Question about 60 90 120 degree lighting angles

[zladson]

What does the angel do for a tank? I am confused on what angle they are refering to as well. Is this the angle that the light shines from the base unit or what?

 

[Eric B]

I am assuming your referring to led lighting and what the numbers mean is that most normal led's with no lens on it has around 120 degree optics/lens. The 60 & 90 are just lens that you add to the led and it increases the amount of light intensity further from the fixture. You will also get more beams of light from a 60 degree lens than the 90. Think of putting a protractor(spell?) That is used in school and you can basically use that to see the angle of light output with different degree lens. I hope that answered your question.

 

[zladson]

Yes LED and sort of. Is there a better lens cap (?) to use? Basically the LED i am getting ready to order have a 90 degree on them, i can either get 120 or 60 for an additional 10 bucks. Am I good with the 90 or should i get a different angle. My tank dimensions are 36Lx12Wx24H and it is a 45 gallon. Dimensions of the LED are 26 inches x 8.7 inches x 2.75inches

 

[zladson]

Is this what you mean by the degrees.

 

[Eric B]

Yes that is what I mean! You will get better spread with 120 degrees but more light punch with 60 degree. It is you own opinion as to which one you use and how high above the water the fixture will be, etc. On a 24" deep tank I personally would probably not go with 60 degree as you will have to mount the fixture too high as to not have spot lights. I would go with one of the other 2 and if you go with the 90 degree it will have a lens and I don't know what light you are looking at purchasing, but if like most led's if you want the 120 degree lens you just take off the 90 degree lens. I run 7 led fixtures over a 300 gallon tank and it has 60 degree lens on most of the leds and tank is like 28" deep and fixtures are about 8-10" above the water and I have sps growing all the way on the sand bed.

 

[zladson]

Sweet. Well I am not on a tight budget but I do not want to spend $1400 on LEDS and I have heard good things about these so I was going to with the Lumentek Pro 180.
LUMENTEK PRO 180 - Reef Radiance

 

[Ron Reefman]

It looks like it's made by another Chinese factory with most of the same parts used by EverGrow to make their fixture and Reef Breeders fixture. The only difference I can see is the power cord connection. There is no telling about the leds, or the intensity (PAR). It's almost the same as the IT2060 or Photon 24 and costs $20-$30 less with a few more leds. And the competition level goes up and the costs come down.

On a 24" deep tank you will be happy with the 90 degree lenses.

 

[zladson]

DO you think the led layout and spectrum are good? I am really not up to speed with LED lights but it sounds like you guys are.

 

[kes]

i use a slight angle of my LEDs which only acts as supplemental lighting to my existing metal halide lights. I have it slightly angled so it can cover a wider area, and since it sits in my canopy, I don't have much room to hang it above.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I'm not a big fan of the spectrum or the placement in the fixture. It has at least 1 too many 660nm reds (maybe 2 too many), I wouldn't have either of the 580-595nm yellow/orange and the white to blue ratio is way to white for my taste. It's just my opinion, since I've never seen the light, but I think if you want anything like an overall blue/white (14K or 20K) look you will be turning the white channel down to 20-40% power with the blue at 100%.

Then there is the placement in the fixture itself. Most of the colors tend to be bunched up near each other and all the warmer whites are in a single row with cooler white all around the outside. Why? I would have spread the colors and the warmer whites out all over the fixture. It's not like they don't have the room.