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Chihiros Aquasky led

ShawnMac said:
. Par is over 200 micromoles near the top center. Aquasky is around 160 as measured by an Apogee PAR sensor.

I did not like the dimming function. Seemed to make the light flicker a little. The light did not appear to be steady or stable. It wasn't obvious, but looked strange to me. I ran at full power and skipped the dimmer
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Hello, a little question,

PAR at what distance from the lights?

Thanks for the comment on the dimming function, i guess we cannot ask for too much at that cheap price.

Michel.
 
Highest PAR was top middle probably 10-15 cm from the light (forgive my Imperial mind imagining metric). It was high all around the tank however. I can get some quick measurements later if you really would like to know. I would say easily over 100 par even in the front corners furthest from the light. Equal distance and location in the aquasky was around 160 PAR. This was comparing a 30 cm aquasky to a 45 cm Chihiros. Let me know if you want more detailed measurements and I can do it sometime this evening and post.
 
ShawnMac said:
Thanks...I can put something together ;)
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Curious to know the Par values at different settings too. I'm running 2 strips on a 90cmx45cmx45cm.
ShawnMac said:
Highest PAR was top middle probably 10-15 cm from the light (forgive my Imperial mind imagining metric). It was high all around the tank however. I can get some quick measurements later if you really would like to know. I would say easily over 100 par even in the front corners furthest from the light. Equal distance and location in the aquasky was around 160 PAR. This was comparing a 30 cm aquasky to a 45 cm Chihiros. Let me know if you want more detailed measurements and I can do it sometime this evening and post.
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bgoh82 said:
Curious to know the Par values at different settings too. I'm running 2 strips on a 90cmx45cmx45cm.



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I'll see what I can get together. I'll use the dimmer and throw some measurements together. Might have time this weekend

sent from tapatalk on my phone so auto correct and other errors are bound to happen
 
I measured PAR quickly yesterday. Still haven't had time to put together a comprehensive chart. Here are values in my 45 cm below the Chihiros light for 3 locations. Top mid about 12 cm below light source was 220; bottom left front corner was 138, bottom front right corner was 143. As I mentioned, this light is super strong. I tried the dimmer again and could at full dim get the top mid value to 160, however it isn't a stable consistent light. When you dim too far it flicks on and off at a regular rate. I suspect this is what happens with the dimming settings where it is less obvious. The dimming switch add-on gets quite hot. Most likely its some type of resistor which reduces power to the light and its not very good, nor does it dissipate the heat well. I don't like it at all.

It is difficult to grow plants at this high light in my opinion. You are basically fenced into high light high growth plants or adding a good deal of floating plants. Its seems like the really high light almost stunts some plants. The aquasoil is new and truthfully I haven't been dosing as well as I should, but plant mass in this recent scape is low with basically only HC. I also have downoi. It seems to be trying to flower or putting up flowering stalks. Maybe the high light is triggering it? When I had it in the tank before it was shaded by the stems, and still grew small and dense...no flower stalks though.
 
ShawnMac said:
It is difficult to grow plants at this high light in my opinion. You are basically fenced into high light high growth plants or adding a good deal of floating plants. Its seems like the really high light almost stunts some plants.
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Maybe some plants need time to change their system to the new settings, many are slow to adapt. Also you may have high light but if it lacks co2 and/or nutriments, the growth will not be necessary faster (and it can lead to algae issues).

Michel.
 
micheljq said:
Maybe some plants need time to change their system to the new settings, many are slow to adapt. Also you may have high light but if it lacks co2 and/or nutriments, the growth will not be necessary faster (and it can lead to algae issues).

Michel.
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yes, I'm well aware of those issues. It is not an adaptation issue. Growth is healthy for the most part, but slow or at least slower than in other lower light systems... and as I mentioned the downoi continues to try and flower by sending up long stalks. I have grown a healthy scape with this setup before, even in that setup I noticed the rotala green grew slower than in other systems. I cannot say for sure if it is the excessive light...however that was the primary difference between that and other systems.

What I mean by difficult is basically that this level of light is not needed...and makes more trouble than it is worth. Particularly in the beginning phases. Once a setup is matured it works better. I can do it...and I am doing it, but less light might work better with similar results.
 
Thanks ShawnMac for the effort. So if at a 36cm depth at substrate, can I just divide the reading by 3 for an estimate? (ie. 220/3=73 par). Also just to share that my dimmer switch is cool to touch too and visibly I didn't notice any flickering even at the lowest mode.


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bgoh82 said:
Thanks ShawnMac for the effort. So if at a 36cm depth at substrate, can I just divide the reading by 3 for an estimate? (ie. 220/3=73 par). Also just to share that my dimmer switch is cool to touch too and visibly I didn't notice any flickering even at the lowest mode.


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What dimmer switch are you using? I'd be interested in getting one if that is the case.

What size model are you looking at? That seems reasonable, but I'm not sure drop off is that much...or linear. I'm curious so I'll look into it in better detail soon. Life has been very busy...can barely get my water changes in

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I'm using the default one that comes with set. Mine is black instead of white. I'm using the A901 90cm lighting (rated 55w with 8200 lumens).
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I'm using the same....hmmm. I have two, the one with the remote and the one like you have...both got pretty hot. Maybe mine suck! lol
 
Interesting, curious to know if this work with the chihiros =)

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I'm also very curious. How would one go about hooking up the two?

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Give it a 12v power source. Hook the lights to the channels.The channels are for different colour leds. If there's room in the chihros you could add a strip of rbg leds. So rbg is 3 colours and the original white leds would be the 4th. If all you were connecting to the TC40 were white leds you;de be missing out on a lot of its functionality.

I have a program on my laptop that allows you to mix the colour intensity and ramp up/down for sunrise/sunset. You create the desired effect/mode, test it in x200 speed then d/load it to the TC420. I've just mentioned the main features, it can do a lot more. You can fade it into moonlight for the last hour if you wanted to.
 
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