Best Mixed Reef Lighting for a Hood

[Kelly3s]

I need help for those with a hood and found great lighting. We have a mixed reef (SPS, LPS, zoas, anemones, fish). 48 long 75gal.
We are looking for quality lighting that will work with a hood. Right now we have two AquaticLife HM Electronics Edge Marine Coral Reef. We tried temporarily adding one Red Sea 90 to see if it would work. Looked WAY better, but being in a hood and close to the glass tops, it got way too hot.

We aren't looking for a budget necessarily. Willing to pay for great lighting. I am thinking we have to use LED strips because of the hood, but hoping either that isn't the case, or there is a much better LED strip out there.

We need better color on our corals. I can see a few suffering from the lack of par. When we first got the lights a year ago we tested and the high center was at 200 all the way down to 80 in the bottom corners.

Would love to here your suggestions! Thank you!

 

[14 foot reef]

Look into the AI Blades....Tons of release videos on them. Watch any of these

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=AI+Blade+led

 

[Spare time]

AI blade and reef brite sound like a good option for limited space and heat.

 

[dedragon]

Can you get a pic of the hood? A lot of these lights will generate too much heat if they are in an enclosed space unfortunately, which will reduce lifespan of the lights. You may be able to easily fix this by cutting a hole if possible and adding a couple of usb fans or similar. I have used these linked below for a similar purpose with a pc inside a cabinet. Just gonna depend if you are able to cut a hole and what size

Amazon.com : ac infinity fan usb

www.amazon.com

 

[dedragon]

When we first got the lights a year ago we tested and the high center was at 200 all the way down to 80 in the bottom corners.

Seems a bit high for what these lights can put out. Did you use a seneye for par measurement?

 

[Baldguy]

I've had the same issues with my tank. I like having a canopy but allowing for an inch of space under the top that leaves the light only 6 or 7 inches above the water. Almost every light maker suggests a foot or more to get proper spread. I've always had 3 or 4 strip lights which have done pretty well. These usually do not have much control other than dimming and choosing the mix of actinic and daylight strips that work best for you. I am looking at the ai blades as they do have adjustable channels and are still passive cooling. Even with usb fans and a few holes drilled there is still some heat build up. I'm open to other suggestions.

 

[Kelly3s]

Here is what my hood is like. There are openings on the top and completely open in the back. So it does have some ventilation. It really is about being too close to the water. Drilled to the top is 4 1/2 inches from the glass top.

 

[srobertb]

Radions with diffusers. My hobbies are water filtration, fish tanks, strong man competitive lifting, and cooling systems so I would add some cooler guy’s fans with thermostats to my hood. But I know that’s not for everyone.

They make lots of “dumb” LED strip lights these days to replace T5’s. Just let your vendor know what you want as far as color temp (20k blue in the evenings and mornings with a 10-12k afternoon for instance) and then get some actinic, a UV/purple, and cool white strips depending on how blue you want it to be. Put them in the hood and get a Wi-Fi powerstrip to start with the blue/purple in the mornings and kick the whites on later for a few hours. You could even set one to be “moon light”

Or just pop in two Radion XR30’s and away you go. I can not recommend AI products as I don’t feel they make a great product. Just a good budget-friendly product.

 

[dedragon]

Here is what my hood is like. There are openings on the top and completely open in the back. So it does have some ventilation. It really is about being too close to the water. Drilled to the top is 4 1/2 inches from the glass top.

Got it now. I would still add a couple of cooling fans as it will help if you are seeing too much of a temperature increase from the leds. Led strips will work well inside of that hood, just leave a bit of an air gap so air can circulate over the top of the heatsink if you mount them to the hood itself. There are strips for wide range of budgets anywhere from aliexpress led strips to the more expensive ai blade led. I like the quanta reef or orphek ones the best which are between the 2 on pricing but they dont have controllability just yet (I think both companies are working on it). You can just use a smart power strip like those from amazon to control when each bar goes on and off

 

[Baldguy]

Radions with diffusers. My hobbies are water filtration, fish tanks, strong man competitive lifting, and cooling systems so I would add some cooler guy’s fans with thermostats to my hood. But I know that’s not for everyone.

They make lots of “dumb” LED strip lights these days to replace T5’s. Just let your vendor know what you want as far as color temp (20k blue in the evenings and mornings with a 10-12k afternoon for instance) and then get some actinic, a UV/purple, and cool white strips depending on how blue you want it to be. Put them in the hood and get a Wi-Fi powerstrip to start with the blue/purple in the mornings and kick the whites on later for a few hours. You could even set one to be “moon light”

Or just pop in two Radion XR30’s and away you go. I can not recommend AI products as I don’t feel they make a great product. Just a good budget-friendly product.

Should fans be used as intake or exhaust? Push cooler air into the hood or suck hot air out?

 

[srobertb]

Should fans be used as intake or exhaust? Push cooler air into the hood or suck hot air out?

Always the question isn’t it? I like to push out as I feel like fans accumulate dust less this way. The debate has been raging for 10+ years.

Then again, dust filters on fans sucking in is king if you plan on cleaning fan filters religiously. I totally do but often do not.

 

[dedragon]

Should fans be used as intake or exhaust? Push cooler air into the hood or suck hot air out?

Negative vs positive pressure. Hard to say which is gonna be better especially if there are a lot of holes in the hood for OP. I would probably direct fans at the fixture if there wasnt many holes for intake near the light fixture heatsink. If the OP just wanted an average cooler temperature in the hood then I would use negative pressure

 

[Kelly3s]

Update, we added a AI Blade Glow (left the existing lights for now) and it is a significant difference. My Papa Smurf acro still doesn't look blue. Not sure I can get that with LED but everything else looks great. Eventually I will switch out the other lights with AI Blade Grow.