Ace25's 75G Build Thread

Phoenix bulb is 2 weeks old, just about "burned in" and the XM 10k is 3 months old, so burned it but still very good bulb. I was suprised how much PAR the 10k actually puts out. Actinics on my setup didn't put out much at all, around 60 at the water, 120 at the bulb, but on my actinics on my 29G I was getting 300 PAR on them at the bulb, so my actinics on my 75G, while only 3 months old, are already "burned out" and need replacement. Lesson learned, overdriving Actinics with an Icecap660 is a very bad idea.

Another cool thing about the PAR meter though was it was able to help my "fine tune" the angle of my reflectors on my actinics to get the most PAR possible at the surface. I tweaked all of them and was able to sqeeze out about another 10-15PAR

The thing on the right in the first pic is just a temperature gun and laser pointer. I use it more to point at corals in the tank than actually read temps with it, lol.
 
Ace25 stopped by with his new toy (Par meter) to check the Par on my solar tubes. We were blowned away by the results. I'll let him explain it more when he comes on.
 
So.. solar tubes.. ROCK!!! Pegged my meter at noon, which tops out at 3000 PAR. This is PER TUBE (He has 3 tubes on his 300G tank) at the bottom of probably a good 10-14' of tube.

Just for some sort of scale, noon time sun at the top of a reef in nature is around 2000 PAR. This puts his tubes at 1.5x the strength of the sun on PAR output at its peak. Now since they are solar tubes they are at the mercy of nature, clouds, passing plane, etc so PAR isn't a constant like it is with MHs.. but from his awesome corals growth he has going now along with good PAR readings I can honestly say that any tank from now on.. for me.. I will be going Solar Tubes instead of MH lighting. Save a ton of $ on electricity for lighting as well as chiller.

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ok, if I post a couple pics will someone chime in and say how awesome solar tubes are? LOL. FYI, at 3:15pm, 1 solar tube was putting out a constant 2850 PAR at the surface of the water. Show me a MH 400w or less that can do that. At 12pm PAR was way off the meters ability to read, which tops out at 3000, noon time sun tops out around 2000 PAR. ;)

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As soon as my water clears to where I can add stuff :D I'll have to take a photo of my tank under LEDs.

Yours looks great!!
 
Darn......................Jeremy that 1st picture is just incredible. The colors in your corals is awesome and thats through a picture. I could imagine its much nicer in person.
 
I just figured out that my old camera can actually take movies... crappy ones.. but still good enough to show what I wanted.. which was the wave action of the Vortech. First video, look at the top of the tank and you can see the wave. The rest of the videos are showing the corals polyp movement.

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Those readings are way beyond what I expected. Any PAR readings from within the tank? Curious to see how much PAR is reaching the mid to bottom areas.
 
Not yet.. I am going to stop by tomorrow and pick up the meter to download the 24 hour log and get a DLI for him. Then I am going to make a holder for it and silicone the sensor on tomorrow night so on Thur I can do some testing in the water. I am betting even at the bottom of his tank he has some very high PAR readings and that is why he has so much trouble with some acans.
 
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