Did you TIR your radion?

[Reef News Verified Sponsor]

The wide-angle TIR (Total Internal Reflection) Lens offers Radion users an option for dispersing the light over a wider area of a tank. This is especially helpful for users with shallower tanks or for users who are keeping corals with lower PAR needs (those not growing SPS on the sandbed). The standard Radion comes with an 80° TIR lens, but the wide-angle TIR extends the reach to 120° (as in this example).

For those of you who might be more concerned about how much PAR is reduced at normal or deeper tanks, here's a graph provided by EcoTech Marine that demonstrates the PAR readings at 24" over a 48" x 48" area. As shown in this graph, PAR levels are still strong at 24", and since most of us are growing sticks a bit higher up anyway, the expanded lighting area may be far more beneficial than any concern over reduced PAR in most reef tanks.

So, have you upgraded to a wide-angle TIR lens? What has been your experience?

 

[reefaboo]

TIR lens come as factory setting in Radion G3s ...isnt it so ?

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

TIR lens come as factory setting in Radion G3s ...isnt it so ?

The Ecotech website seems to indicate that the G3's come with the 80° TIR lens. The write-up is referring to the wide-angle TIR lens which is 120°.

 

[Reef News Verified Sponsor]

TIR lens come as factory setting in Radion G3s ...isnt it so ?

Oops! I hadn't had my coffee yet... The post is referring to the wide-angle TIR upgrade option. Post corrected.

 

[sonubhai]

I have a 24x24x16 cube, i upgraded and l like the spread of the light on my g3 pro.

 

[fab]

I use both the 80° and the 120° TIR penses over my didplay tank. I use 120° TIR lenses over my refugium. When I first designed my lighting system, I used the illumination intensity pattern charts shown in the OP above as the basis for my design.

I use the standard 80° lenses on the regions of my tank that have the most water depth and the 120° TIR lenses on regions that have predominately less depth. I overlap the light coverage of the 80-° beamwidth lamps to provide lune shaped regions of high intensity light at my maximum depths in addition to and offset from the naturally central "hot spots." I use 120° TIR lenses, generously overlapping their beams, to improve the uniformity of my lighting over areas where the reeftop is most shallow.

Furthermore I can move my individual lights laterally several inches to reposition their footprints for fine tuning where the highest intensity of each lamp is concentrated. My lamps are suspended on two hoist systems which enables me to adjust intensity and spread by changing their elevations above the water, but at the cost of reducing the maximum intensity directly below the lamps at their beam centers when they are raised. That is advantageous over shallower reeftops; using elevation control for trading maximum intensity for increased spread.

I use in situ PAR meters for continuous monitoring. One is positioned at a beam center at max water depth below an 80° beam. One is located at my highest reef level directly below a 120° beam. I also use a moveable PAR meter to check lighting levels at points of interest from time to time.

 

[M3ace9]

It crazy how people use radions without these haha

 

[Salty1962]

I changed out to the 120s a month back and the spread is definitely better. Doesn't seem to effect the power that much, to the eyes at least.

 

[fab]

Your eyes are not an adequate sensor to judge the light intensity of the spectrum your corals feed on. Your eyes respond strongly to the green region of the spectrum and very weakly to the blue end and the red end of the spectrum. For example, consider a case where a lot of blue energy is needed for corals in your aquarium The blues could be too weak and you would not really see the deficiency with your eyes. You could could dim or brighten your lights to the eye's perception with no idea what is happening in the blue region.

That is what PAR meters do for us. They "see" and measure across the entire useable spectrum for feeding the algae in our corals. They see the different color region's of the spectrum differently from what we do.

 

[CJBuckeyes]

I have two radion g3 pros over my 70g cad lights. I ordered the wide angle lenses, and will be installing them in the next few days. I rented a par meter and will be measuring the difference in spread. Hoping these will even out coverage and reduce shadowing. Will report back.

 

[M3ace9]

Shadowing should be gone. This will be adequate lighting for your tank. Remember there is about a 15-20% loss in par with the Wide angle lenses.

 

[Salty1962]

Your eyes are not an adequate sensor to judge the light intensity of the spectrum your corals feed on. Your eyes respond strongly to the green region of the spectrum and very weakly to the blue end and the red end of the spectrum. For example, consider a case where a lot of blue energy is needed for corals in your aquarium The blues could be too weak and you would not really see the deficiency with your eyes. You could could dim or brighten your lights to the eye's perception with no idea what is happening in the blue region.

That is what PAR meters do for us. They "see" and measure across the entire useable spectrum for feeding the algae in our corals. They see the different color region's of the spectrum differently from what we do.

I agree, I was just trying saying that it doesn't effect the way your aquarium looks with the 120s.

 

[Salty1962]

Shadowing should be gone. This will be adequate lighting for your tank. Remember there is about a 15-20% loss in par with the Wide angle lenses.

+1, shadowing seems to be much less with the 120s. Some areas where the shadowing effect of the 80s on my corals appear to be growing now that I changed over.

 

[M3ace9]

Remember that with the 80* lenses there were hot spots so the intensity was nerfed greatly to prevent burning of coral. Now that there is better light distribution dont be shy to slowly crank those suckers up a bit. Just my .o2 though.

 

[CJBuckeyes]

Finally got around to getting some data with the MQ-500 meter. tl;dr: The wider lenses reduced overall PAR but spread the light much more evenly (big surprise!)

Since everybody loves data, here are two sets of measurements across my 36", 70g tank with two gen3 radion pros sitting 8" AWL. The measurements were taken at 8" depth across the middle of the tank.

Standard Lens, 40% Intensity, SPS AB+ profile
Left 64 150 171 150 60 Right

Wide Angle Lens, 40% Intensity, SPS AB+ profile
Left 75 122 115 112 72 Right

 

[Salty1962]

Finally got around to getting some data with the MQ-500 meter. tl;dr: The wider lenses reduced overall PAR but spread the light much more evenly (big surprise!)

Since everybody loves data, here are two sets of measurements across my 36", 70g tank with two gen3 radion pros sitting 8" AWL. The measurements were taken at 8" depth across the middle of the tank.

Standard Lens, 40% Intensity, SPS AB+ profile
Left 64 150 171 150 60 Right

Wide Angle Lens, 40% Intensity, SPS AB+ profile
Left 75 122 115 112 72 Right

Thx for the info!

 

[Picfon]

Finally got around to getting some data with the MQ-500 meter. tl;dr: The wider lenses reduced overall PAR but spread the light much more evenly (big surprise!)

Since everybody loves data, here are two sets of measurements across my 36", 70g tank with two gen3 radion pros sitting 8" AWL. The measurements were taken at 8" depth across the middle of the tank.

Standard Lens, 40% Intensity, SPS AB+ profile
Left 64 150 171 150 60 Right

Wide Angle Lens, 40% Intensity, SPS AB+ profile
Left 75 122 115 112 72 Right

(Sorry for the formulation, I use Google translation)

hello,

I have also two radion gen 3 150w with the Wide angle lenses suspended 11 of the surface. 80g 47x23x13.
Lamps perfectly cover and very beautiful rendering.
I tested SPS ab + 70% and rendering is too blue, so I changed it.
I need to find myself a PAR meters to adjust the setting.