LED coverage - Ocean Revive T247's

[Wonf]

I'm about to switch out my T5's for LED's, leaning heavily towards OR T247s - unless someone has strong opinions on why I shouldn't or highly recommend a different light...

I've got the oddball/unique Oceanic 76 gallon Half Circle/Moon/Cylinder, dimensions are 45 x 23 x 25...

Do you think I can get adequate coverage with just 1 of these? Or is 2 a must? If 2, should I install horizontally or vertically (if that makes sense... I think I can fit 2 from front to back vs side to side)?

Not a very coral heavy tank, but not too many rocks either. So the few corals I have, most are not sitting high up in the tank...

Does anyone have experience with these LEDs (or any LED for that matter) on this type of tank?
(I don't even know if anyone still has this tank anymore.... sigh...) If so, how the heck did you end up mounting your LEDs???

 

[Wonf]

FT shot so you get an idea of rocks/coral placement... sorry about horrible glare, etc... major downside of this type of tank...

 

[mcarroll]

What's the top look like? All open? Small cutouts?

 

[mcarroll]

Nice coraline wall, BTW.

 

[mcarroll]

Oh! And please detail your T5 system for us too. Gotta know what's being replaced.

Also, why are you replacing it? Hate it? Why?

 

[Wonf]

ok, so because I was too lazy to go downstairs, remove my light fixture and take a picture... I stole a pic by 'ryan1985' from rc... (sorry, and thanks...). His blue shade for his aquascape is similar to mine, mine's a tad smaller if anything... Tank is far from being "wide open" on top... a lot of black plastic blockage...

I don't have a built-in overflow, but that's the only difference. My center area is covered with eggcrate/mesh and I've still got the glass inserts for the 2 small side cutouts which I will most likely replace with egg crate/mesh as well once the T5 is gone.

Currently have the 36" Coralife 4 bulb T5, 2 actinics and 2 10ks... The fixture was given to me along with the tank... I basically don't like the limitations I have with the 4 T5 bulbs but mostly the cost of replacing them every 9-12 months...

 

[Wonf]

oh and thanks about the coraline... other than the fish, it's pretty much the only thing 'growing' in my tank... haha, but not really funny.... sigh....

 

[jda]

A lot of people have nice mixed reef tanks with Ocean Revive fixtures. What you are keeping is not all that light demanding, so you might be able to get by with one if you have wide lenses or keep it up high. The only real issue with only getting one is that if you want another one later, don't take too long or they will have a new model and they will not match.

 

[Wonf]

sorry, i'm not too familiar with led's yet - wide lenses??? Is this a diy modification I can do to the leds? if so, why doesn't everyone do this??? i'm definitely into diy stuff, getting excited just thinking about it already! haha

(if this is a topic that has been discussed in detail in another thread, a link would be great so you don't have to repeat yourself)

 

[mcarroll]

Looks like the light you're looking at uses 90º lenses – this means that if your lights are 5" off the water, they'll give you a 5" radius of coverage outside the footprint of the fixture. Mounting height and coverage radius are 1:1 with 90º lenses.

I think the problem will be that your lights will end up being a little bit behind your reef, so shading might be kinda worst-case-scenario. (I'm not one of those anti-shading people either...I think shading is fine. This just might be extreme due to positioning.)

Looking at the top-down you linked...

...I think dropping a high-powered strip or two at the front of that opening is your best bet.

If you could find an old model Current Orbit Marine Pro with 60º lenses, that would be ideal.

But more realistically, and for sale, their newer Orbit IC's with 90º lenses would be great too.

I think you'd want two 24" strips to fit the opening – that would be a Model 4105 to get the controller and a Model 4125 as an add-on kit.

They do make an "XD" version of their mounting arm for wider-than-18" tanks if you think that's necessary for your install, but I think I'd suggest laying the lights right on the opening, using the built-in "legs".

I think I'd go with 24" strips vs 36" so they fit the main opening and can slide as far forward as possible, but maybe ask Current what they think.

If you go 24" and think the sides of the display look too dim, you can always drop some "dumb" LED strips over those side slots to add some intesity there, such as Current's Model 3002.

Also, how about a pair of Kessil 360's or one AP700?

 

[Wonf]

Kessil's are a little out of my price range....

Thanks for the info, just spent hours reading up on led lenses, degrees, etc... my eyes and brain hurt now...

I'm think I'm going to try one T247, with the standard mount, it's raised about 6 inches up... so should give me about 28 inches of coverage... worst case I can buy another one or move some of my coral "in" from the outside...

 

[mcarroll]

UPDATE!!!

 

[Wonf]

*update* (mcarroll keeping members in check, haha)

LFS had issues with Ocean Revive, ended up getting lights 2 weeks ago, about 3-4 weeks later than expected.

Definitely have dark spots in the corners of my tank, but the only guy affected by that is my tube anemone so no biggie. So far, I'm super happy with the lights. IMO the tank looks better, even with a little shimmer/disco on certain parts of the sand. My wife and guests have all commented that the tank looks different/better too. The corals seem to like it too, even though I'm currently only at 20% blue (Ch1) and 10% white (Ch2). My frogspawn and duncans have opened up more than I've ever seen with my T5's.

I'm still not sure what my final LED strengths will be (plan on raising the Ch's ~10% per week), but the "pop" I get from my blue LED's are soooo much better than what I got from my T5 actinics. I'm also contemplating my lighting schedule. Started out with 12 hours of blue/Ch1 and 8 hours of white/Ch2, but after doing more research, seem like that might be too long/intense. So now I'm down to 10 hours of blue and 7 hrs of white... I'd like to have them on longer, but scared that I might burn corals......

Any opinions on having a lighting schedule with no ramping (just on/off) that's too long???

Anyways, so far so good...