Lights... hit me...

Let's do this slowly;

ZiXlin2.png


The mounting height is up top - 6.5"
The par measurement depth is bottom left - 12", in the dark blue bar
The par readings are all the numbers scattered in the box

You know this now of course since I pointed it out but you will not admit you were wrong before, which is borderline insane. You have resorted to "I know you are but what am I" even though you are dead nuts wrong, period.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
 
As entertaining as this is, it's a little like leaving my kids with a task, only to come back 15 minutes later to discover a fight has broken out and the task hasn't even been started...

All of this is irrelevant... I'm not going to use t5. That may make me an idiot... I don't really care. The challenge has been set to use LED in my mind.

I've been testing a couple of frags under the 165w black box I've got... monti digi, porites and an acro... should give a decent indicator across the light demands of sps. The acro started to brown out at a par of 160 or lower, and coloured up again at 220... I appreciate that a large part of this isn't just par, it's spectrum too, but it's par being argued here. The monti and the porites are growing and coloured normally under both those par readings.

They all lose polyps from the underside of the branches (with the exception of the acro frag, which doesn't have branches lol. Short of mounting all my sps on mirrors, there's little I can do about this other than provide a more even spread of LED fixtures (test is directly under one 165w fixture, so very one directional light).

It's fair to say the acro has shown growth under the 220 plus par readings.

I toyed with the idea of removing the lenses, but that will equal a pretty bad reduction in par. Instead I'm going to butcher the 165 unit, replace the clear cover with frosted glass to act as a diffuser and put a reflector behind the leds to bounce back the light reflected off the frosted glass. I anticipate that this should provide a much more t5 type of light, better blending, less disco etc etc. All without losing the benefits of LED.

Dare I say that I largely agree that t5 is probably the 'best' lighting for SPS... However, for me, I can't get over the running costs vs cheap LED units. So if I can create t5-esque light using a black box, I'll be as happy as Larry.

Oh and does anyone have experience of the LedZeal Malibu lights... that was my reason for restarting this thread after all :)

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
Gweeds said:
As entertaining as this is, it's a little like leaving my kids with a task, only to come back 15 minutes later to discover a fight has broken out and the task hasn't even been started...

All of this is irrelevant... I'm not going to use t5. That may make me an idiot... I don't really care. The challenge has been set to use LED in my mind.

I've been testing a couple of frags under the 165w black box I've got... monti digi, porites and an acro... should give a decent indicator across the light demands of sps. The acro started to brown out at a par of 160 or lower, and coloured up again at 220... I appreciate that a large part of this isn't just par, it's spectrum too, but it's par being argued here. The monti and the porites are growing and coloured normally under both those par readings.

They all lose polyps from the underside of the branches (with the exception of the acro frag, which doesn't have branches lol. Short of mounting all my sps on mirrors, there's little I can do about this other than provide a more even spread of LED fixtures (test is directly under one 165w fixture, so very one directional light).

It's fair to say the acro has shown growth under the 220 plus par readings.

I toyed with the idea of removing the lenses, but that will equal a pretty bad reduction in par. Instead I'm going to butcher the 165 unit, replace the clear cover with frosted glass to act as a diffuser and put a reflector behind the leds to bounce back the light reflected off the frosted glass. I anticipate that this should provide a much more t5 type of light, better blending, less disco etc etc. All without losing the benefits of LED.

Dare I say that I largely agree that t5 is probably the 'best' lighting for SPS... However, for me, I can't get over the running costs vs cheap LED units. So if I can create t5-esque light using a black box, I'll be as happy as Larry.

Oh and does anyone have experience of the LedZeal Malibu lights... that was my reason for restarting this thread after all :)

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

If you want to test, you can use Glad Press 'n Seal (no joke) as a diffuser. It actually works really well.

ComforablyNumb said:
edit: I know what those numbers are
Click to expand...

You do now
 
Thats how all these threads end after much fighting amongst several by-standers about details that dont really matter in the real world...or to the OP.

We all go with our own best judgement for our own situations.

Its a shame it happened to you in your thread, but it often happens in many such ones.

I will sign off as I cannot help you with LedZeal Malibu lights.

And if anyone slags my tank, lights or corals again, so be it. I am pleased with them ..as I am sure you will be yours. As I had said previously, my local dealer uses the black boxes and his corals, including the sps, all look great.
 
lmao.

I can't believe you thought the y axis scale was depth. You have no idea what you are doing.

