Light Settings Input

[schwenkl]

Profilux Plus II with firmware 4.02.

Illumination 1: Sylvania dimmable ballast controlled by EVG running my acentics

Illumination 2: Sylvania dimmable ballast controlled by EVG running my daylights

Illumination 3: ProfiLuxSimu-L flash Stick set to Blue/White and Moon Phase

Illumination 4: ProfiLuxSimu-L flash Stick set to Red



Anyone running similar setup that want to chime in with Light Scenarios? Any suggestions at all I would love to see and hear.

I am not getting the transition between Sunrise/Daylight/Sunset/Moon that I am overjoyed about yet. Curious to see what you are running and like.

Before the ProfiLux upgrade: I ran acentics 7am to 8pm, daylight 8am to 7pm, and moonlight 7pm to 8am.

Thanks in advance.

[Harry_Fish]

I have pretty much the same setup

You will not get a perfect transition, partially because you can not
get the simu-l sticks to dim instantly (takes 5 minutes mininum).

I used to ramp my nightlights up to full brightness then turn on
the actinics but they do not come on right away as they need to
ramp up to 1%.

I would do the opposite at the end of the day, but still ran into
the same 1% issue.

In the end I just have the moonlights ramp up and down at the end and start of the day.

I add a pit of red at the start and end of the day as well for visual efffect.

For night lights I run either 10% moonlights and 2% red
or 20% Moonlights and about 3% red.

I tried the moon simulation but since the simul sticks are
calibrated quite the same I would have one side of the tank
either off or very dim compared to the other side
(there is no way to fix this other than putting each stick in it's own port).

The red makes it a lot nicer to look at at night.

I usally ramp all the lights (actinics & whites) up together, but
then ramp the whites down 2hrs prior to the actinics to enjoy
the glowing corals at the end of the day.

I usally ramp them up and down over a 1 hr period.

Here is the curve I used to run http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/164714Lighting.jpg


Good Luck.

[schwenkl]

Thanks for the input Harry_Fish, sorry for the delayed response.

I hope to get a lot more input. Guess I didn't notice the 1% but I run my ramp over a longer time frame. See below.......


http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j266/schwenkl/IlluminationOverview.jpg

Any further suggestions would be appreciated........
Plus anyone else.

[Harry_Fish]

My current curves are a bit closer to what you have now

I need to re work them again, I had a bad ballast but
now that I have that fixed Ineed to smooth out my curves .

The curve I had (from the link) is a mimic to the suns natural curve.

[schwenkl]

I wouldn't mind taken a look of how you decide to rework. Nice input on matching the natural curve. I will finally have time this weekend to look at your previous overview in more detail. As you can tell, mine is not much of a tweak from the default.

Now that 4.05 can have different lighting for each day of the week, things could get crazy.

I too wanted a smooth transition being most concerned about providing the appropriate light schedule for my critters. I asked earlier is anyone had input to how much the dimming intervals added to overall light duration. I was told I was over analyzing it, but thought that was the idea.

Anyway, thanks for the input.

[Harry_Fish]

I will have to wait a bit I just replaced all the bulbs today

I had a bad ballast and it killed a couple of my bulbs, I had
replaced them with temp bulbs untll I replaced the ballast.

Gets expensive quick blowing bulbs :(

So now I have to wait till the 100 hr burn in
is done before I can play with the curves again.

But the the new bulbs look Great!!!

3 Giesemann Middays
1 Giesemann Pure Actinic
2 Giesemann Actinic+

I may swap one of them out for a ATI Pro-Color

[aninjaatemyshoe]

How often has the ballast blowing bulbs been a problem? Did you use the Sylvania ballasts?

[Harry_Fish]

Yes, They are the Sylvania ballasts

I have 3 of them and the other 2 have always worked great.

I had a problem with the one ballast from almost day 1,
I swapped it out last week and now it is working fine.

I wanted to swap it out long ago, but was in the process of
buying a house, etc. I just did not have the time to really
tear into it until now.

I think the rest will be fine, I just have a bad one.

It happens, I'm just happy to have it finaly fixed.

[schwenkl]

Can't wait to see. I'm only running 4 on my 90 and everyone seems happy. The Aquactinics T5 Retro Individual Reflectors are really getting the light in there. As much or more from running 6 in a single reflector light. I am almost there with color. Running:

Aqua Science 22k
Aqua Science Duo (17 k)
ATI Blue Plus (Was suggested to run another Duo but was too bright for me. I had the Blue Plus so used it but will replace with another 22k)
Aqua Science 22k

Until later. Take care.

[Harry_Fish]

I spent some time using a spreadsheet and with the par values
of my bulbs to come up with a schedule where I get a natural
ramp up/down curve plus an extended midday period of full intensity.

