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  1. Measuring PAR in all my tanks

    At the club meeting last night, I did a presentation on measuring PAR in our reef tanks and why it has value, regardless of the type of lighting choices we employ. I do try to focus on daylight spectrum more than 20,000 Kelvin, because PAR meters are designed to measure sunlight and not the blue spectrum.

    Here's the PAR measurement of the frag tank. The light is a Reefkoi Evolution LED fixture that is three years old. The numbers are:
    0" - measurement at the surface of the ...
    Tags: par
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    Lighting
  2. Changing of the metal halide bulbs

    The metal halide bulbs are key to growing corals in my reef. Day after day, the bulbs light up the display and the corals grow. Over time, the bulbs weaken and even shift spectrums, which can result in unpleasant pinks or yellows that make the corals appear ugly... and even worse: algae will grow. The easiest cure is to replace the bulbs. I've been dragging my feet on this project out of sheer stubbornness. I really wanted to change them out when the 400g was back. That's when I have to take ...
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    Lighting
  3. 17 gallon's lighting predicament

    So the DIY stunner strip was a failure. I gave it a chance, and the two daylight bulbs simply overpower the blue LED's.

    I decided on ditching the LEDs, and swapping one D-D aquablue + for an ATI blue plus. According to the PAR levels by Grimreefers, this will actually take away about 2 - 5% PAR overall, but give a nice actinic look.

    I tried the two daylights alone, and just couldn't force myself to like the aesthetics. A few of my mushrooms dissolved as well, so I ...
    Tags: lighting, par
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    Lighting