Lighting 800 Gallon Tank Acrylic Center Brace

[Ricky Vargas]

Hi everyone. I am working on setting up an 800 gallon tank and one of the problems we have is the center brace. This will actually be a planted tank but I figured the reefing community may have more experience with things like this. I wanted to have two rows of three lights to light the tank (6 chihiros rgb vivid II), however this would mean I would have two lights right on top of the acrylic center brace which is 20 inches in width, 1 inch thick the middle part and as you can see in the pictures 2 inches thick on those outer parts. How much par would this reduce from my lights? Is there any way around this?

Sincerely,
Ricky

 

[X-37B]

I had a similar glass brace on my 120 about 8" wide, 3" on each aide also.. It would get salt on it all the time but it did not affect the light. Par may be less but it wont be much, imo.

I have a 1/2" piece of acrylic covering my 30g. Chalk bass is a jumper.

I run 2 16hds and this tank gets plenty of growth.

I just purchased a par meter and I will see how much par is lost once it arrives.

I would go with what you have planned.
30g I just took this cell pic. 2nd pic is correct light look.

 

[jda]

I have a huge center brace in the middle of one of my tanks - old oceanic. I have a Halide right over it. Output is cut a bit, but it still does the job and corals right under it are plenty good.

 

[Ricky Vargas]

Awesome thats great to hear. These lights will be pretty powerful so I will probably stick with what I had planned.

 

[oreo54]

Awesome thats great to hear. These lights will be pretty powerful so I will probably stick with what I had planned.

The thickness of the acrylic does make a difference but you still probably won't lose too much par.

Light transmission depends on the reflectance at both surfaces of the material and the absorption of light into the material. Colorless ACRYLITE® acrylic sheet typically absorbs less than 0.5% of visible light per inch of thickness. However, some light is reflected at both surfaces.

So 2" is 1%.. BUT this needs to be put in context though..

https://www.tapplastics.com/image/pdf/acrylite%20light%20transmission.pdf

Best to read the above paper.

A more interesting question is how much par is lost via egg crate?
Point is they probably balance out.
BTW some egg crate is "directional" (has thicker and thinnr edges) and light loss depends on which orientation you pick.
Less expensive is pretty straight though.

Effects of various aquarium covers on light transmission

I got a private message from GaryE and thought my reply might be of interest to others. Here’s the message: I know you have done innumerable studies on the various different lighting packages available. Have you ever studied the effects of different coverings on PAR levels? Specifically, I'm...

www.reef2reef.com

85% transmission over 100% with a bare water surface..
Dirty or clean has been shown to not be much different.
Obviously there is probably a limit here though.

Just for interest..mostly for reefers.

Colorless ACRYLITE GP (cell cast) and ACRYLITE FF
(continuously manufactured) sheet have very small amounts
of light transmission below 345 nanometers. In the range from
345 to 395 nanometers, the light transmission varies with sheet
thickness. Between 395 and 1000 nanometers, all thicknesses
transmit 92%.

BTW what are the dimensions of your tank and which size Chihiros are you planning to use?

 

[19Mateo83]

I have a huge center brace in the middle of one of my tanks - old oceanic. I have a Halide right over it. Output is cut a bit, but it still does the job and corals right under it are plenty good.

Do you get any shadowing from it and if so how do you deal with it?

 

[Ricky Vargas]

BTW what are the dimensions of your tank and which size Chihiros are you planning to use?

The tank is 8ft x 4 ft x ft. There is a giant 2ft long rock structure on the right side of the tank, and the front foot of the tank will not have plants. So I am focusing the lighting on the 6ft x 3ft x 4ft area where all the plants will be. Will also be sloping the area as much as possible to increase the height. I am planning on using 6 Chihiros RGB vivid II 10th edition. If I can't get these due to budget I will probably use something from week aqua.

 

[Ricky Vargas]

3000 Liter High Tech Planted Tank

Hello UKAPS! I got an amazing opportunity to turn a 3000 liter tank into a high tech planted tank. I am in the planning phase right now so I wanted to share what I am thinking. This is the tank currently. The turtle and the all of the fish will be moved to a different setup and a new stocking...

ukaps.org

Here are more details on the tank.