I have the bulbs set on two channels:

Note: In this configuration Ch 1 is about one third the Par of Ch 2

Channel 1 (One Giesemann Pure Actinic and One Giesemann Actinic+)
0 – 10% 7am – 8am
10 – 90% 8am – 9am
90 – 100% 9am -10am
100 – 90% 8pm - 9pm
90 – 10% 9pm -10pm
10 – 0 10pm – 11pm


Channel 2 (Three Giesemann Middays and One Giesemann Actinic+)
0 – 90% 9am – 10am
90 – 100% 10am -11am
100 – 90% 7pm - 8pm
90 – 0% 8pm -9pm

I have the moonlights come on at 11pm and off at 7am
Set to 23% and running in moon phase simulation mode.

I am currently not running and red from the Simu-L sticks
I may add some red back in later…..

[Harry_Fish]

Well the 100 hr burn in is finally over, woo hoo!!!!!

The curves look nice but since the Giesemann Pure Actinic is so
Violet I am not adding in red any more, as ir make it too Red.

[tomasz]

Can you dim a MH bulbs?

[aninjaatemyshoe]

Yes, but not with Profilux. You need the ACLS from Sfiligoi. It isn't cheap. A 250W dimming ballast and control setup costs $1,300. Cool effect, but not worth the price IMO.

[Matthias Gross]

This not the complete truth.
ProfiLux can dimm any ballast with 1-10V-interface(in future ballasts with DALI, too).
-> you need a dimmable MH-ballast

[tomasz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13967562#post13967562 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Matthias Gross
This not the complete truth.
ProfiLux can dimm any ballast with 1-10V-interface(in future ballasts with DALI, too).
-> you need a dimmable MH-ballast

How much do these run?

[Harry_Fish]

You may need to do a bit of searching for MH ballast,
but unless you Must have MH I would go with the dimmable
T5s; the effect is incredible plus they run cooler.

I have all Dimmable T5s and the Simu-L sticks, and together
it really looks slick. It takes a while to get it tuned to your
particular taste with your bulbs for the desired effect you like.

I wanted mine to be on whenever I'm around and to
have an extended Midday Bright lighting period.

The brightest period is actually when I am not around
Six T5s are Bright (almost too bright).

I am planning on bumping up to Eight T5s over
a 180 so I'll be adding yet another ballast.

I am going to the eight bulbs (on 4 ballast) more so for the
flexibility than the brightness as it will let me put different color
bulbs on different ballast tochange the spectrum even more
through out the day.

And now for the shameless plug....

When you go to buy talk to Todd at Cherry Corals:

www.cherrycorals.com

He is a great guy and the one who really helped me get the best
deal. I was right about to order he called me back with an
even better deal saving me some money.

Because of that I just turned right around and spent even more with him buying the Simu-L sticks.

I don't call Todd often because almost everytime I do I wind up buying more cool toys.

I hope this helps.

Good Luck!

[Harry_Fish]

I wrote this in another thread but I think it applies here as well:

--------

If you saw the dimmable ballast in action you
would proabably dump your non-dimmable.
(at least for the actinics)

I originally got the dimmable ballast for the fun of it but....

Once I say how the corals change in response to the varying
light levels, and even how the fish react differently; I would
never go back to the plain old on/off type of lighting.

It is during the start and ends of the days where the tank looks
the coolest, the corals will puff up or down, and get all spiney etc.

It really is the best time to view the tank.

--------

Good Luck


.

[schwenkl]

Harry Fish,
Its been awhile and I haven't played with lighting as any free time I have had was to finally switch all the way over and install my power bar.

I like what I see with what you have done with your set up. Quick ramps. Will definitely play with that. Still pretty much running a small tweak of the default.

I asked, some time back, if anyone had thoughts to how much the dimmable ramps influenced the overall light periods? Would you calculate by the percentage to find out how much time was a total percentage that added to the photo period? I was told I was over analyzing it, but wouldn't long ramps, thus longer periods of reduced PAR, add to that balance of growth vs nuisance? Or is it all spectrum that is an advocate of nuisance "algae" growth? Anyway, a thought.

Finally, talk to me about your LED's. I'm still running 1-10v 100% with moonlights on simulation Reds as sunrise / sunset. The manual says to use .4v. Not getting that part. It says anymore is too bright, but I like the full moon 100% deep blue at night. Input?

[Harry_Fish]

I will have to get back to you on all of this

4 weeks ago, I had my old 72 gallon tank spring a leak.

I just got finished getting the 180 gallon replacement setup
and the corals and fish in it tonight.

I dont even have the controller set back up yet

[Harry_Fish]

Look here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1534267

This is what I'm currently running for curves.

I finally have the 180 up and running.

I'm only running Six T5's at the moment but I may take it up to 8