Change in plans! Aqua Illumination Sol Led worth it?

Alright looks like I will be starting off with a single fixture over one island as I fill it with coral. Then get a second fixture once I have a full island and can move onto adding coral to island number 2.

While I'm getting money for the fixture, I will figure out how to hang it without using the ceiling. haha Also, looking to keep this 40 breeder build under $2000. So far a little more than half of it is lights and with the equipment I am getting I may go over a little.

 

bump for the day and anyone who can help

 

I'm going to be changing things up for a Lionfish/Scorpion tank. If I change up the aquascape a bit would 1 Sol fixture work for zoas and light up the whole tank?

 

quick question, how many units can the controller address? I have 2 tanks (total of 11ft long) it would be nice to have the lighting all tied together..

 

As far as I know, the controller doesn't have a limit

 

Yes. One will be plenty for that configuration. At 12" AWL one will give excellent coverage for your tank.

 

Thanks! What would you recommend to get a 14-20k look?

 

That's the great part of the SOL units, you will be able to adjust the colors to achieve any look you like from a deep blue much much higher than 20k to about an 8500 look. At equal parts White/blue/royal-blue to my naked eye I would say the SOL blue gives about a 20k look.

To get coverage for a 40 breeder, I would suggest going AI - Support Us and getting a 4pack of the 70 degree optics and swap your interior 40 degree optics to the 70 degree optics for great spread and less spot lighting.

 

Hey, I'm looking at stripping the lamps out of my BioCube 29 hood, and replacing the current laps with 1 AI Sol LED module.

Can anyone comment on this idea. The problem would be that the Module would only be 1/2" AWL, I have read a few different post's and I'm confused. Somewhere I read that the module has to be mounted high above the water line, as the light was too intense and would cook the corals below? and somewhere I read it was simply because it needed room to distribute the light properly to prevent the spotlight?

Which is it, I was thinking if I put the 70 lenses on the interior 4 this should get the spread, also, I was going to leave the acrylic splash guard on, so would that cut down the intensity enough to stop it cooking the corals?

If I were to do this, would this give me the flexibility (from a lighting standpoint) to keep corals of any type?

Also, would I need any other lights in there (small T2's) to add color diversity or would the one Sol be enough?

New here, so thanks to anyone for there answers/comments.

 

Think of the mounting height as 1 thing and 1 thing only. Spread. Since you can dim from 1%-100% all intensity issues are controlled that way.

1/2" is a problem for 2 reasons. 1 Spread.. but in a 29gallon, that shouldn't be a real issue.

The bigger issue is how easy it will be for water to splash on the lights.. But i'll get back to this in a second because you already have the fix!

You will want to swap to 70s in your tank, for the even spread more than anything. The acrylic won't affect par much at all, glass does, acrylic doesn't. Also, you could actually melt the acrylic with the leds if they are sitting on right on top of it. Take that piece of acrylic to a glass shop and have them cut the same piece in glass.

As far as cooking the corals... You will end up running all lights in the sub 15% range (if you don't filter the light through glass). That will keep you from cooking the corals. I would start around 10% on all 3.

From a lighting standpoint, you can keep anything you please!

Nope!! No need at all, all 3 LEDs, White, blue and royal blue are independently controllable to allow you to tweak the color to an amazing amount of combinations from a 8500k white all the way to straight blue!