
Also while I was up in the hood I noticed the moonlights were broken, or barely working at best. On my old setup (I bought this one used) I had used some ghetto car parts to make blue LEDs for moonlights, but that was kind of more trouble than it was worth. I was browsing marine depot and found this coralvue moonlight strip.
http://www.marinedepot.com/CoralVue..._Kits_Lights-CoralVue-CV1911-FILTRTLE-vi.html
(I hope its okay to link to them since they're a sponser, if not please remove it for me mods)
Some of the reviews seem to comment that its a little too bright, I'm honestly not opposed to that as I'd like to keep it on 24/7 as a little supplementation, or possibly turn it off for about 6-8 hours at night if it is too bright. I like the pendants a lot, but I already have the blue all the way up, and the white is only up to about 2/3 and its a bit white as it is. If I want to jack that white up any further I think I'd like to get a little more blue. Does anyone have any experience with it, or recommendations on other options?
Finally, now that I've completely changed over my lighting I don't really know what I should do from a timing perspective. I had been running my halides like 8-9 hours a day, can I do the LEDs 12 hours with both on, or should I do like 12 actenic and 10 white ect.
Thanks!