And why would you be interested in the PAR at 6" depth, you're tank is at least 18" tall, all your corals are below it.
 
Gweeds, I know you're after black boxes, but just a thought here. If you wanted all the benefits of T5, but wanted it dirt cheap, you could go with something like the 48" 4 bulb Sun Blaze T5 HO Lighting Fixture at $US164.

Interesting tidbit, there is a great channel on Youtube called Tidal Gardens, bloke propagates corals for sale. He is switching everything to T5 and is using these Chinese T5 fixtures.
 
Bronx19 said:
Gweeds, I know you're after black boxes, but just a thought here. If you wanted all the benefits of T5, but wanted it dirt cheap, you could go with something like the 48" 4 bulb Sun Blaze T5 HO Lighting Fixture at $US164.

Interesting tidbit, there is a great channel on Youtube called Tidal Gardens, bloke propagates corals for sale. He is switching everything to T5 and is using these Chinese T5 fixtures.
Click to expand...
Interesting certainly... I'm going to experiment with the 165w I have at the moment first... I'm determined to do this with led. Another thought I had was to run two led units parallel but tilt them slightly towards each other, thus reducing shading as one point source becomes two, from two angles. There will also be a higher par area where the two lights cross over, this will be towards the bottom of the tank which may also be useful to boost par.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
To be fair, if you reference the thread title and first post, the OP doesn't specify LEDs as his only option, in fact there is very little mention to anything specific. It all seemed very open ended to me. The OP might have narrowed his scope since then, but perhaps a new thread would be a better option if he wants a thread to be LED specific.

The great thing about forums is that we all get to learn from other's experiences and input. I wouldn't shame anyone for sharing opinions on which light source is better and why.
 
Gweeds said:
Interesting certainly... I'm going to experiment with the 165w I have at the moment first... I'm determined to do this with led. Another thought I had was to run two led units parallel but tilt them slightly towards each other, thus reducing shading as one point source becomes two, from two angles. There will also be a higher par area where the two lights cross over, this will be towards the bottom of the tank which may also be useful to boost par.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
It looks like there are a few things you can try. How hard is it to pull the lenses on one of these units and can you put them back on once pulled?

Here is an experiment you could try:

Set up a camera on a tripod so you can capture the same picture under different light conditions. Set the shutter speed and aperture to manual so you always have the same image exposure. Set up a jig so your light is always in the same position.

Then try the light in the following three ways: stock, frosting applied, no frosting, but lenses removed.

You can then compare the three photos to see what the differences are in light levels and spread.

A par meter would be better, but I don't recall you mentioning you have one.
 
Dugless said:
To be fair, if you reference the thread title and first post, the OP doesn't specify LEDs as his only option, in fact there is very little mention to anything specific. It all seemed very open ended to me. The OP might have narrowed his scope since then, but perhaps a new thread would be a better option if he wants a thread to be LED specific.
Click to expand...

Gweeds said:
Right... in a few months I'll be buying new lights (I have a wedding to pay for first lol) for my 320g... question is what do I go For?

For reference, this will cost me more than my entire set up so far, so I wanna buy the right thing and something that will last. It HAS to be led for the energy savings over time and has to be fully controllable with sunrise / sunset etc.

Maximum budget is £2,500 (about $3200).
Click to expand...

I dunno dude, but the first post seems pretty LED specific to me...
 
Dugless said:
To be fair, if you reference the thread title and first post, the OP doesn't specify LEDs as his only option, in fact there is very little mention to anything specific. It all seemed very open ended to me. The OP might have narrowed his scope since then, but perhaps a new thread would be a better option if he wants a thread to be LED specific.

The great thing about forums is that we all get to learn from other's experiences and input. I wouldn't shame anyone for sharing opinions on which light source is better and why.
Click to expand...
Yeah I did.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
Haha, I swear I just looked at it this morning and didn't see the HAS to be LED line. Must've overlooked this. Whoops.
 
Interesting tidbit, there is a great channel on Youtube called Tidal Gardens, bloke propagates corals for sale. He is switching everything to T5 and is using these Chinese T5 fixtures.[/QUOTE]



Than (owner of tidal gardens) is also using the Amazon T5 fixtures. And having great results so far with them. So he's saving even more money.

Corey
 
While I disagree with those who claim that LEDs can't grow spectacular SPS (yeah, Acros) tanks, for a business like tidal gardens, they really make even more sense since they don't have to worry about shadowing on frags.
 
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