New T5 Lighting

[cameron]

OK it is still rough and I am still putting it all together, but below are the current pics. I am having one very strange testing problem though. One ballast has to be turned on and off at least once before it will power a bank. It does it on both banks and the other ballast doesn't have this problem on either bank. May be something funky with the GFCI it is on, but it isn't tripping it. Very strange. Oh well worse case I send it in for repair.
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[mkinna1]

Where did you get the huge bulbs?

 

[cameron]

reefgeek.com

Several other companies carry the 60" bulbs which are currently being overdriven to 100w each.

 

[victor626nj]

reefgeek.com

 

[victor626nj]

cam looks good bro cant waite to see your par readings ....i am waiting on sam to come to my readings hopefully we see a good spread

 

[gwhiz]

Looks good. Like your workbench! :tongue:

Did the spacing end up a little tight to the LED's in the center, or is that just the angle of the pics?

What mix of bulbs are you using?

 

[roland jacques]

Looks good. What kind of ballasts are you using ?

 

[cameron]

Geehh;127671 wrote: Looks good. Like your workbench! :tongue:

Yeah... don't have that awesome workspace I would like. Very small house.

Geehh;127671 wrote: Did the spacing end up a little tight to the LED's in the center, or is that just the angle of the pics?

I had LOTS of room actually, but I crammed the lighting really close to it since it was the center of the tank. They have just enough space to shoot a beam through. I may go back and glue / screw a small board to raise them flush with the other lighting, but no hurry since everything is working.

Geehh;127671 wrote: What mix of bulbs are you using?

Currently

ATI Blue Plus
ATI Aquablue Special
ATI Blue Plus
GE 6500k
ATI Blue Plus
ATI Pro Color

It is too white for me currently. I may pull the Aquablue Special and put in a bluer bulb or maybe actininc.

I am also not as happy with the fall off on the ends so I may reorg the T5s next pass a bit.
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[cameron]

ohh and IceCap ballasts

 

[reeferjw]

Looks great Cameron. I have been looking at T5s set ups a lot lately and I have a question for you. Seeing how close the "light box" is to the top of the tank, do you have to remove it to work on the tank? Will you remove the entire hood to do that or will the light box slide out or up or something? I am planning out a canopy build myself right now and researching any option that I can find. Thanks.

 

[cameron]

The rack uses plastic rails and the lighting fixture slides back a ways probably up to a 1'. Due to a setup issue, mine does not go as far back as I would like but I plan on resolving that. Right now I can do about 8". Enough to work in the tank but a few more inches would be more comfortable.

If you look in the last pic I posted, you can see the plastic rail and the notch in the canopy. In my next set of pics, I will snap some of it slid back.

 

[gwhiz]

You may first want to just change the order of the bulbs--try moving the aquablue special back one. I was surprised how much the order influenced what I saw.

I had an atinic in the mix the first time, but pulled it 'cause it really didn't seem to add much. I may add it back in after I add the 7th bulb on the front of my rack and play with the order again.

 

[cameron]

Oh and the entire rack can be removed pretty easily leaving the canopy in place.

 

[cameron]

Geehh;127719 wrote: You may first want to just change the order of the bulbs--try moving the aquablue special back one. I was surprised how much the order influenced what I saw.

I had an atinic in the mix the first time, but pulled it 'cause it really didn't seem to add much. I may add it back in after I add the 7th bulb on the front of my rack and play with the order again.

The order is going to take a while to work out, but I think I got too aggressive on centering the bulbs. I am going to go back and shift them more to the outside. Thankfully the design (which is great job done by a fellow reefer :yes: ) allows for a lot of tinkering with the placement of the lights.

 

[victor626nj]

cam it is looking good dude you take alot of pride in your install man very clean

 

[cameron]

Victor626nj;127744 wrote: cam it is looking good dude you take alot of pride in your install man very clean

You wouldn't say that if you saw the rats nest behind the tank... it still needs a lot of cleanup,

Very nice Cameron. Is the tank as bright as it was before or do you see a decline without the halides? And what LED moon lights are those. They look intense.

It is MUCH brighter... I mean MUCH MUCH brighter. I am going to tone it down for sure with more blue. As for the moon lights, there are two seperate LED systems. One is the moonlights (not what you see in the pics lit up) and those are the LunarSim lights from Neptune. I haven't seen those yet as it isn't night time and I just got it plugged into the AC3. The lights you are seeing are for shimmer (which no suprise is getting completely washed out by the T5s) and for sunrise/sunset. With just those on, the tank looks great but they don't put out any PAR so you can't really grow anything with them. If I was doing a FOWLR, I would consider buying a few for a tank. They are really nice and actually shimmer better than an MH light. They just aren't nearly as bright as an MH light.

 

[sammy33]

Now that's the way to do T5's. Nice and close to the water. Very nice looking setup. :thumbs:

Are you using any shield for the lamps/reflectors? My flow was so high near the top that I would get lots of splash on my lights even with them about 5" off the water. Yours look much closer.

 

[sailfish]

Nice rack! Seriously thats a nice light setup. Who built it? You.

I would like to see some par numbers also.

joe

 

[FutureInterest]

Its tough to tell from the pics, but it looks like a nice white with a touch of blue. Very nice setup.

 

[donnyholland]

I had similar problem with a retro I did in the store. I changed the gfci out like 3 times and then it just stopped tripping it all of a sudden not sure what caused it. I have a real good repor with icecap though so if you need to swap it out let me know I will take care of it for you.


/donny