Wide angle lens differences

[brad65ford]

hey guys, running a Gen3 over a 20g long sps dominate tank. On my last Radion (gen 2) I only ran the stock lens. For some reason i wanted to try these wide angle lens on my new Gen 3. Any difference regardling light intensity? Meaning does 45 percent with the stock lens equal 55 percent or higher with these wide angles? Thanks again for anyone that is running these lens.

 

[aleithol]

Not a lot of factual data on wide angle lenses, but several threads and references here with a few data points if you do some creative searches. THIS post of mine is at least one view of measured data I did a couple months ago. My tank is larger than yours, but you should be able to gather something from the data points I put together. Net is, IMO, overall PAR with the wide angle lenses can be up to perhaps 60% less than the standard lenses, with highest available intensity directly under the LEDs, and decreasing intensity as you move down and out from that point. In other words, the fringes of where the light reaches has substantially less intensity than the areas directly beneath. You need to consider that with placement of corals in your tank. I say that, but at the same time, would still not trade my wide angle lenses for the great job they do reducing shadow and illuminating my 30" wide tank -- even though I now have them running at 100% for a portion of the day.

FWIW, the other consideration I'd offer is UV. Not all lights have them, but I'm finding some corals are really not liking the higher intensity of that part of the spectrum for the majority of the photo period with my G3 Pros. Having some experince now, I would never default UV-alone to 100% for most of the day to start with like some folks are or even default profiles I've seen may suggest in relation to other colors -- it's at least another variable you need to consider in addition to everything else going on. My suggestion is to initially back off on the "black light effect" no matter how much friends and family may ooohh and Ahhhh over it, and tweak it up every couple of weeks (in addition and with consideration to overall intensity) until you're comfortable you're not creating problems with UV in addition to overall intensity, or consider moving corals not liking what you are doing further down and out from underneath the LEDs until you get a feel for what is going on.

Good luck!

 

[brad65ford]

Hi Bert,

Good to hear from you I did indeed see your thread already when search for more data. I do agree on the UV subject, noticed this when i was running the Kessils as well. Took some time for some of the sps's to get used to it.

At the moment i'm about 300 par with the Gen 3 at 15" above water surface running 65% all channels. The drop off in par is pretty noticeable towards the sides of the tank which sucks. IMO it would be nice to spread the two pucks out from each other with these wide angle lens.

Fingers crossed, coming from MH's and LED's to just LED's.