ATI Powermodule Hybrid Club

[dcforester1]

I finally found an old pc to get my light programed. I have the software loaded and I can adjust it, but I dont think its connected to my light. When I plug it in it makes a sound that its connected, but is there any way to see if its actually linked with it? Also when I try to slide the control to color preview it doesn't move, thats why I am thinking its not connected to it.

any help/sugg appreciated

Derek

[sahin]

Originally Posted by westreef

This is the same worry I have. I find the rocks have a lot of crevices but not very porous at all. In fact, I am adding Special Blend and Night Out II everyday to the cycling water. I even add a few ml of vodka in it. I have total of 45 lb. I also added 1 liter of siporax in the sump of the DT. I am trying everything I can to help the filtration.

I have 1 litre of siporax in my sump as well. I wouldnt worry too much. There is a member with the name JPorter; his tank was setup on 100% Marco Key Largo rocks and the tank is pretty awesome.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by dcforester1

I finally found an old pc to get my light programed. I have the software loaded and I can adjust it, but I dont think its connected to my light. When I plug it in it makes a sound that its connected, but is there any way to see if its actually linked with it? Also when I try to slide the control to color preview it doesn't move, thats why I am thinking its not connected to it.

any help/sugg appreciated

Derek

On the top right hand side of the software, there are two dots.

One says USB and one says LAMP.

When you connect the USB cable to the computer with other end connected to the controller, you should see the TWO dots change from GREY to BLUE.

Thats how you know that the fixture is connected.

You might want to take a look at my tutorial I produced more than a year ago.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: In the video linked below if you start watching you will see the two blue dots I mentioned above. I had the controller connected to my PC.

[Tracey2]

How much coverage does the 8 x 54W plus led powermodule cover in width, my tank is 36' wide.

[westreef]

Sahin, you are so right! This light is so powerful. In two days, I have already bleached one coral. Now I immediately reduce T5 and LED clusters all to 50%. Hope no more bleaching. Never seen this happen so quick!!!

I thought I already played it safe -- hang it high and peak for just 5 hrs. My PAR meter is not measuring everything !? I guess.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by Tracey2

How much coverage does the 8 x 54W plus led powermodule cover in width, my tank is 36' wide.

That unit will cover a 30" area for growing most any coral. Which I think is roughly within your range. For SPS I'd say a strictly 28" area. Of course the internal size will be roughly 35". Then deduct around 4" for space behind the rocks. That reduces the front to back space to around 31" of actual coral growing space. Now reduce a further 4 inches from the front as you wont be keeping SPS right up against the front glass.

That leaves you with 27" front to back space to grow SPS. You can of course have LPS outside the 27" space and there will still be enough light.

So IMO, that unit is fine if you can understand how I tried to illustrate above.

Originally Posted by westreef

Sahin, you are so right! This light is so powerful. In two days, I have already bleached one coral. Now I immediately reduce T5 and LED clusters all to 50%. Hope no more bleaching. Never seen this happen so quick!!!

Where in the tank is the bleached coral? High up directly under the unit?

As you may know T5's bathe the whole coral due to the highly dispersed light. Then add the mainly downward pointing light from the LED's and you have one strong light source.

AS I said, my buddy runs ALL the channels T5 and LED on 100% for like 10 hours!!! But he SLOWLY acclimated the corals. And feeds his tank loads. The extra zoax in his coral limits the light reaching the coral. His SPS tissue is dark and colourful.

I'd up the feeding every so slightly, and keep the decreased light for at least 10 days before you start any increase. When increasing, only do so by 3% every 5 days or so.

I hope the coral has just become pale due to extra light and that its not some other issue.

[westreef]

Originally Posted by sahin

That unit will cover a 30" area for growing most any coral. Which I think is roughly within your range. For SPS I'd say a strictly 28" area. Of course the internal size will be roughly 35". Then deduct around 4" for space behind the rocks. That reduces the front to back space to around 31" of actual coral growing space. Now reduce a further 4 inches from the front as you wont be keeping SPS right up against the front glass.

That leaves you with 27" front to back space to grow SPS. You can of course have LPS outside the 27" space and there will still be enough light.

So IMO, that unit is fine if you can understand how I tried to illustrate above.



Where in the tank is the bleached coral? High up directly under the unit?

As you may know T5's bathe the whole coral due to the highly dispersed light. Then add the mainly downward pointing light from the LED's and you have one strong light source.

AS I said, my buddy runs ALL the channels T5 and LED on 100% for like 10 hours!!! But he SLOWLY acclimated the corals. And feeds his tank loads. The extra zoax in his coral limits the light reaching the coral. His SPS tissue is dark and colourful.

I'd up the feeding every so slightly, and keep the decreased light for at least 10 days before you start any increase. When increasing, only do so by 3% every 5 days or so.

