Orphek Users! What are your settings?

fragit · Nov 10, 2016

brad65ford said:
The led's they seem to use look different then any others on the market, when they are on you can see strains of color around some of the led's, strange. Anyway its interested to see others are running 100% full on all channels with great results. Do believe the white channels may be key to success though everyone wants a blue tank ;-)

Just keep in mind all of the LEDs in their fixtures are dual chip, so that means each individual "light" has two led colors in it so that is maybe where you are seeing different "strains of color". As for the white intensity, I am going to put some faith in the preloaded intensities as I try and dial in my program. Many of the preloaded programs don't run the white channel (channel 1) on 100%. Orphek put many hours of R&D into these fixtures as have many reef lighting manufacturers. They have been able to test their spectrums with equipment that is not available to us the consumer. In that vain I don't believe that the pre sets are just randomly made up. I am interested to see what our LUX readings are like. It might be time to purchase one $15 on amazon may be money well spent... just a thought.

brad65ford · Nov 10, 2016

I too want to get a lux meter to see what i have going on. Regarding intensity pre set i totally agree, though when we equally lower them equally thinking they are similar is where i disagree. Meaning the presets are probably ideal as we both agree though height about the tank would be the valuable needed to adjust.

fragit · Nov 10, 2016

brad65ford said:
I too want to get a lux meter to see what i have going on. Regarding intensity pre set i totally agree, though when we equally lower them equally thinking they are similar is where i disagree. Meaning the presets are probably ideal as we both agree though height about the tank would be the valuable needed to adjust.

I couldn't agree more with this statement. How high above the water are your fixtures?

brad65ford · Nov 10, 2016

here's my build thread on it, really need to start one over on reef2reef
http://test.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2575735&page=3

brad65ford · Nov 10, 2016

Have you seen this article before. Time to time i go back to this and think, wow those led / lights are raised so high. Wishing more tech could be talked about diodes and intensity of pulse width and height vs lower intensity and lower light fixture height.
http://ecotechmarine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Ecotech_CoralLab_WP1.pdf

Mstanker · Nov 15, 2016

On a 72x18x18 100g long tank. Do you all think I could get away with buying 2 fixture? Also do you all mind me asking how much one fixture is?

fragit · Nov 15, 2016

Mstanker said:
On a 72x18x18 100g long tank. Do you all think I could get away with buying 2 fixture? Also do you all mind me asking how much one fixture is?

It will depend on your aquascape. You can probably get away with two V3 fixtures. You might need 3, or maybe 2 V3s and one V3 compact. Again I think your aquascape will dictate a lot. The price, they are up there with Ecotech Radions and the such, at least last I knew.

fragit · Nov 15, 2016

brad65ford said:
Have you seen this article before. Time to time i go back to this and think, wow those led / lights are raised so high. Wishing more tech could be talked about diodes and intensity of pulse width and height vs lower intensity and lower light fixture height.
http://ecotechmarine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Ecotech_CoralLab_WP1.pdf

Yeah that's a really cool study and a great read. You can read plenty of opinions and others ideas/experiences on testing. But the real test of spread versus intensity is to either use a PAR meter, or a LUX meter(that can go under water). Then of course there is the just listening to your tank and it's inhabitants. For me the determining factor was having my LFS come over with a PAR meter and mapping it out with different intensities. This told me I could lower my lights and customize my spectrum more to achieve the PAR I was looking for every where in my tank. Nice and high up top where I want most of my SPS, and in the 150 range on the sand where I want my LPS.

brad65ford · Nov 16, 2016

Thanks again Fragit for some more feedback. Decided to raise the two v3's up they are both now 15" from the water surface all channels see 80 percent giving 250 par in the middle of that tank and 450-475 at the water surface. Need to change the sand bed (bb) today. Hopefully this helps with removing hot spots and color mixing. I've already melted a tort last week from the increase in intensity, rest of the sps especially the mill's love the extra brightness.

brad65ford · Nov 17, 2016

Just wanted to report raising the lights seem to really help with coral health and i don't have a reasoning other them possible color mixing and no hot spots.

fragit · Nov 17, 2016

brad65ford said:
Just wanted to report raising the lights seem to really help with coral health and i don't have a reasoning other them possible color mixing and no hot spots.

