New Lights!

[dball711]

Just sold my Radion gen 5's to make way for a change over to Strip LED lights, adjustment, no ramp up or down, no moon light - just light strip that turn on and off throughout the day.

I have 2 - 60g frag tanks with a 2' x 4' footprint and only 12" deep.

Each tank will have 7 LED strips...
2 - Orphek OR3 Blue Sky
2 - Orphek OR3 Blue Plus
1 - Orphek OR3 UV/Violet
and
2 - generic 80w 470nm light bars

I rigged up a hanging mount for the 5 OR3 bars using the provided hinged mound so I could angle the light into the tank. The 2 generic light bars are mounted on the top Fram off. the aquarium to provide light at an extreme angle. The purpose of angling the light sources is to reduce the shaded areas on my corals that LED lights just hanging over corals don't reach on the sides of the corals.

 

[dball711]

And now some crapy iPhone pics of how the corals look with the new lights...

 

[scottw]

Love it Dave. I’m a huge fan of off and on. Ramping isn’t needed or required. That’s what I love about the ILLUMAGIC pixels. On. Off. That’s it. Can’t wait to see your frags take off. I love the orpheks, I run the OR3’s also. Smart move!

corals looks great!

 

[civics14]

Nice. Any PAR reading?
Slap some to the front glass while you’re at it!!

 

[hzheng33]

what are these side mounted light strips for?

 

[dball711]

I have those mounted on extreme angles to help illuminate the corals from the sides to eliminate some of the dead spots created with top down only LED lighting.

 

[90gDreams]

I have those mounted on extreme angles to help illuminate the corals from the sides to eliminate some of the dead spots created with top down only LED lighting.

21st century t5 lol

 

[dball711]

Nice. Any PAR reading?
Slap some to the front glass while you’re at it!!

PAR readings coming this weekend maybe…

 

[psy88]

The blue color always looks so romantic and mysterious. I'm going to buy blue LEDs too.

 

[project1004]

Please let me know how you like em and for your corals that you moved from Radion to Orphak and other LED’s. It’s probably too early to tell but I’m following this thread.

I was planning on going to Radion from AI but I also am tinkering with LED positioning and trying to see the results first. Was radion not giving good spread?


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[dball711]

I’ve been using Orphek light bars for years and really love the color and growth. Moving to them exclusively should give me ridiculous PAR numbers but waiting on a reading from the club so I can post what I suspect from moving exclusively to the light bars.

 

[project1004]

I’m watching and learning here as well…. Your tank looks amazing and those corals to die for!!!


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[walton]

Are there any LFS that sell these around town or did you have to order them online? I am thinking about making the switch to these full time as well.

 

[billyocean]

Check out the quanta bars also.

 

[chuck]

I’m watching and learning here as well…. Your tank looks amazing and those corals to die for!!!


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daves coral are amazing. And if you want to check out ryan corals@billyocean omg the colors are stunning

 

[dball711]

Are there any LFS that sell these around town or did you have to order them online? I am thinking about making the switch to these full time as well.

I’m not sure that anyone has them locally. I’ve been ordering them directly from the Orphek site and usually the distributor they hook you up with might be able to offer some discounts such as open box items or just a flat discount on what you’re ordering.

 

[dball711]

Check out the quanta bars also.

I have checked them out but no real info in the lights, cant even see what wattage the LED's are (Orphek 's using 5w dual chip LED's) . They look nice but I've had such good luck with Orphek bars since I ditched the T5's.

I noticed their 3" bar uses 50% more power consumption than the similar 3' Orphek bar

 

[billyocean]

I have checked them out but no real info in the lights, cant even see what wattage the LED's are (Orphek 's using 5w dual chip LED's) . They look nice but I've had such good luck with Orphek bars since I ditched the T5's.

I noticed their 3" bar uses 50% more power consumption than the similar 3' Orphek bar

It's all on their website. Don't get me wrong, I love orphek as well. In my opinion a panel style led or bars provides a better lighting as it doesn't come from a smaller/tighter starting point. Understandably this can be overcome by adding more pyck style lighting but panel and led lights spread are more t5ish in terms of consistency in par.

 

[billyocean]

@dball711 have you checked out the new orphek osix that you can control/dim the bars with? Looks like a great addition.

 

[hiimsean]

@dball711 how long have you been running them now. Have you noticed any difference between these the the xr15’s. What intensities where you running the radions?