I hope the coral has just become pale due to extra light and that its not some other issue.

The affected coral is in the middle of the tank, 8" below the surface, directly under the middle LED cluster. Okay, I will try what you suggested here.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by westreef

I thought I already played it safe -- hang it high and peak for just 5 hrs. My PAR meter is not measuring everything !? I guess.

That is the Apogee spectral response curve.


It does underread the blue end slightly.

Eg take 450nm which is the typical peak wavelength on the Royal Blue LED's on these units...

At 450nm, the Apogee reads only about 80% of the PAR. If you were to count all the reduced readings from 470nm to 400nm you can see that overall, the Apogee underreads the blue end by about 20%, BUT overeads the other side of the spectrum by around 5%.

So the actual PAR is likely to be around 15% higher. So at 5 hours peak, depending on which coral it is, you may have passed the corals saturation point.

Typical saturation points for SPS:

Source: http://reefworks.co.uk/

[dcforester1]

Originally Posted by sahin

On the top right hand side of the software, there are two dots.

One says USB and one says LAMP.

When you connect the USB cable to the computer with other end connected to the controller, you should see the TWO dots change from GREY to BLUE.

Thats how you know that the fixture is connected.

You might want to take a look at my tutorial I produced more than a year ago.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: In the video linked below if you start watching you will see the two blue dots I mentioned above. I had the controller connected to my PC.

I did watch it and screen shot it and tried to find something different. I couldn't see those dots on the screen shot. Mine are not changing, but it is def connected because I hear the chime when connected. Do you think maybe the laptop is to old?

Is there a setting I need to do? I hit the T5/3LED unit in settingsImageUploadedByTapatalk1433294530.294643.jpg

This is what the screen look like when I connect. Like I said i get the chime when connecting to the USB

Thanks for the help

Derek.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by dcforester1

I did watch it and screen shot it and tried to find something different. I couldn't see those dots on the screen shot. Mine are not changing, but it is def connected because I hear the chime when connected. Do you think maybe the laptop is to old?

Is there a setting I need to do? I hit the T5/3LED unit in settingsAttachment 319485

This is what the screen look like when I connect. Like I said i get the chime when connecting to the USB

Thanks for the help

Derek.

There seems to be an issue with the USB on your laptop. Neither of the dots are lighting up blue.

Go to the ATI USA website and ensure you have the latest software from there. Also, if there are any USB drivers on the ATI USA website download them.

You may need to use another laptop.

[dcforester1]

Thanks for the info. I think it's the laptop old and prob the issue.

[atrain]

posted once to thread without any reply, and hoping someone can help. I started playing with the color's and t5 bulbs and found the coral+/blue+/coral+/blue+ combo to be most pleasing. The problem I was running into was trying to get the coloration I was looking for mainly from the led's, not vise versa. I think this fixture is more t5 with led supplements, not the other way around. Now I'm wondering what strength I should be running my led's. I am having great growth from my sps, but colors are fading. I was running led's at 45pct, then ran them up to 65pct. I based off suggestions from this thread, where 45pct was suggested, but this was from people running 8 bulbs, whereas I am running 4. My nitrates 0 phos 0 orp 415 ph 8.1 cal 480. My green slimer has gone from green to yellow, red planet was gone from red to light purple over the coarse of a couple weeks, but growth is awesome. Can anyone help? would like to pick a post, but I don't have a camera to adjust for the lighting

[westreef]

Hi Sahin, I will increase the intensity every 5 days or so by 3%. Thanks.

What is the final goal in term of PAR for general Acropora? Have you measured the PAR values in your buddies' tank? Cranking it up all the way to 100% may or may not achieve the goal. Right?

[sahin]

Originally Posted by atrain

posted once to thread without any reply, and hoping someone can help. I started playing with the color's and t5 bulbs and found the coral+/blue+/coral+/blue+ combo to be most pleasing. The problem I was running into was trying to get the coloration I was looking for mainly from the led's, not vise versa. I think this fixture is more t5 with led supplements, not the other way around. Now I'm wondering what strength I should be running my led's. I am having great growth from my sps, but colors are fading. I was running led's at 45pct, then ran them up to 65pct. I based off suggestions from this thread, where 45pct was suggested, but this was from people running 8 bulbs, whereas I am running 4. My nitrates 0 phos 0 orp 415 ph 8.1 cal 480. My green slimer has gone from green to yellow, red planet was gone from red to light purple over the coarse of a couple weeks, but growth is awesome. Can anyone help? would like to pick a post, but I don't have a camera to adjust for the lighting

Originally Posted by westreef

Hi Sahin, I will increase the intensity every 5 days or so by 3%. Thanks.

What is the final goal in term of PAR for general Acropora? Have you measured the PAR values in your buddies' tank? Cranking it up all the way to 100% may or may not achieve the goal. Right?

