my 500 gallon reef tank

[jr973]

Nice lookin BIG tank you have there fish must be in paradise with all that room

 

[Steve canada]

They do have plenty of room to swim around.The funny thing is a lot of them stick together.The pbt fights with the hippos and the hippos fight with each other.The pbt also fights with the yellow tang.The rest of the fish get along most of the time.My clown fish have started to breed.They laid eggs on my cleaning magnet and this is the first time they have bread.The nice thing about it its the regular clown and the black clown that have bread.

 

[Steve canada]

I picked up my reeftech led fixtures on Thursday.They are not sold here in Canada so I drove to NY to pick them up at the fed ex office in Plattsburg.I took some pics

4 units plus the cables and wires

the power supply

the unit came wrapped in plastic

close up pic of the led panel

the back of the unit

the front of the unit

 

[Steve canada]

The led lights are very nice,much better quality than my china units that I have.The units use 3 watt cree led.This is the Prometheus model its 180 watts and can be controlled with a blue tooth or via a cable.I still have to figure all that out.I have been busy with work and the baby (daughter is 5 1/2 months old) so not to much free time to play around with them.You can control each color,there is a mix of white blue and royal blue.There is a moon light phase which should be nice because you can control the amount of light out put.I can control the dimming so this will give me the opportunity to select a spectrum or color temp that I like.I found with MH I was always stuck buying a bulb and then not liking it because from one bulb to another they never look the same even though they where sold as the same spectrum.Led gives you the ability to play with the color temp.With all other lighting your stuck with what you get.I also like the fact of no heat directed to the tank.The lights can do a sunrise and sunset effect.They will act as one unit so the tank will dim but from one side to the other.There is also a cloud,thunder storm and lightning effect program.You can program how many times you want these effects to happen during the day and for how long.Its so cool.These lights will be awesome once I set them up and learn how to play around with everything.I will take some pics once I set them up.I have a week off for vacation so I should get a little bit of free time (I hope).

 

[Steve canada]

ok so I got to play around with one of the lights to test it.I can tell you its pretty dam powerful,in fact very bright.You can do so much with this light its insane.The settings are very detailed.You can program the cloud and thunder effects to cycle a certain amount of times per day but at the same time you can program the intensity.The cool thing is the cloud intensity settings are based on the intensity settings that you have programmed so it plays a role.Its also plays a role for the sunrise to sunset settings.The more you have dimmed the lights (overall) the longer the sunrise and sunset settings will last.You can even play around with the settings to make it last longer or shorter so if you have an overall lighting setting and then you set your sunrise time but want it to go on for a longer duration you can adjust it.Its very cool but it will take me some time to figure it out.Raf (reeftech guy) has been very helpful trying to explain things to me.I have to say he has gone overboard in getting me to understand all of this.He has walked me through step by step.The customer service is the best I have ever experienced when it comes to aquarium products.I can say never mind aquarium products just service in general.I have never received this much help from any vendor outside of reef keeping.I always get the run around or just plain stupid BS from people.Raf has helped me and will continue to help me.I can say I am very happy with the product and the service.I can say I never got this kind of help when I bought my crappy low power 1 watt led lights from china.In the end they were not such a deal after all.YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.You buy garbage and thats what you get.

 

[Steve canada]

So I cleaned up the tank a bit and did a water change along with gfo and carbon.I removed as much crap as I could,tank of the month? no way in hell but its a little cleaner than it was.I also took a pic of just 1 reeftech led unit on my tank and let me tell you its pretty darn good.

I don't know if you can tell but in this pic my crappy led lights are on and you can see just how much brighter the reeftech unit is (its not even on at full power)

 

[Steve canada]

The unit is placed around 2 to 3 inches from the top of the water and it still gave a nice light spread

 

[Steve canada]

In this pic you can see the glare and I still got a good par reading even though th

e light is sitting on my 3/4 acrylic top.

 

[Steve canada]

Just the reeftech light on my tank 180 watts I got a par reading of 130 at the bottom of the tank

 

[Steve canada]

Pictures don't do it justice mine look like crap in comparison to what the light looks like (on) in person

 

[Steve canada]

I got good par readings (light spread) as far as a good 30 inches wide.Not bad because the light could be higher off of the tank and I plan to remove my 4 acrylic covers and use that screen that BRS sells.The tank covers are heavy and thick so I want to remove them.I will get even better light penetration.

 

[Steve canada]

I took some videos of the Reeftech fixture on my tank.Its only of one unit,the video is not super clear I have an ok video camera but as someone told me its hard to take video with led light

 

[Steve canada]

lightning video

 

[Steve canada]

more vids

 

[reefoman]

Very nice setup! And very nice lights
I also have new ReefTech led light but only one unit, new weather effects are crazy I can only imagine how nice it is when 4 modules are connected together
GL with your new tank...

Regards
mark

 

[Steve canada]

I am waiting to set them up.I played around with one light its pretty crazy how these lights work.

 

[Steve canada]

I will try to set up one unit and take par measurements both inside the tank and outside the tank.I have a bit of free time since I am on vacation.Well I have some free time but my wife is off on maternity leave for another 6 months so after watching the baby I need to do some baby sitting.This kid loves to eat.She gets very upset when its feeding time and the food isn't ready.5 1/2 months old eats cereal and milk

 

[Steve canada]

hello guys a took another thunderstorm video so here it is.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r310_cmPeS8

 

[rideit6578]

Wow, great looking set up you got there.

 

[Steve canada]

Thank you very much guys.