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

[jeffaquarius]

The accuracy of the monitor is not in question here. I am just explaining the interpretation of the monitor display. Meaning the PAR reading depends on where your sensor is located at.

 

[Cichlid-dude]

Watch those oddyseas closely. I've seen their ballasts break down quickly. One I saw caught on fire.

I had an oddysea fixture and the ballasts kept blowing out on me so i trashed it. One of the ballasts was smoking when it died. Not a very good product imo.

 

[JJ-MIK]

Oh ok. I went back and reread your last post. I thought you said reading will b all over the place. My bad

 

[JJ-MIK]

Just got my Taos today and put one fixture over the tank. And I'm going to love it when it's done!!il post pics in a few days when I get it finished!!

 

[jeffaquarius]

Just got my Taos today and put one fixture over the tank. And I'm going to love it when it's done!!il post pics in a few days when I get it finished!!

I am curious to see the spectrograph of your new Taotronics.

 

[JJ-MIK]

This is out of the book that came with them

 

[jeffaquarius]

I mean the seneye graph under your new fixture so we can see the difference compared with old fixture you posted last time.

 

[JJ-MIK]

Ah ok. It'll be this weekend. Right now the lights are sitting on the glass . I have to refi fire my canopy. Hoping to get them hung tomorrow after work

 

[JJ-MIK]

Here is my tank with the dimmable taotronics.. My phone must like blue because the tank is pretty bright white..



Here is my seneye readings from 6" below the surface in the center right at the base of my acro..




This is the middle of my tank

So according to this my par value is awesome!! But with LEDs who knows what the true reading is... My Lux is good and kelvin is off the charts... But looking at the thin line. My blues are under 450 . And I have very little red.. How important is red! I'm sure I could throw in some red LEDs .. Or is it not that important?

 

[mr_X]

Red is unimportant.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Red is unimportant.

+1 for growth. But it does warm up the color spectrum and some corals will look more saturated in color, which some folks like. I guess it's like cloud and lightening effects, totally useless to the coral and fish, but if done right can look cool. All about individual tastes. But as far as red and green LEDs, the coral doesn't care.

 

[jeffaquarius]

Here is my tank with the dimmable taotronics.. My phone must like blue because the tank is pretty bright white..

View attachment 180132

Here is my seneye readings from 6" below the surface in the center right at the base of my acro..


View attachment 180133

This is the middle of my tank

So according to this my par value is awesome!! But with LEDs who knows what the true reading is... My Lux is good and kelvin is off the charts... But looking at the thin line. My blues are under 450 . And I have very little red.. How important is red! I'm sure I could throw in some red LEDs .. Or is it not that important?



View attachment 180134

Yep I see you have a whooping par now and the pur is obviously very good. As Greg says you can crank up the red a little if you wanna enjoy some colors in your tank. The result leads me to a conclusion that having the Taotronics with Seneye is the way to go.

 

[JJ-MIK]

After do some reading last night. This is very confusing......... A website said that red is in fact important in photosynthesis even tho many people say its not. MrX I read that before you commented. The person said that even if a led is giving off great par values. Does not mean there will be good PUR.. .. I'm so confused anymore... Lol but since mr X is doing great with Taos. I'm going to trust and say. I'm sticking with the Taos.. .. hey mrX .. What are your dials set at on your lights? The book says 50 white and 80% blue.. That's to blue for me

 

[JJ-MIK]

MrX I just remembered your bit running the dimmables... My bad... If I turn both blues and whites up 100% the tank is too blue.. The book says 50% white 80% blue... I'm running mine around 65% white.. 80% blue and I like it..

 

[mr_X]

Run it how you like it. Red is good for photosynthesis in plants, but corals don't use it. There is plenty of PUR coming out of these fixtures. So much so, many people bleach even the most light hungry SPS via poor acclimation, and try to blame something else. I challenge anyone to come look at my tank and see how colorful sps is at amazing distances from the fixtures.

 

[mwilliams]

Man I would love to see your tank setup but that would be a long drive.... A few thousand miles probably....

 

[Gregcoyote]

I have both types and all I notice is that reds are redder under the full spectrum, but you would expect that with the addition of red LEDs. All other colors, including green look fully saturated under the Chinese fixtures. I notice this red boost most with red cyanaria, red mushrooms and some sunburst zoas. I also had to use full spectrum flash lighting underwater to fully saturate a corals color. Red just isn't present underwater, but many have red pigments that really look startling under full spectrum photo flash.

Again, this is all subjective.

 

[jeffaquarius]

Man I would love to see your tank setup but that would be a long drive.... A few thousand miles probably....

There is this thing called YOUTUBE which can be posted in a mater of minutes lol

 

[mr_X]

It's not the same as being there. I tried to upload videos, and they are quite blurry and nondescript.

 

[jeffaquarius]

It depends on the quality of the video camera. May be Greg will have a chance to visit you and share us what you got lol. Or you can get this camcorder Flip Ultra HD. It's very handy.
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&ke...nics&hvadid=1676101903&ref=pd_sl_5a6dr15jiw_e