Update.....
Not much has been going on over the last three weeks until last week when the cabinetry was begun and my light arrived on Friday. My original lighting plan was a custom led fixture from Sfiligoi but after waiting for 3 months and then being told it could be another 4-6 weeks before my order would be ready I decided to go another route. I ended up going with the Pacific Sun Pandora Hyperion T5/LED fixture. Here's a brief description of it....
Pandora Hyperion the most recent in the Pacific Sun lineup as it is the newest and only current product to offer the Hyperion 8 channel LED panels with T5 fluorescents in one modern, sleek and powerful lighting fixture. Pandora Hyperion incorporates fully controllable and dimmable T5 fluorescent technology into this series in combination with their powerful, 150W 8ch LED panels offering 9 LED chips including CREE XM-L (capable of up to 10 watts of power). Pandora Hyperion comes in two sizes, 49” and 65” with 3x150W and 4x150W LED panels respectively. 49” model houses 4x54W T5 fluorescents lamps, 65” model with 4x80W T5 lamps. These units are the widest available fixtures from Pacific Sun measuring in at 16.5”, yet still only 2” tall. Pandora XM is perfect for extra wide reef systems (up to 36” wide) where the extra coverage provided by the T5s is necessary. Control with Bluetooth via PC or Android tablet featuring X Touch app.
I went with the 65" model and have been tinkering with it over the last few days. The fixture weighs 75lbs so I am making a new hanging kit for it that will me to raise/lower and slide it out from over the tank. I ordered channel struts and trolleys from mcmaster-carr and they arrived yesterday. Cabinetry is almost done....need some finishing touches on the molding and the door needs to put on the canopy.
Here are some pictures of the light.....
It comes with a droid touch tablet to control the lamp via bluetooth but also controllable with windows and they are launching mac software this week
Here's the very first full tank shot with lights on. Now the t5's arent on yet as I still hadnt received my bulbs (not included). I ordered 2 of the new KZ 2nd generation and 2 of the KZ Fiji bulbs. The leds are all set at 100% in this picture and the light is resting on a couple of 1x2's on top of the tank. I grabbed the par meter real quick to see what kind of values I would see and I took 2 readings at the midline of the tank. The first was on the surface of the water about 3" below the lamp and that reading was 1600. I lowered the sensor about 18" below the water and i was getting a reading around 350. I know blues dont measure correctly on a par meter and they can be off by as much as 30%. My bulbs arrive today and once I get the lamp hung and the bulbs in I will do more par tests.
Not much has been going on over the last three weeks until last week when the cabinetry was begun and my light arrived on Friday. My original lighting plan was a custom led fixture from Sfiligoi but after waiting for 3 months and then being told it could be another 4-6 weeks before my order would be ready I decided to go another route. I ended up going with the Pacific Sun Pandora Hyperion T5/LED fixture. Here's a brief description of it....
Pandora Hyperion the most recent in the Pacific Sun lineup as it is the newest and only current product to offer the Hyperion 8 channel LED panels with T5 fluorescents in one modern, sleek and powerful lighting fixture. Pandora Hyperion incorporates fully controllable and dimmable T5 fluorescent technology into this series in combination with their powerful, 150W 8ch LED panels offering 9 LED chips including CREE XM-L (capable of up to 10 watts of power). Pandora Hyperion comes in two sizes, 49” and 65” with 3x150W and 4x150W LED panels respectively. 49” model houses 4x54W T5 fluorescents lamps, 65” model with 4x80W T5 lamps. These units are the widest available fixtures from Pacific Sun measuring in at 16.5”, yet still only 2” tall. Pandora XM is perfect for extra wide reef systems (up to 36” wide) where the extra coverage provided by the T5s is necessary. Control with Bluetooth via PC or Android tablet featuring X Touch app.
I went with the 65" model and have been tinkering with it over the last few days. The fixture weighs 75lbs so I am making a new hanging kit for it that will me to raise/lower and slide it out from over the tank. I ordered channel struts and trolleys from mcmaster-carr and they arrived yesterday. Cabinetry is almost done....need some finishing touches on the molding and the door needs to put on the canopy.
Here are some pictures of the light.....
It comes with a droid touch tablet to control the lamp via bluetooth but also controllable with windows and they are launching mac software this week
Here's the very first full tank shot with lights on. Now the t5's arent on yet as I still hadnt received my bulbs (not included). I ordered 2 of the new KZ 2nd generation and 2 of the KZ Fiji bulbs. The leds are all set at 100% in this picture and the light is resting on a couple of 1x2's on top of the tank. I grabbed the par meter real quick to see what kind of values I would see and I took 2 readings at the midline of the tank. The first was on the surface of the water about 3" below the lamp and that reading was 1600. I lowered the sensor about 18" below the water and i was getting a reading around 350. I know blues dont measure correctly on a par meter and they can be off by as much as 30%. My bulbs arrive today and once I get the lamp hung and the bulbs in I will do more par tests.
