Lighting your reef... Best bang for your buck.

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If I had that enviable bottomless budget, my dream 2000 gallon reef might have a cloud cover LED routine....to please me. But all the other bases would be covered before the bling was added.
If that was the case, I'd just get a beachfront property somewhere nice, and have my ridiculously huge tank plumbed directly to the ocean. :dance:
 
If that was the case, I'd just get a beachfront property somewhere nice, and have my ridiculously huge tank plumbed directly to the ocean. :dance:

If I lived on the beach I probably wouldn't have a tank. I'd get to dive all the time and get my fix that way. ;-)
 
100 yards of 1" pvc coming in, and 100 yards of 1.5" going back out. Sure you will dive, but not every day. You would also have solar tubes coming in so that you wouldn't need much in the way of lighting. Perhaps keep it on the second floor. No heater or chiller needed either.
You would dive every once in a while to catch smaller fish and let your full grown ones go...lol. Imagine that!
 
100 yards of 1" pvc coming in, and 100 yards of 1.5" going back out. Sure you will dive, but not every day. You would also have solar tubes coming in so that you wouldn't need much in the way of lighting. Perhaps keep it on the second floor. No heater or chiller needed either.
You would dive every once in a while to catch smaller fish and let your full grown ones go...lol. Imagine that!

Sounds like heaven, let's move there now.

I have always loved the idea of solar tubes with photoreceptors that could vary the light. We talked about that a few years ago, remember?
 
Sounds like heaven, let's move there now.

I have always loved the idea of solar tubes with photoreceptors that could vary the light. We talked about that a few years ago, remember?

PSRs are actually pretty cheap, just a couple of dollars. Connected to an Arduino with some controller code, it could pretty easily regulate lights. In fact, I think that people out there have already done exactly that.
 
You're right, they add supplemental lighting to it, but it sounds brilliant. Why not use the sun if you can regulate and enhance it?
 
I can see myself starting a reef out in the ocean and growing out frags in the aquarium and then moving them out to the ocean reef to grow. Now just to get my money trees producing first....
 
Speaking of the sun...Check this out!
I was sitting on a lounge chair in my back yard, and feeling the hot sun beating on my bald head, I decided to whip out the PAR meter.
Check out what the sun is hitting my back yard with-
img_2501192_0_c0525d0971d6334cce84f05d4d978feb.jpg


And even indirect light (notice the probe pointing at my jeans)
img_2501192_1_1d34a898ad6a053bfa71971a95a009a7.jpg
 
That's why I started the experiment with a super bright LED on a moving rail system. I hit my acros with +1200 PAR for several minutes out of each hour. Not enough to burn them, but it does cause exceptionally dense growth.
 
Dense? Don't you think density, or the thickness of the branches to be attributed to flow? How was the coloration?
 
Dense? Don't you think density, or the thickness of the branches to be attributed to flow? How was the coloration?

As said, it's an experiment. I meant to imply the branching is closer together than what I see under more conventional lighting. Flow is kept high because of the light intensity, but as you were implying, that also has had an effect on the growth pattern. Coloration is great. Purple acro is purple with blue tips, etc.
 
Speaking of the sun...Check this out!
I was sitting on a lounge chair in my back yard, and feeling the hot sun beating on my bald head, I decided to whip out the PAR meter.
Check out what the sun is hitting my back yard with-

And even indirect light (notice the probe pointing at my jeans)

I couldn't get the pictures to open up. What wre the values you measured? My meter shows almost 2000 PAR in noon day sun.
 
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