KellyCorals
Active Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
- Messages
- 342
- Reaction score
- 458
- Location
- Cocoa Florida
- What state or country do you live in
- Florida
So I’m not very happy with my current lighting set up. It’s something I Frankensteined together because by the time I got the rest of my tank set up my funds ran dry and I had to run with what lights I could get. So here’s my current set up on my 90 gallon drilled (48” long):
3 of my lights are mounted to the underside of my canopy -
36” Orbit marine IC LED (programmable - fullspec)
48” No name white and blue LED bar with built in timer for whites on off time and blues on off time
Fluval Nano LED (4 inch x 4 inch square led with 5 channels and is Bluetooth controlable on my phone and sits over my main frag rack)
And my “Main” light is a $99 dollar eBay special that’s all blue lights (2 channels and a huge power transformer) that is awesome but is so bright if I run both channels it puts out over 300 PAR (guessing but I’m telling you it’s crazy bright) and most of my zoas close out of straight fear of being sun burnt! That light sits on brackets toward the very back of my tank and lights up 80% of the tank. I’ve since reduced it down to running only one channel on it.
2 of these lights (the 36 orbit and no name light bar) I already had from a previous tank and the other two I bought to bring in more par and blue / UV spectrum (and they were cheap)
Here is the issue -
All three lights besides my main light are not really strong enough to grow corals but are mounted to the canopy so when I lift the hood they are out of my way (all though blinding if I don’t turn them off first before feeding / moving frags, etc...) The only way they are strong enough is if I run the whites on the 48” light bar and that makes the algae bloom like crazy
My main light is pushed far back so really indirectly lighting most of my corals and is way too heavy to mount to the canopy and only offers 420 spec and has no ramp up or down.
So here is what I want to do:
Take down and can all 4 lights and mount 3 led lights like AI primes to the underside of my canopy because I really don’t want to get rid of the canopy (I’ve had several jumpers found dead on the floor in the morning when I was running open top) and I like the way it looks.
PROBLEM IS most LEDS have a vent fan thru the top and if I mount them to the underside of the canopy how will they cool them self’s and also they will be like 5” above the water surface and when I watch BRS videos about light height mounting ummm 5” is never a recommended height for hot spot and spread reasons sooooooo what do I do? Anybody got any good ideas? I want a phone controlable light with lots of blue, royal blue, UV,vilot, cool blue ect settings that I can adjust to get the right amount of light and spread and be able to mount it to my canopy so it’s out of my way when working with the tank. I attached some (bad) pictures that kinda show my current set up. Any advise would be greatly appreciated!
3 of my lights are mounted to the underside of my canopy -
36” Orbit marine IC LED (programmable - fullspec)
48” No name white and blue LED bar with built in timer for whites on off time and blues on off time
Fluval Nano LED (4 inch x 4 inch square led with 5 channels and is Bluetooth controlable on my phone and sits over my main frag rack)
And my “Main” light is a $99 dollar eBay special that’s all blue lights (2 channels and a huge power transformer) that is awesome but is so bright if I run both channels it puts out over 300 PAR (guessing but I’m telling you it’s crazy bright) and most of my zoas close out of straight fear of being sun burnt! That light sits on brackets toward the very back of my tank and lights up 80% of the tank. I’ve since reduced it down to running only one channel on it.
2 of these lights (the 36 orbit and no name light bar) I already had from a previous tank and the other two I bought to bring in more par and blue / UV spectrum (and they were cheap)
Here is the issue -
All three lights besides my main light are not really strong enough to grow corals but are mounted to the canopy so when I lift the hood they are out of my way (all though blinding if I don’t turn them off first before feeding / moving frags, etc...) The only way they are strong enough is if I run the whites on the 48” light bar and that makes the algae bloom like crazy
My main light is pushed far back so really indirectly lighting most of my corals and is way too heavy to mount to the canopy and only offers 420 spec and has no ramp up or down.
So here is what I want to do:
Take down and can all 4 lights and mount 3 led lights like AI primes to the underside of my canopy because I really don’t want to get rid of the canopy (I’ve had several jumpers found dead on the floor in the morning when I was running open top) and I like the way it looks.
PROBLEM IS most LEDS have a vent fan thru the top and if I mount them to the underside of the canopy how will they cool them self’s and also they will be like 5” above the water surface and when I watch BRS videos about light height mounting ummm 5” is never a recommended height for hot spot and spread reasons sooooooo what do I do? Anybody got any good ideas? I want a phone controlable light with lots of blue, royal blue, UV,vilot, cool blue ect settings that I can adjust to get the right amount of light and spread and be able to mount it to my canopy so it’s out of my way when working with the tank. I attached some (bad) pictures that kinda show my current set up. Any advise would be greatly appreciated!
