Solaris; Dana Riddle Review; AA mag.

[Stoney Mahony]

I havent had any hands on with the solaris but I can tell you that I run 2x 400w 20k xms on my 55 and don't use a chiller. Im in Orlando and yes..its hot as hell here. I use a walmart honywell turbo fan and keep my AC thermostat at 74. The ambient inside temperature will have a big effect on the tank temps, especially if your using a fan for an evaporative cooling effect.

I have a few 1000, 400, 250, 150 watt systems, many differnt types of reflectors and bulbs, compact flouros, HO flouros, NO flouros and two light meters(one submersible). Heat output is directly related to the size and wattage of mh's . Ive done alot of testing with my stuff and would love to see one of these Solaris systems side by side. From what everybody is saying they "should" run a heck of alot cooler than MH's.

I hooked up a 400w 10k xm over a 40 gallon tank and did some tests. I used an aircooled sungrow hood with a large(3500cfm I think) dayton blower. The glass shield is cool to the touch but with no fans or circulation, the light energy still heated the water from 76.2 to 95 in an hour. I have tons of equipment ive been saving for starting my aquaculture buis so needless to say I have done tons of experiments. It's no fun to stare at stuff in a box!

 

[Serioussnaps]

Sounds "COOL" and all but really no point as what everyone has now with MH , T5's and what not works very well.... I dont see the LED's upsides being that great to justify their upfront costs or costs of maintenance.

"If it aint broke dont fix it."

Kudos on the experiments and what not but all it really is is a way to penetrate a market with a new product...a market that has lots of money to spend. Now i know that if we think like this we will never improve our tech....but we should also look at this and say hey.." this is another way to sell something from the start and get all the reefers dumping their money on something that really isnt that great of an improvement."

i wish i could find that Eric Borneman article to link here about stuff like this and the aquaria hobby/industry...but if someone has that article and knows what i am talking about link it in this thread

 

[jnb]

I wasn't going to get into sps when I came back to reef keeping; I came back settling in with t-5 and have had 2 times MH 20k xm shielded for 1.5 yrs. and soon after putting the MH in service a local fish store gave me two acros one had one stalk and was brown, the other was a purple tipped sort - in that year and half both have had great growth and I could not be happier that I took on the acro's

And orange monti btw was put in and it has outstanding growth - in one yr from three little pieces to a foot wide 6 inches deep and going strong

maybe there are more light demanding sps's - I don't know - but XM20K has shown me that my coral is getting what it needs light-wise.

I dive and find sps at blue depth thriving gorgeously.




the other

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7964343#post7964343 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Travis
I agree 100%. In fact I wouldn't say "it isn't that impressive". I would rather call it unimpressive. I would never think of running a 250w 20k XM bulb over any sps tank, well maybe a 10-20 gallon tank. The bulb is very dim and produces very little par. And the Solaris can't even keep up with that.

I think the Solaris may have its place in this hobby, just not on medium to large sps tanks. It would be better suited for softies and LPS.