Luminarcs -- Excellent!
- Thread starter Pineapple House
- Start date
. Once my colonies recover from being chopped up for Leishman's frags I'll start a thread
. Seriously, I was going to get around to that this weekend... but now I see Dr. Mac has a sale... hmm...
copps
Premium Member
mikeo1210 said:
It's too early to tell on growth, but the one thing I have noticed that is nice is that the Lumenarcs not only spread the light out, but cast light on more of the coral surface area resulting in more color saturation on more of the coral and less dull colored area common to the areas nopt receiving direct light. A bit hard to explain, but you get more of the "top down color" by these throughout the coral by the fact that they turn one point light source (the bulb) into a large area cast out with high PAR (like the sun).
Not sure what you mean about changing bulbs... my old DE ushios last as long as the SE XMs... about a year.
If your new system is 30" wide Mike I wouldn't even consider it... these LAs are it for wider systems... Sanjay goes through just about every reflector and bulb on the market, and if you hung out with him for 10 minutes and saw the coverage 4 LAs give the Penn State 500 (8'x30" wide, leaving no dim spots throughout the tank) you'd be sold.
Mike if I were you I wouldn't even consider the DE 250s for your 30" wide system... you'd need double the amount of these over LAs, resulting in more initial cost and more of a cost to run in both electricity and bulb expense. Again for 18" wide systems I loved my DE ROIIIs, although the mini Lumenarcs are very nice now that they're making them again...
copps
Premium Member
Yeah SE bulbs run the gammit... some (like 20k radiums) are most often changed after 6 months, while some (like 6500k Iwasakis) last 2 years or longer... most 10ks (SE and DE) I've used last a full year before I switch them... I don't use a light meter or anything, just following along with both Sanjay and JBNY...
stealyourhouse
Premium Member
I'm in the process of setting up a 32" cube tank and have been planning on using two ROIIIs, but this thread is making me think that a single 400w SE on a Lumenarc would be the better solution.
Yep, as long as you can pick a single bulb to your taste in color.
fwiw: 4x400wt XM20K in LA3 Compacts over 88"x28"x32" run on eballasts. Have MiniPFO's which I like alot, but the coverage was not as good in my application so they are on my <19" front to back tanks.
fwiw: 4x400wt XM20K in LA3 Compacts over 88"x28"x32" run on eballasts. Have MiniPFO's which I like alot, but the coverage was not as good in my application so they are on my <19" front to back tanks.
Please excuse the lousy picture, but my "mini" LA3s (14.5"x14.5") have no problem at all with 24" of coverage. Example below was testing spacing on a portion of the tank 28" front to back:xabo said:
I recently the current 4 units straight back so I don't have to clean the front panel as much.
copps
Premium Member
xabo said:
The smaller LAs were not an option as they weren't being made when I bought them... really both are an option on 24" tanks and it would depend on your design and if you're supplementing with actinics. What was very convincing to me was the light distribution of the LA shown in Sanjay's Advanced Aquarist article...
here it is... Talk about a halide covering a 2'x2' area!
copps
Premium Member
For comparison this is the Spiderlight... once very popular, but cannot hold a stick to the LA... this isn't "I saw this tank"... or "Look at this picture"... you really can't argue with this... Look at the difference in the PAR values... it's huge! These are the results that changed the way people think about reflectors... if you haven't read Sanjay's tests you should...
dgasmd
New member
It is hard to convince anyone of getting lumenarcs until they have seen one. I bought mine a little over a year ago after having some serious talks with Sanjay and have never looked back. I have 5x400 watt with LA3 over my 120"x48"x30" tank and I can tell you there is not a single dim spot in the tank. Not only that, but I can raise them and lower them and the only difference I see is more intensity when lowering them as the spread is almost the same all the way to the bottom. This is money very very well spent.
I still can't figure out why PGS sells the reflector and socket assembly as separate items as there is hardly any way one can work without the other. It is just nonsense. Get it all together and save yourself some major misery trying to fit someone that won't work to save you so little.
COOPS:
Dude, when did you get that bigger tank? What size is that? Put up more than that man.
I still can't figure out why PGS sells the reflector and socket assembly as separate items as there is hardly any way one can work without the other. It is just nonsense. Get it all together and save yourself some major misery trying to fit someone that won't work to save you so little.
COOPS:
Dude, when did you get that bigger tank? What size is that? Put up more than that man.
dgasmd
New member
Would not work as well likely because of the DE bulbs ahving 2 dead areas at the ends of the bulb. Just different design, but it has never been tried. However, I still don't see the reason behind the insistance of using a DE bulb when you get not only variety in color but also much better costs with the SE bulbs. Just a personal preference I guess.
