jimmy_beaner
08/25/2012, 06:53 AM
I've been reading and reading about the new multichips and I'm still a bit on the fence about the decision between these two. Many of the posts about the 100w chips seem to indicate that unless they're running at ~1/2 power, they melt the tank inhabitants (even SPS). I doubt this is everyone's experience and I'm sure photo-acclimation would certainly help.
I guess my question is based out of whether the 100w or 50w would be good for the tank I'm building. The cost difference isn't much, but if I can only run it at 30-40%, there's not a ton of difference to not go for the 50w. The other option I was thinking is simply to leave off the optics so there's a lot of diffuse 100w light. I did that in my Biocube (I realize it's a far cry from a "deep" tank) and it worked really well. My hope is to run only 2 multichip pendants for the 90. This is another thing that had me leaning to no optics and the 100w chips. I will be building a frame to hold the coolers for the multichips and will be mounting supplemental crees on that frame.
I should also mention I'd be grabbing dimmable drivers and the APEX to allow ramp up and down.
Very open to ideas.
I guess my question is based out of whether the 100w or 50w would be good for the tank I'm building. The cost difference isn't much, but if I can only run it at 30-40%, there's not a ton of difference to not go for the 50w. The other option I was thinking is simply to leave off the optics so there's a lot of diffuse 100w light. I did that in my Biocube (I realize it's a far cry from a "deep" tank) and it worked really well. My hope is to run only 2 multichip pendants for the 90. This is another thing that had me leaning to no optics and the 100w chips. I will be building a frame to hold the coolers for the multichips and will be mounting supplemental crees on that frame.
I should also mention I'd be grabbing dimmable drivers and the APEX to allow ramp up and down.
Very open to ideas.