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Lighting question

I'm looking to buy LED lights for my 75 gallon tank. I saw some single strip lights from Innovative Marine. I was thinking of getting a 10k, 14k, and a atinic. Does anyone have any experience with these? The lights are $170 each I'm open to other options if you guys have suggestions.
 
Reefbreeders makes a 48" led that I hear is killer and is under $500 delivered and is has separate Channels and fully programmable. There are other options out there as well. I am seriously considering getting these for my tank ( as soon as I scrape up the cash). I don't know anything about innovative marine though.
 
The Innovative Marine strips are very weak and definitely would not work on a 75 gallon tank unless you just want softies. If you are looking for a light that stretches the whole 48" evenly, you are going to be very limited. My suggestion would be to get Two pendant fixtures such as the AI SOL's or something along those lines, but to do two fixtures, one for each side of the 75. What is your budget, are you able to hang the lights, do they need to fit in a canopy? as much info on that kind of stuff as possible will help us narrow down what would or wouldnt work.
 
I will do whatever will work the best. I currently have a hood that I plan to remove and place the lights on the tank.I'd prefer not to hang though. I'd like to stay in the $500 range.
 
To be honest you would probably be best off checking out some sites for used lighting (if your ok with that)

Ive seen a lot of threads up for AI Sols with controller for sale for like 550 shipped. They are very good quality lights and would be good to keep pretty much anything in your tank. I had sol's over my 75 at one point, as well as Tek T5's and a DIY led system, and they did very well.

Also you could probably fit them inside your canopy easily as long as there is some air flow through there.
 
I'm not very knowledgeable about lighting so any help with some explaining is very apprecited.I would like something that has the correct amount of white light for good coral growth and enough blue that the colors shine under the blues.

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ecam

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Sorry to hijack... but i have 2 Sol blues that im looking to move. PM'ed you



I'm not very knowledgeable about lighting so any help with some explaining is very apprecited.I would like something that has the correct amount of white light for good coral growth and enough blue that the colors shine under the blues.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
 
I'm not very knowledgeable about lighting so any help with some explaining is very apprecited.I would like something that has the correct amount of white light for good coral growth and enough blue that the colors shine under the blues.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2


The blue leds actually put out a lot of PAR and you can run a negligible amount of "white" lighting with them.
 
Sorry to hijack... but i have 2 Sol blues that im looking to move. PM'ed you

I understand that you have that and that you want to sell it. But as I stated I don't know what it is I could be interested just explain it to me.

Does it have whites?
What brand is it?
How many k?
If its a good unit why are you sell it?
Price?

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ecam

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The lights has 2:1 ratio of blues to whites. The lights are dimmable and can be adjust anywhere from a 12k look to a 20k look.

I'm selling cause I upgraded to 6 ft tank that required more lighting

The price is 550. And come with 2 units and a controller.

Look up aqua illumination sol blues Great lights
 
The lights has 2:1 ratio of blues to whites. The lights are dimmable and can be adjust anywhere from a 12k look to a 20k look.

I'm selling cause I upgraded to 6 ft tank that required more lighting

The price is 550. And come with 2 units and a controller.

Look up aqua illumination sol blues Great lights

How are they mounted or do I need to hang them and how old?

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ecam

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I am the second owner. And I've had them and used them fo 3 to 4 months. The previous owner in cant really remember how long. I would guess 2 years or so. They can be mounted various ways. I personally mounted them in a canopy. Along Atwood beam. I'll get pics up when ican tomorrow
 
We ran AI Sol Blues over our 30g cube for one year and over our 57g for one year. We liked them. We bought the fixtures in 2010 and 2011.
The first AI LED fixture was the SOL Blue, the second was the VEGA, third was the Hydra, now there is a new and improved Hydra 52 that just hit the market, so figure the Sol Blues are an earlier generation AI LED, likely made and sold in 2009 and later.

You would need mounting rails for the AI lights, or cables. Either will work; if my memory serves me we used cables for the 30cube and rails for the 57g. The AI fixtures can be daisy chained together and controlled by one controller. You can chain quite a few of them together over a large tank, or run one or two over a small tank.One fixture is good for roughly 2 feet of "coverage" depending on the optics you use and the corals you are trying to keep.
When the SOL blues came out, they were about $500 per fixture + controller cost + rails/cables to hang them. We spent a bit north of $1200 for two lights, a controller, and rails to hang them from for our 57g in 2011. At the time, they were a top of the line.
Here is a review on the SOL Blue from Live Aquaria; it also includes prices and PAR information
New the SOL Blue fixture currently sells for about $325-$400 each, controller costs have stayed steady, at about $80 each and so have hanging kit/rail costs, which will depend on your tank size. Check out the AI website here.

We kept SPS and Zoas under the AI Sol Blue fixture successfully. We did not do well with chalices or LPS under it at all; chalices bleached, and LPS didn't like it at all.

When we ran the SOL Blues, we had a bit of a windex effect to the tank, all blue & white; our acans all lost their color and as I said our chalices hated it. We used 1 fixture over the 30 cube, 2 over our 57g. We chose to buy Maxspect Mazarra LEDs for our big tank (205g system) because of the ease of bulb replacement and the ability to add colored LEDs (we currently have blue, royal blue, red, green, purple, and white bulbs). To swap our bulbs in the AI fixture, you can't order a single bulb, you have to buy a whole new puck, which can get expensive.

We are about to add a Hydra to our frag tank; we won it at MACNA and are going to do part of the frag tank with the AI hydra fixture and T5s. I believe the Hydra has two additional colors, and the new improved hydra 52 (not the one I won) has more LEDs per fixture as well. This post on reefbuilders talks about the Hydra.

Hope that helps.
 
I am running an older AI Sol Blue over my Solana 34. As far as lighting goes, I haven't had any problems with the Sol, and depending on what intensity I set the W/B/RB to, and where I place the corals, they seem to do well. I've had a Blueberry Torte, both blue and red shrooms, Hairy shroom, a couple different common zoas, Platinum Palys, GSP, Kryptonite Candy Canes, Neon Torch, Fungia, War Coral, and a couple of Acan Echinatas. To the best of my knowledge, I never lost anything due to lighting.

To give you an idea of what the Sol looks like, the first pic is of when I first set the tank up back in April. The Sol Blue was set at 50% White, 75% Blue, 75% Royal Blue (at 2pm). In the second pic, the Sol is currently ramped down to 5% White, 15% Blue, 15% Royal Blue (at 9pm). I am still new to the hobby, so I'm tinkering and learning as I go. My phone takes crappy pics, so I used Picasa to try and give you a more accurate depiction. The bracket holding up the Sol, is homemade. The light is suspended 12" above the surface of the water.

Full tank pic 50w-75b-75rb.jpg Full tank pic 5w-15b-15rb.jpg
 
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