SPS Tank In Natural Light

[roblack]

Great colors, I do natural light some days for a few hours and the corals do look best with sunlight, as do the fish. Nice tank and corals! PAR grid is interesting, need to get a hold of one of those.

[SERVO]

Originally posted by fijiblue
Got my hands on a PAR meter (thanks Bubbletip) and took some numbers if anyone is interested...

We should all be interested! You have given us objective measures to help emmulate your system! I need to get a hold of one myself and post the results. 300 in the corners!

Now if you could check it with natural sunlight! I would love to see a comparison.

[fijiblue]

SERVO - 300 blew my mind as well...so did the 1000+ at the surface considering these are not overdriven and in a TEK fixture. I had previously tried using a formula to convert Lux to PAR and posted it with my tank last time...I should have checked it because the conversion didn't work and was way off! I'd love to try testing natural light, but I think it would be so inconsistent with the weather right now. I have to give the meter back today, but after this I might buy one.

[fijiblue]

oh yeah...and the 721 on the left side underneath the surface should be 506.

[SERVO]

So awesome!

Right around the solstice every year when the sun comes up, my tank will get natural sunlight. The front of the tank gets blasted for about 7 days! The colors actually look pretty lousy thru the glass with NS *Shrug*.

I've got an in wall that has a fish room built in the garage, so thats about as good as it will get for me. Kinda amazing that it can even get any light.



If I build a house in the future, I'm going to try those sola tubes with T5's or maybe LED's depending on price and technology and price at that time.

[gflat65]

What kind of par meter did you use? If it was an Apogee, how did you mount it? I found the one I used for a short time to be extremely variable and constantly changing values based on how level and still it was held. That made it difficult to be able to get good readings. Maybe I missed something... Can you get a pic of the meter and mount (or did you just hold it in your hand at different levels)? I'm wating to do something like this for all of my systems to see how different combinations fare and track long term degredation. TIA.

[fijiblue]

gflat65 - Yes, I used an apogee meter and no I didn't use a mount. For my purposes, I don't need one. Just looking for a rough number.

[gflat65]

Didn't it constantly flucuate, or did you just take averages of the values as it flucutated? I couldn't get it to stabilize holding it...

[grandp10]

I have 6 overdriven t5 bulbs of the same length and did not get near those good of readings on the par meter. Wonder if the ballasts are no good?

[grandp10]

Those par readings by the way were measured with the lights 4" closer to the water than 7".

[eagleONE]

Hey Fiji

I'm new to the PAR meter... so I'm wondering do you submerse the meter underwater to test it?

And for your fan, did you mod the clip? Yours looks shorter.. I have a hard time trying to stick it on the edge of the tank

Jay

[fijiblue]

grandp10 - how old are your bulbs? Do you cool them? My bulbs are about 2 weeks old, are actively cooled and I am crazy about keeping my reflectors clean all the time.

What's up Jay! Yes, the apogee meter was submersible and the levels do fluctuate. I took the average between the fluctuations. The fan I tore apart right away First, I took them out of the casing and flipped them to shoot the other way. Then I cut the legs to make it as short as possible on the tank. The nice thing about them is they are so simple to take apart and mod....don't know if the cost on the unit is really worth it, though. With a piece of acrylic, 4 computer fans - which would be better then the ones in there, a power converter and time you are looking at $16.

[fijiblue]

Servo - that is a pretty sweet setup! Can you post some stats?

[grandp10]

Fijiblue, the bulbs were only about 4 mos. old, if that. The fixture I have is the Aquactinics Solarflare, so it does have the active cooling. The only thing mine has that yours does not is an acyrlic shield, which is not supposed to affect par much at all. Do you know about ballasts, is there a way that the Icecap ballasts can be working and just not powering the bulbs fully like they are supposed to? Thanks!

[fijiblue]

Not sure on the ballast no running fully...I'd ask Icecap about that. I think the shield might be restricting you a bit. I chose not to go with the shield over the fixture because of that. If my bulbs were down further I would use a glass shield I had made, but otherwise at 7" I dont have much salt spray...knock on wood!

[uhuru]

If you could do it again would you still go with the TEK fixture or something else? What do you think of the Aquactinics TX5 fixture?

[Grunt007]

Granp10 I'd be willing to bet your par numbers will be much better w/out the acrylic cover. I ran VHO's w/ and w/out an acrylic top on a previous tank- BIG difference in light/coral growth though I've never tested w/ a meter.

[fijiblue]

uhuru - I would go with the TEK again in a heart beat. I don't know what all the bad mouth about them is about. They are a well built, industrial type hood. I think people are lazy and look for a "plug and play grow coral perfectly" type light and badmouth it cause it takes some tweaking. Just my opinion.

[eagleONE]

Originally posted by fijiblue

What's up Jay! Yes, the apogee meter was submersible and the levels do fluctuate. I took the average between the fluctuations. The fan I tore apart right away First, I took them out of the casing and flipped them to shoot the other way. Then I cut the legs to make it as short as possible on the tank. The nice thing about them is they are so simple to take apart and mod....don't know if the cost on the unit is really worth it, though. With a piece of acrylic, 4 computer fans - which would be better then the ones in there, a power converter and time you are looking at $16.

Luckily, I score a pair for 5 bucks each. Just trying to figure out how to mount it. I like your idea. I'll fiddle with it and see how it will come out. I should look into getting an apogee meter too. Thanks for info!

[ezcompany]

awesome tank! mind telling me where you can get a par meter?

[jamesdawson]

Originally posted by uhuru
If you could do it again would you still go with the TEK fixture or something else? What do you think of the Aquactinics TX5 fixture?

TX5 is much better. Also, Aquatinics has proven itself to be a much better company than Sunlight Supply.

Any T5 fixture should have active cooling to get the most PAR and life out of T5s. The proof is in the pudding, PowerModuls make twice the Par of a TekLight. I have run both.

If you have a short tank, Teklights can work at the cost of lesser bulb lifespan and a heating the water more penalty.

James

[fijiblue]

No prob eagleONE.

ezcompany - I borrowed the PAR meter from a buddy of mine, but you can get them here:
http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merch...Category_Code=

jamesdawson - to say a PowerModuls will run double the output is kinda risky. I doubt a 6 bulb unit would be pushing 2000 PAR at the surface

[CamBarr]

Yo Fiji

Get me an updated FTS already HA HA

Great thread tagging along

[fijiblue]

Yo Fiji

Get me an updated FTS already HA HA

Great thread tagging along

Ha! Not until the tank is 1 year old...got atleast 5 more months

[CamBarr]

ahhh rubbish...lol