Tweaking the LED

[Duke]

I'm def not any kind of expert on depths/pars/output of light or led.  All I can say is the UV -seems- to penetrate deeper than the royal blues, but then again the whites penetrate the best since they are so overpowering.  Meh, if things grow and I finally get happy with the colour, I'll be a very happy camper.

Sweet, if its working good and you like the looks that's all that matters, Lets see some UV only pictures..  8)

 

[Salty Cracker]

[quote author=Salty Cracker link=topic=3647.msg32537#msg32537 date=1354808188]
I'm def not any kind of expert on depths/pars/output of light or led.  All I can say is the UV -seems- to penetrate deeper than the royal blues, but then again the whites penetrate the best since they are so overpowering.  Meh, if things grow and I finally get happy with the colour, I'll be a very happy camper.

Sweet, if its working good and you like the looks that's all that matters, Lets see some UV only pictures..  8)
[/quote]

unfortunately the UV has a couple of RB's on it, as well as that pesky white.  I might try and get that white one out this aft though...

 

[Salty Cracker]

Well got the white out...noticed that somehow, maybe from the solder flux, but there are nasty streaks all over the 'splash guard' that are sort of etched in.  So word to the wise, wash your hands before taking off the protective coating. 

Swapped out the white LED for a RB.  The UV channel now looks like a RB channel, although hopefully the corals see it different.  Definitely though, if I have 2 more of these panels done this way, I'll have a utopian setup and can hopefully stop messing with it.  I'm going to watch the corals under this fixture for a while first though.  Changes should be pretty quick and apparent. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Going to try and fashion that controller cable today for the dimming. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

If you didn't already have an apex you could always use them Arduinos for dimming. Not much to it besides a RTC (real time circuit) and some transistors, it's the programming that hurts. That's what I have running my 4 channels as well as some temp probes and outlets. What more are you looking for regarding dimming any ways that their controller is lacking? Lookin to do lightning or sumting? ???

Out of curiosity... the arduino puts out ony 3 and 5v right?  How could I use that for dimmin when the dimming circuit needs to be 10v?  (remember I'm an electronics idiot). 

 

[Victoss]

Sounds like you have an Apex so this should not be a worry but if you wanna know the Arduino can only put out the 5 and 3V like you said. So what must be done is you need a 10V adapter (this can power the Arduino too) and then use a transistor as an electric 'switch' so the 5v signal from the arduino (will be PWM for dimming) will open and close the 10V adapter to the dimmable driver. This picture would give you a better idea:

It would be 10V instead of the 12 that they have and you don't need the POTs but can keep them there if you want manual dimming as well. Also to protect the transistor from the Arduino they have a resistor in front and you could put this transistor 'switch' on the positive or negative line (they have it on neg and the POTs on positive).

 

[Salty Cracker]

Well looks like I do indeed have the apex working for the dimming....not bug free but getting there, but this intriges me.  Imagine an apex-type controller made for $100 worth of arduino components.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Pots and knobs are also 1000x cheaper from ebay than rapidled.  Now if CREE canada would just answer my emails maybe I could become the Canadian LED supplier. 

 

[Victoss]

Don't know if CREE would deal with individuals, maybe only businesses? And you would need to know exactly what you would want, bin, LED type, the colour/CCT. As for the controller, that's basically what I have, only has 4 outlets though, 3 temp probes, and the 4 PWM dimming channels for LEDs all on a LCD display and keypad for interfacing, was about $100 too and a lot of time but was part of a college project so that worked out. The build thread for it and my LEDs are on the KWAS forums but they are down so here is a link to the vid... it's 10 min and is kind of dry because I go through the whole menu :?

DIY Reef Tank Controller

 

[Salty Cracker]

Don't know if CREE would deal with individuals, maybe only businesses? And you would need to know exactly what you would want, bin, LED type, the colour/CCT. As for the controller, that's basically what I have, only has 4 outlets though, 3 temp probes, and the 4 PWM dimming channels for LEDs all on a LCD display and keypad for interfacing, was about $100 too and a lot of time but was part of a college project so that worked out. The build thread for it and my LEDs are on the KWAS forums but they are down so here is a link to the vid... it's 10 min and is kind of dry because I go through the whole menu :?

DIY Reef Tank Controller

That's killer.  Damn impressive for a school project

I plan to devote a fair bit of time over xmas to learning arduino stuff, at least getting a grasp of what is possible...

 

[Salty Cracker]

Okay, well a couple of days in, and I can definitely say there is a difference. 

Totally lightened about 10 coral colonies.  I don't want to say bleached, because they have full polyp extension, but from a dark brown to a pale beige. 

When just the blues are on, the old colours are still there (perhaps a little lighter), which is great, but I'm going to turn off the UV channel for a couple of days, I don't want to go from beige to pure white. 

