Spazz
Will do. I have some major house renovations to take care of this weekend due to a washing machine mishap that flooded part of our house (I
HATE doing sheetrock work.. and painting). But once I come up for air I will definitely give you a shout about that.. thanks
Mario
Yea, I am not 100% sure about the black lights either. The true blacklight LEDs are called UV LEDs and have warnings about looking directly into them with unprotected eyes since they give off excess UV radiation, which we already know is not good for our tanks, unless controlled (IE: in a UV sterilizer or behind UV protected glass). All I really want/need is one that peaks around 420 - 450 nm. I have ordered a 25 bulb strip light (their smallest) from here :
http://www.acolyteled.com/s1-striplytes.html to test. Here is what they say about it :
LED Light Strips 25 Ultra-Bright UV/Purple AC
UV-purple AC Fixture with cord and plug
** INDUSTRIAL GRADE LED MANUFACTURER**
Acolyte LED (dot com)
Sealed Ultra Voilet/Purple Ultra-Bright LED Strip!!!
These Ultra Violet (UV) lights are perfect for detecting counterfit:
currency, credit cards and IDs.
A perfect fixture for bars and restaurants.
~ Nothing is cooler than BLACK light ~
*****WATER RESISTANT!!! SOLID CLEAR PLASTIC ENCASEMENT!!! *****
But no information about peak nor any warnings about not looking directly at the lights. I have an Email to the company to try to get those specifics. Maybe the clear encasement brings some UV protection with it ? But I also thought that the UV was what made the corals flouresce (or at least light down into the Ultra Violet range did). Again, I guess it is a matter of how far down into the UV spectrum it goes.
I did see that other Chauvet white LED array, but decided that the shape and form factor were just not what I was looking for. I am thinking of also getting a white strip light from that same company to see how it would look.
The only caveat to getting those strip lights is expense. Both the initial purchase and the running costs are more than I think necessary. Now, let me preface that with the running costs would be $8 per month versus $5 or less... so
NOT a big deal.. but I just hate the idea of waste. As I stated, I only intend to use them to supplement the halides, fill in the dark spots and provide sunrise/sunset (and more tank viewing time w/o the high electrical cost halides running). So I don't really feel that the LEDs need to be as close together as the strip lights have them. But I would like to see for myself how they look and how effective they are, both with the halides on and off.
Jonathan
I do not plan to replace the halides with the LED array, but I do plan to replace the VHOs with them, and hope to have the LEDs fill the same role in our lighting scheme as the VHOs do now. That is to fill in the darker spots in the back corners, provide sunrise/sunset and longer viewing times and give some actinic pop to the LPS and zoas in the front of the tank. Adding some "blue" to the back corals and what not would just be a bonus
, and is something that I cannot do with the current VHO setup. I don't think it will cost me that much, but I could be wrong.. a couple of the places I checked were $2 per LED (*uugghh*), but I really haven't done that much research into it all yet. I still have lots more reading to do
Oh, and the other questions comes from using heat sinkable (or heat sink required LEDs) or the "old style" ones.. the old one would be easier, but the newer, more efficient (lumen per watt) ones usually all require heatsinks, which increase the design complexity a little and change the materials and mounting aspects of the LEDs a bit.
If anyone has any information on the use of UV LEDs over a reef tank, please let me know. I know that URI stands for Ultraviolet Reseach Institute, so it is implied that they use UV bulbs, I guess it is all a matter of how much UV protection is used. I definitely have alot more reading to do
. I also wondered about using the UV LEDs but having them high enough up off of the tank to disperse the light, if that would sufficiently disperse the possible hazards of using them ? Soo many questions, too few answers.. well, the Solaris fixtures have 20K equivalient LEDs, so they are out there
Back onto the outlet controller front, I did find another one on Ebay, this one from American DJ, if anyone was interested
:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=220123252496&ssPageName=STRK:MEBI:IT&ih=012
Looks to be similar to the Chauvet that we ordered