Did you bump up intensity? Any new par readings? Could you tell me again what are your channels set at?

brad65ford · Nov 18, 2016

Yes I did bump up the intensity to 91 percent on all channels for 7 hours full with 1 hour ramp up and 1 hour ramp down (9 hours total lights on). Need to check par though i'm surely confident its around 450-475 at the surface and 250-300 in the middle of the tank. Here are some coral pics, mind you the system is only 5 1/2 months old and started with dry rock, the frag's are only 3 months old and started taking off last month.

fragit · Nov 18, 2016

brad65ford said:
Yes I did bump up the intensity to 91 percent on all channels for 7 hours full with 1 hour ramp up and 1 hour ramp down (9 hours total lights on). Need to check par though i'm surely confident its around 450-475 at the surface and 250-300 in the middle of the tank. Here are some coral pics, mind you the system is only 5 1/2 months old and started with dry rock, the frag's are only 3 months old and started taking off last month.

<a href="http://s30.photobucket.com/user/brad65ford/media/IMG_3412.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c335/brad65ford/IMG_3412.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_3412.jpg"/></a>

They look very happy! Nice work, my frags are mad at me! I just started with the AquaForest dosing regime and my corals are mad. It's taking a little bit to get things dialed in.

brad65ford · Nov 18, 2016

once you see coralline algae growing your good to go. Don't know what kicks it but its always awesome to see since you know your on your way. My issue is always lack of nutrients since i run BB systems.

fragit · Nov 18, 2016

brad65ford said:
once you see coralline algae growing your good to go. Don't know what kicks it but its always awesome to see since you know your on your way. My issue is always lack of nutrients since i run BB systems.

Yeah, over the last week or so the coralline has definitely been growing more. My once white rocks are beginning to look quite purple.

brad65ford · Nov 18, 2016

probably the coolest part of the hobby is the rocks as crazy as that sounds. lol congrats, you rock work looks great btw.

brad65ford · Nov 23, 2016

Ok I'm now seeing 98 percent and corals are loving it more and more. Strange how increasing the light height and increasing the intensity makes all the difference. I'm now seeing 300 par at middle of the tank.

fragit · Nov 24, 2016

brad65ford said:
Ok I'm now seeing 98 percent and corals are loving it more and more. Strange how increasing the light height and increasing the intensity makes all the difference. I'm now seeing 300 par at middle of the tank.

Wow that a pretty great jump. What are you getting on the sand bed?

brad65ford · Dec 5, 2016

Just an update and question for the follow Orphek users. Since last posted i've raised both units 12" with much better spread and over all coral health/growth. Since i'm now 15 1/2" over the water surface the units have been running at 100 % on all channels around 7-8 hours full intensity with 1/2 to 1 hour of ramp. Par at middle of the tank is around 325-350 which i'm please at. Just altered the schedule to match the pre-set ALL Growth schedule which was similar to what i was running but a little more length (ramp) in channel 2 blue light for more visual viewing which i'm after. Anyone using the growth schedules? There is another one with all 100 % called Inc Growth which looks similar but not as long of full intensity running time. In the past I've always had best success with only 8 hours on and off when running LED's in bb systems. Recently watched a video of an impressive BB sps system where the guy runs 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours later on in the day which seems very interesting. I wanted to try it just to see how the corals responded but unfortunately we can not do it in the setting Orphek gave us by needed 1 % at the beginning of the lightning schedule :-( Anyway here is my current schedule. If you notice i added 2 hours to each time to shift the schedule to my needed viewing time.