Most noticeable was a big colony of superman monti...was baby blue with red polyps, is now beige with beige polyps.  This was all within the past 12 hours.  Now I want to be careful, but what I was trying to do was 'get the brown out' of the corals.  For example, a tricolour acro I got from darryl, when I got it, was pure white, with blue tips and brown polyps.  Looked amazing.  After a while in my tank it grew, but was brown with blue tips and brown polyps, nowhere near as nice.  So I've been trying to get that 'white' coral back.  So after trying everything else (low nutrients, amino acids, target feeding) I was convinced that the lighting was the culprit...as I said lots of growth but not the unearthly colours I want to see.  I'll say, that if I can get darryl colours while using LED I'm going to be doing happy dances all over the place, that's the last step in my quest.

I will keep an eye on it (of course) and report back to how this comes around.  I did do a water change and changed out the carbon yesterday, but I have to think it's the lighting that's done this.

 

[Victoss]

When starting LEDs some people end up burning their corals so you may want to try lower first (maybe 60% or so) and then go up from there till you decide your good. If you have a non-dimmable driver you may get away with first ramping up the others then turning on this driver (and if need be, you lower the other dimmable drivers when the non-dim gets turned on). The other option is moving the whole fixture up if you want (usually done when all drivers are non-dim).

 

[Salty Cracker]

When starting LEDs some people end up burning their corals so you may want to try lower first (maybe 60% or so) and then go up from there till you decide your good. If you have a non-dimmable driver you may get away with first ramping up the others then turning on this driver (and if need be, you lower the other dimmable drivers when the non-dim gets turned on). The other option is moving the whole fixture up if you want (usually done when all drivers are non-dim).

There was a huge acclimation period when I first switched to LED.  I bleached a few corals, but not so quickly and not all at once, and I don't think I had a single fatality either (I just moved them lower in the tank).  The only real difference now is adding in the 5 UV bulbs and adding a few more RB, which really shouldn't be that big a deal on a 120s.  I didn't think it would be that much of a difference. All the GSP in the tank is closed up tight tonight, although all lps is looking good.  If I hadn't just swapped the lights I might suspect a contaminant or a temp swing (I didn't use a heater in the makeup water tank yesterday). 

 

[Victoss]

I agree it doesn't seem like a big change for them, did you have any down time when you were upgrading the lights that maybe the corals reacted to? Should check your other parameters just in case, coincidences do happen.

 

[Salty Cracker]

I agree it doesn't seem like a big change for them, did you have any down time when you were upgrading the lights that maybe the corals reacted to? Should check your other parameters just in case, coincidences do happen.

Checked my apex programming...had the UVs on from 2:00am-8:00pm instead of from 2pm-8.  Forgot to program in 24 hour mode.  So hypothetically the UV's were on for almost a full day.  Probably would explain the shell shock.  Hopefully that was it.  Certainly backs up the theory that the UV's are very visible to the coral!

 

[unibob]

[quote author=Victoss link=topic=3647.msg33019#msg33019 date=1355117294]
I agree it doesn't seem like a big change for them, did you have any down time when you were upgrading the lights that maybe the corals reacted to? Should check your other parameters just in case, coincidences do happen.

Checked my apex programming...had the UVs on from 2:00am-8:00pm instead of from 2pm-8.  Forgot to program in 24 hour mode.  So hypothetically the UV's were on for almost a full day.  Probably would explain the shell shock.  Hopefully that was it.  Certainly backs up the theory that the UV's are very visible to the coral!
[/quote]


Do wake up outside in the morning? Haha was there no glow? Or are these naked to eye like the suns uv?

 

[Salty Cracker]

[quote author=Salty Cracker link=topic=3647.msg33020#msg33020 date=1355117875]
[quote author=Victoss link=topic=3647.msg33019#msg33019 date=1355117294]
I agree it doesn't seem like a big change for them, did you have any down time when you were upgrading the lights that maybe the corals reacted to? Should check your other parameters just in case, coincidences do happen.

Checked my apex programming...had the UVs on from 2:00am-8:00pm instead of from 2pm-8.  Forgot to program in 24 hour mode.  So hypothetically the UV's were on for almost a full day.  Probably would explain the shell shock.  Hopefully that was it.  Certainly backs up the theory that the UV's are very visible to the coral!
[/quote]


Do wake up outside in the morning? Haha was there no glow? Or are these naked to eye like the suns uv?
[/quote]

It was the weekend...I stumbled to bed late and didn't get to looking at the tank until all the other lights were on.  It could have been on fire the whole time and I wouldn't have known.

 

[unibob]

Only trying to work you up. Glad things didn't catch on fire and that you enjoyed your beauty sleep on the weekend.

 

[Salty Cracker]

I need all the beauty sleep I can get.  If I could only get age reversing sleep too. 


Well colour is returning to most of the sps.  So it does seem as though it was the lighting, as I've just been running a RB strip for a day or so.  Polyp extension has been crazy so I have been feeding fairly heavy, they seem to like the macro diet http://www.royalaquariums.ca/c/232/azox

So I'm hypothesizing here, but it seems that I could run the UV channel for a couple of hours a day at high noon, to simulate strong midday sun.  If I can keep the zooxanthellae levels down and increase feeding, it would be ideal, and possibly finally reach to goal of darryl-esque coral colours.  It also likely means that on my next tank I can go deeper, and grow coral taller

 

[teebone110]

  It also likely means that on my next tank I can go deeper, and grow coral taller

Oh Oh... Do I sense a future build in the works? :?