XSiVE's 120 in-wall

[CalmSeasQuest]

Great job on all the plotting Ryan! You'll have to show me how - all done in Excel?

[XSiVE]

I took 45 measurements (if the rock was not in the way) on each plane.

I actually started with this grid on the front of the tank. Every 6 inches top to bottom left to right. I may try to somehow overlay the graphs onto this image to make a 3D representation but it doesn't really make much difference since I have a pretty good idea what Im getting for PAR numbers and where..

And yes, in the bottom of the pic my Mandarin is nearly as big as my Tennenti Tang



I just put all of the measurements into excel in a grid (with labels) exactly as they were laid out while measuring so I had nine by five cells worth of measurements and then created a surface graph with the subtype of contour, formatted the legend to deal in 50's instead of 200's and it was happy.

I can email you the xls file, or bring it by on a flash drive when I bring the apogee back.

[cg5071]

Whit is PIF? Also that is cool, all those babies.
What does a simpler led setup like you have run? (in cost)

[fishtal]

Great shot of the Mandarin! I saw the lights in person and they are awesome, quite impressive.

BTW, PIF= Pay it forward.

[XSiVE]

Great shot of the Mandarin! I saw the lights in person and they are awesome, quite impressive.

BTW, PIF= Pay it forward.

Thanks Tal, now I just need a mate for it but Im unsure of the pod population and I would rather have one very healthy instead of two kinda healthy.

[XSiVE]

Whit is PIF? Also that is cool, all those babies.
What does a simpler led setup like you have run? (in cost)

Pay it forward, basically I'll just give them away in hopes that the receipients will give something else away, or if theirs dies / spawns babies that those will be given away.

LED setups can vary wildly in cost depending on what you want to do, how nice you want the fixture to look, how deep your tank is, do you want to be able to dim them, etc.. I think a general rule of thumb is probably "about $12 per gallon" I know it seems silly to estimate on gallons but I was just throwing numbers around on what I would need to do to light a different tank and it worked out to around that as well. you could go cheaper, or a lot more expensive depending on what you need.

[cg5071]

Thanks. oh! PIF,lol. Ok that is great. I wouldnt mind jumping in either. At one point I was actually hoping that mine would die so I could watch it produce but I just let things take their course.

I am looking at a frag tank also. Probably 20 long or half of a 55. It doesnt need to look purty "yet" Maybe if I was doing one for my main tank which has an ugly light system over it now. I would want a deep blue I guess as I am getting into sps slowly but surely and want them to have nice colors. My main isnt really blue atm since I was growing lps and zoas mostly But will probably change the halide there from a 10k. What do people use for both good growth and bluer color for sps? The halide is over the back of the tank and most of the rock, and I have a couple t5s over the front.

Money of course is important and I am sure I can do most of the work myself. Thanks for the guestimate of cost, and no I dont need it to dim.

[XSiVE]

First glimpse of PAR numbers (Huge** Thanks to Tom, CalmSeasQuest for letting me borrow the meter!) I will have much more detailed analysis over the next few days.

This is a graph of the light level at about 1cm below the water surface. Think of the bottom, flat section of the graph as a "slice" of my water column, The X-axis (labeled A-I) is the front glass, Z-axis is the side glass, labeled in 6 inch measurements relative to the front glass.


Im very happy with the initial findings. It's nothing like ZOMG SO MUCH LIGHT, but when you think about it you realistically dont need much, if any more light than Im pumping into the display to keep everything you could ever want. Sure the 1cm below water surface on a hawaiian reef is something like 1600-2000 PAR but most of the biodiversity happens at significantly lower light levels.


Side note: Im getting ~150-250PAR on the rack, 400? at the water surface in my frag tank with only 8 emitters, going to add 4 more emitters to that pendant so I can have it more focused on growth for SPS either before they go into the display, or after they get clipped and get to wait for sale. I'll have solid data on the frag tank tomorrow.

[cg5071]

That tang is sweet! Sometime in the future I think I need to place another order w/ Garf. Stonys instead of softies this time. I always see the bonsai, does anyone know what other cool stuff they have? I know they have alot.

[XSiVE]

FINALLY got the white balance / exposure / tint adjusted correctly to the pic represents what the LEDs look like to the naked eye, it really takes a bit of adjustment since every shot from the camera looks somehow too washed out or somehow purple.. what a pain.

What do you all think of my new aquascape?

Also, I need some ideas on what to do on the back of the tank.. Im open to a lot of ideas since I can get behind it and do whatever needs to be done.