New lights

[imchris]

Tanks footprint is 8' x 3'. 30" high. I was thinking the Malibu S150 would be a good choice to cover the 36" depth. At 24", it would only leave 6" on each end so that should be fine. At 8" wide, how many would it take to cover the 8' length? That's what I'm wondering.

 

[Fuzzy]

Don't waste your money on Radions ever They are only high end in price. And no, LEDs are not bad etc, just you can get same results from something much cheaper. I'm sure these fixtures will do better if you buy in same ratio as you would radions, i.e. 1 radion vs 1 small fixture from here.

Well, considering I already have 2 MP40's...... :idea:

Anyhow, I'm just not sure I'm ready to give up my MH's. I've had them on our tanks for over 12 years.....

So, I decided to give these guys a try. I was going to order a Photon 32 from Reef Breeders, but they were out of stock, couldn't say when they'd be available, and the whole group buy thing just didn't sit well with me. This way I'm dealing direct with the manufacturer, getting a custom layout, the lights come with linking cables, can be wireless, am spending less money. And the S200 is about 35" long so it will give me much better coverage than the Photon 32.

Plus, I'm pretty good with a soldering iron if there's ever a problem...

 

[raidendex]

I'd go with 8 of those on such a large tank, but you could try with just 4 to start and see how it is, still would need to position them the same way across the tank.

Maybe shift them a bit also?

 

[zab34]

I would do 4-6.

 

[Fuzzy]

They also have some nice looking mounting options available:

 

[daedal]

Hi, They have a store in LA which can shipping from there. I am in the process get on Malibu S300.. the whole price at door is about 450USD including shipping one contoller -- If anyone interesting, let me known maybe we can get some group price.

 

[KnownStrangeR]

:facepalm:

Hi, They have a store in LA which can shipping from there. I am in the process get on Malibu S300.. the whole price at door is about 450USD including shipping one contoller -- If anyone interesting, let me known maybe we can get some group price.

 

[Fuzzy]

Hi, They have a store in LA...

Can you post the info for their store in LA?
We've already ordered and paid for our lights directly from the factory.
But it would be nice to know if they have a US facility for spare parts etc...

Here's what I paid for my 2 fixtures:

2 - S200 Fixture with 90* lenses, hanging kit, and back up remote, configured per attached layout: 2*258 USD
1 - Wired Controller with daisy chain cable: 1*55 USD
12 - 120* Lenses : 3 USD
12 - UV LED's : 18USD
12 - RED LED's: 12 USD

Shipping and PayPal fee was $150. Total price for all is $754

I heard from Kevin today, our fixtures will ship out on Monday. Gettin kinda excited about the new fixtures.
Essentially I bought two 35" fixtures with a custom layout, and lots of extras, that will completely cover my tank for the same price as 1 Radion... :thumbsup:

 

[raidendex]

What are you doing with red leds?

 

[Fuzzy]

Some of the posts in the FMAS thread had pretty interesting comments on how the red led's made some colors pop. Since my layout doesn't have any reds or greens, I though I'd buy some reds and more u/v's to see what looks best. Especially since this tank is going to be primarily softies, lots of schroom and rics. Hopefully with lots of fluorescing colors like in the attached picture.

Fortunately, our tank has very few corals, so I can change the led's around and not worry about hurting anything. With two fixtures side by side I can compare and decide what works best. Odds are I may not touch anything but for $12 I figure why not have the parts ready.

 

[raidendex]

Just make sure you don't add too many red. One or two without optics over large area is enough to get corals to reflect it back. Red light itself is not useful to the corals as much, but will feed the algae.

 

[Fuzzy]

No worries there - Odds are I won't change a thing. But - in case I get a wild hair and decide to tinker with the lights, I'll have the parts.
Depending on how things look, I'll probably use the 120* lenses on the U/V Led's. I've attached the layout I'm using - there will be 3 blocks per fixture for a total of 72 LED's per half of the tank. With a total of 12 UV LED's I'm thinking the colors will have plenty of "pop".

 

[raidendex]

Uv dont need wide lens. You want to focus it as much as rb. Seem to have a lot lots blues, i would swap blue and rb in numbers. Uv number wise if thats 420nm you want to have around 70% of the number of rb. For say 24 rb have 16 violets. Leds can't produce uv btw

 

[Fuzzy]

Hmm - they say the UV's are in the 410 - 430 range. I can see adding more RB's. But the fixtures already built and going to ship on Monday.
One of my co-workers has a DIY light with this same configuration of LED's and is very happy with the look. He said I might want to add more U/V's to add the darker blue/purple color. He said he tried Reds and Greens, and really didn't see any advantage.

So, once I get it installed - we'll see how it looks, and then I'll play with the different colors. From what I've been told they are using 3 watt Bridgelux Led's which are readily available.

Who knows I might not even like the look, after all I've had MH's and VHO's for over 12 years and really like the shimmer.

 

[raidendex]

You probabaly won't really notice much from 420nm LEDs, to our eyes they look rather dim, but work really well for coral's photosynthesis so having lots of them is good, but have to be careful with brightness as you won't be able to tell by looking in their case.

 

[Fuzzy]

Good to know, thanks. I'm guessing things to look for are bad changes in coral coloring if they're getting too much.

 

[lynardskynard12]

How was the customer service?

 

[Fuzzy]

So far they've been great. Emails are answered promptly and all questions answered to my satisfaction. They notified my in advance there was a minor delay in the controller, and then let me know when it would ship with the estimated delivery date.

 

[volsfan199]

how much is shipping on just one?

 

[Fuzzy]

Shipping a single S200 (35") to Florida was $128. By combining my order the shipping cost for 2 - S200's came out to $121.
Wish we could have gotten a couple more interested in the buy...