Finally going LED

Oh I am still going to stick with LEDs.. it is what I enjoy doing so I will do it for my setup with the weather stuff as well. I spent over $500 on a controller to be able to do the weather stuff so I better use it. ;) I just wouldn't recommend LEDs for the majority of people that just want a "set it and forget it" type lighting setup. I just didn't think LEDs would require so much fine tuning to get them working well.. so it is quite a learning process, but one I do enjoy myself.

The PAR vs Intensity thing comes from using Royal Blue LEDs. They put out A LOT of PAR and right at the photosynthetic peak of 453nm, same PAR as the XP-G white LEDs, but are dark blue looking. So the blues are really putting out a ton of usable light, but visually it is not bright (obviously since it is dark blue). When I try and adjust my whites to balance out the blues to my liking I end up with way to much PAR. I just have to find that sweet spot of "just enough blue for my liking balanced with the whites and keep it within acceptable intensity". If I turn the blues down too much I don't get the looks I like for a tank, which is a 20k look, but if I turn them up to my liking the corals don't like it.
 
This goes hand in hand with what people were saying on RC about the PAR measurements of the AI fixures. Lots of reports of people bleaching/killing corals because they'd hang the lights and set the brightness to what was visually similar to a MH setup, without verifying using a PAR meter, which turned out to be way higher PAR readings than the MH was putting out.
 
??? Not sure what your seeing.. second vid is just the 24 LEDs set at about 50% on each the RB and CWs.. not adjusting the LEDs, just walking around the tank filming. ;) I think the rain effect your seeing is just the surface movement from the powerheads.
 
The rain effect is just the way the camera reacted to the light. Some sort of noise.

Nice tanks and lights!
 
The LED light waves are hitting the water with such force, it's making it look like it's raining and it's good for oxygenation, too!
 
Ace is just two steps ahead of everyone else in that he used laser beams. Just lasers, folks, nothing to be excited about.
 
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