I will have to measure to get an exact # when I get home from work. Which will be at 430pm eastern.
yup! Powerfull stuff, especially the powermodules and hybrids you have to be carefull with. The so to speak "reefer" law is to have t5s in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 inches due to the "24 inch" penetration "law" but lets be honest. With t5s, you NEED shaded areas but is nearly impossible to accomplish unless youve done a aquascape based on it. I dont test lux but i test par quite often and the least would be 32 inches from the sandbed with any ati fixture. But i started at 40 was perfect for me and ill recommend 40 inches to everyone if the bleed over doesnt blind you lol! Mines at 33 now, about 18 to 22 inches down through the center hovers from 400- 600 par. Everything else is from 150 to 300. Even the shaded areas have more then 100.
From the bottom of the shelf to the water line it is 10 inches and 28 inches from the bottom of the shelf to the sand bed. I was going over idea with the boss of the house fiancee about somehow taking out the bottom shelf or cutting a hole big enough to fit the wires from the hanging kit through on the shelf. Then pulling the unit higher up, I know it wouldn't be but maybe 8.5 inches from the water line, but would it help since the unit I am getting is the dimmable one. Thanks y'all for helping me with all the questions since I know little to nothing about t5's.
Still a tight fit to get your arm in the tank to do some work. you still have a few inches of wire where it converges from mounted on the fixture into a single wire (4"). drilling holes will get the fixture about 4" above water line or 22" from the sand bed.
Me personally, wouldnt worry about dimming the bulbs other then aesthetic purposes. For instance i use the dimmable just to ramp the lights for 1 1/2 hours both morning and night because it looks cool with the reefbrite led strip. They stay on full blast for 5 hours thats it. I mean, dimming anybulb cant be a good thing if you think about it, especially running them constantly dimmed. If its about 30 inches from the sand you should be fine. Im in the works with making a canopy. I was thinking about bulding around the fixture and have it hang from its own cables. Also have to keep it mind, i hit my head everytime i have to work on the tank. Also the left side needs to be free of any object surrounding it (ati recommended 2 feet) so the bulbs can vent properly. Also the fans have to be as well. If you can get some photos when you can, that will be great. Can give you some ideas if you get into a jam.
his pics are on page 12
Wow looks great, may i ask why the switch? Sorry if i passed all this up already. Why dont you just mount some diy t5s into it? Youll need to cut holes for the fan ontopI has been running on the Hydra's for about 8 or 9 months. Right now when the LED's they come on at 9am ramp up 2.5 hours then start ramping down at 630pm and off at 9pm. I heard about the break in period, I will be doing that in my office, so it is far away from my tank. The fixture and the bulbs will be delivered to my house on Monday the 12th. The you john, I will definitely be reading more into the photo period. Below is what my tank looks like right now and below that is the built in (old wine bar) where I have it. I was going to go with the retrofit kit, but my fiancée wants the clean lines and I couldn't get that with the retro kit. Especially since it doesn't have a way to hide them.
Thank you. I will certainly keep you posted. I think a combo like this will see the same growth that I did from my MH.
. Once things stabilize, we should get a frag of the same thing and see how they grow, otherwise we will never truly be able to compare.
I am battling GHA, but dosing 25ml of peroxide every 12 hours. Seems to be getting a little better, only been doing it for 2 days. Also my ATI will be delivered today sometime and will do the 50 hour burn in period.OMG and the battle continues. I tried using some filter floss between the sump baffles during sand stirring, siphoning, and water change on Saturday. I had it in there a bit too tight and my ATO thought it was low on water in the return chamber. It must have dumped a gallon of saturated RODI and kalk. I think it burned my new birdsnest and the big monti a bit. Dkh is at 10 (9.6 before WC). Gonna ride this one out and let things stabilize again. Side note, my cyano is gone . This time no peroxide or chemicals, unless you count elbow grease
