Guys after using 400 W Metal Halides for forever decided to take the plunge to LED's. After consultation with Kessil have decided on the A360N. Just ordered 16 A360n's. The tanks surface area is 120 x 36. So my plan is to space 8 lights front and 8 back. That will place a light every 1 foot. My tank is 36" depth. What you guys think?
Kessil A360n for 700 gallon tank
- Thread starter cumbeje
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Should be good coverage. As for corals you most likely will have no issues with LPS. SPS on the other hand is another question. A360N has good penetration so for a 36"deep tank results may vary with SPS depending on placement.
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cumbeje
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I hadn't decided yet on that. I was also wondering what anyone thought about control and timers. I have 16 plugs to plug into something. I already ordered cables to connect them all togther, I do have have an Apex controller on my old tank.
mcarroll
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- 1' of coverage at the water surface with Narrows (60º) implies a 10" mounting height, I think.
- The Wides (140º) would need to be mounted 2" from the surface to give equivalent coverage.
- It seems like 120" x 36" = 30 square feet.
- 16 Kessils set up for 12" diameter of coverage is (ignoring the circle/square thing) only 16 square feet.
If you don't already have a light meter, get one. I'd say the thing about the lux meter costs $15 and how it's nice too, but with 16 Kessils I imagine you can swing the Apogee 500-series that is supposed to do a better job reading LED's– even better than the usual PAR meters you see around.
But whatever you pick, definitely get some kind of light meter to use during setup. You will save yourself a wallop of dissatisfaction and mystery and cut setup time.
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cumbeje
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My thought process was there would be a light fixture every 12 inches, I plan to put a row 12 inches from front and 12 inches from back. Than each row would have 8 lights. The lights length wise would both start 12 inches from end of tanks.
The par meter is a good idea. I had read about them in the past but had never invested in one before. I cold potentially place more lights between the front and rear row.
The par meter is a good idea. I had read about them in the past but had never invested in one before. I cold potentially place more lights between the front and rear row.
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cumbeje
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I think I will get a PAR meter. The reason I really wanted to get away from metal halides because of the heat. My other tank had 7 400 watt metal halides. Had to have 1 hp chiller that had to run a lot, Noisy and a big electric bill.
I'm not saying you need more than 16, but does that seem to add up?
- 1' of coverage at the water surface with Narrows (60º) implies a 10" mounting height, I think.
- The Wides (140º) would need to be mounted 2" from the surface to give equivalent coverage.
- It seems like 120" x 36" = 30 square feet.
- 16 Kessils set up for 12" diameter of coverage is (ignoring the circle/square thing) only 16 square feet.
If you don't already have a light meter, get one. I'd say the thing about the lux meter costs $15 and how it's nice too, but with 16 Kessils I imagine you can swing the Apogee 500-series that is supposed to do a better job reading LED's– even better than the usual PAR meters you see around.
But whatever you pick, definitely get some kind of light meter to use during setup. You will save yourself a wallop of dissatisfaction and mystery and cut setup time.
multiple lights will help.
fwiw the 360 I belive at full and stock lens at 12in gives about 550 par. on its own.
The only difficulty in calculating what a mh gives off is a 400w MH out put changes with ballast and reflectors.
Id recommend looking up par charts from folks using MH hwo have done a par chart. I'd look at Melev's reefs as a start.
http://melevsreef.com/node/678
N's are beam cannons. Also to have one per linear foot you actually need 9 per row. If you install some kind of rail system with speaker mounts that allow you angle the lights you can get great coverage with 2 rows. There is no need to have the light shooting at the front and rear glass anyway so angling them inward a bit will help with shadowing. With the sliding rail you can start with 8 and see what that gives you and then adding more is just a matter of adding another and sliding the rest.
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