-
Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.
Par Meter??
- Thread starter Foxchase
- Start date
A direct answer to your question is that ACC rents their PAR meter….note I haven’t verified this recently, but they certainly did a year ago or so.
Now I’m going to save you some money….costing less than what you’d pay to rent a meter….and it will be yours to keep.
Buy a LUX meter. You can find them for 15-20 bucks. If interested, THIS is the meter I purchased, at the time, less than $15.
Using the meter, take readings across the surface of your tank. These LUX meters are not submersible, but that’s not so overly important unless you have a disgustingly deep tank.
Once you have your readings, take the highest reading and divide by:
60, if you have LEDs
50, if you have T5’s
55, if you have a combo T5/LED
This is your PAR number at the surface. FYI, I have LED’s and I target 25,000 LUX and my corals grow like weeds.
Now this isn’t my work that verified the above. This comes from Saltyfilmfolks over at Reef2Reef, but unfortunately he no longer visits the site…..he was a light expert, and if you search over there you’ll find all the verification stuff he posted. And it only cost you less than 20 bucks!
Now I’m going to save you some money….costing less than what you’d pay to rent a meter….and it will be yours to keep.
Buy a LUX meter. You can find them for 15-20 bucks. If interested, THIS is the meter I purchased, at the time, less than $15.
Using the meter, take readings across the surface of your tank. These LUX meters are not submersible, but that’s not so overly important unless you have a disgustingly deep tank.
Once you have your readings, take the highest reading and divide by:
60, if you have LEDs
50, if you have T5’s
55, if you have a combo T5/LED
This is your PAR number at the surface. FYI, I have LED’s and I target 25,000 LUX and my corals grow like weeds.
Now this isn’t my work that verified the above. This comes from Saltyfilmfolks over at Reef2Reef, but unfortunately he no longer visits the site…..he was a light expert, and if you search over there you’ll find all the verification stuff he posted. And it only cost you less than 20 bucks!
I took a similar lux meter and vacuum sealed it so I could put it in my water and get an idea of what par is where more precisely because of depth and shadowing. Lots of research basically landed on dividing it by 40 or 60 I did both and that will give a pretty accurate range of par. I eventually just got tired never feeling sure and bought a par meter and it was exactly what I thought it was more or less. Don't regret the par meter though because the lux meters accuracy ranges depending on spectrum. But at the same time I haven't moved a single coral so......
Jamie S
NJRC Member
Really? I just looked and it's still $199
radiata
NJRC Member
There is a less expensive version of an Apogee PAR Meter if you happen to have a laptop (Windows or Mac). It comes with a 15' USB Cable. It is basically just a sensor that uses a laptop for calculations and output. Apogee has the software available for download.
www.bulkreefsupply.com
USB Smart Quantum SQ-420X PAR Sensor
PAR (photosynthetic active radiation) is the easiest way to measure the available light for corals consume and use for photosynthesis. With LED lights giving more and more control to the consumer the best thing is a PAR meter that is affordable and simple to use. With PAR readings you can...
www.bulkreefsupply.com