Both your questions will have rather the same response.

Ultimately, all our tanks are different. And this is the issue with LED's; it requires the individual reefkeeper to really look at their corals and determine appropriate light levels.

We can provide some baseline; but even comparing my tank with my buddys tank, he has a crazy amount of fish. I couldnt run as high a light level as his tank.

Your final light levels will depend on your nutrient levels/flow/coral placement etc.

To Atrain:

If your nitrate and phosphate are both registering zero, I'd get them into the detectable range. At least 0.2ppm for NO3 and around 0.03ppm for PO4. Are you running GFO? You have probably stripped your system too much.

[sahin]

Bernie, once your coral recovers, start to increase the light level until your corals are happy with the brightness. You dont need to hit 100% on all the channels.

RB=255
B=200
W=125
R=50

Will be plenty with channels at 100%.

[Tracey2]

Thanks sahin, very helpful.

[kewadiak]

Originally Posted by sahin

Bernie, once your coral recovers, start to increase the light level until your corals are happy with the brightness. You dont need to hit 100% on all the channels.

RB=255
B=200
W=125
R=50

Will be plenty with channels at 100%.

are these you preferred settings to grow sps for the leds?

[atrain]

thanks for the feedback. I do run gfo and carbon and refugium, and 5pct water change weekly. The problem being, I have diatoms, and worried that if I don't run these, the diatoms will worsen. With that stated, I have critters/fish that fed on the diatoms, so never is really a problem, however, are there and I can't get rid of them. With that said, the diatoms must be feeding on nutrients, so I figure the corals should be able to as well? also tested for silicates today at 0. Didn't mean to get off track of the thread, I originally under the assumption the colors changing/diminishing do to intensity of the light, which I'm still not convinced isn't part of the reason. Took months of tinkering, but did find color setting I am pleased with.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by kewadiak

are these you preferred settings to grow sps for the leds?

Yup. Of course one can run lower or higher...depends on taste and what your corals can take.

Originally Posted by atrain

thanks for the feedback. I do run gfo and carbon and refugium, and 5pct water change weekly. The problem being, I have diatoms, and worried that if I don't run these, the diatoms will worsen. With that stated, I have critters/fish that fed on the diatoms, so never is really a problem, however, are there and I can't get rid of them. With that said, the diatoms must be feeding on nutrients, so I figure the corals should be able to as well? also tested for silicates today at 0. Didn't mean to get off track of the thread, I originally under the assumption the colors changing/diminishing do to intensity of the light, which I'm still not convinced isn't part of the reason. Took months of tinkering, but did find color setting I am pleased with.

How old is the tank? Diatoms shouldnt be present in an established tank. If your tank is more than 6 months old or older, you might have Dinos. If the tank is fairly new, then I wouldnt be worried about the diatoms too much; they will exhaust themselves out at sooner or later.

Once you have found a setting you like, dont change. If the corals become lighter, then perhaps decrease photoperiod or reduce intensity. If there is no recovery after about 3 weeks; then I would certainly say its not your lights, but rather the water/nutrition at issue.

Its no problem talking about other stuff in this thread; its all related to the lights.

[dcforester1]

This is very frustrating, I got a brand new PC, and still no luck. I downloaded the top download saying,

http://atiaquaristik.com/de/webdisk/...tudio_1327.exe

I called ATI and got someone immediately, but wasn't of much help. He said it has to be an issue with the laptop, I told him I got the same exact result on two different laptops, and he said he wasn't sure what the issue is, and to just use the default setting??? I am so unhappy, I didnt buy the Pac Sun light because everyone said the software sucked, well I am guessing it couldn't be much worse.

He said there are no drivers to install, if I installed the latest version it has the correct drivers. The older laptop made a noise when I plugged it into the USB signaling that there is a connection, the new one didnt. I dont know where to go from here, any suggestions?

Derek

[sahin]

Originally Posted by dcforester1

This is very frustrating, I got a brand new PC, and still no luck. I downloaded the top download saying,

http://atiaquaristik.com/de/webdisk/...tudio_1327.exe

I called ATI and got someone immediately, but wasn't of much help. He said it has to be an issue with the laptop, I told him I got the same exact result on two different laptops, and he said he wasn't sure what the issue is, and to just use the default setting??? I am so unhappy, I didnt buy the Pac Sun light because everyone said the software sucked, well I am guessing it couldn't be much worse.

He said there are no drivers to install, if I installed the latest version it has the correct drivers. The older laptop made a noise when I plugged it into the USB signaling that there is a connection, the new one didnt. I dont know where to go from here, any suggestions?

Derek

Did you buy your unit new? If so, contact ATI USA to help you sort this out. My laptop is around 2 years old and works fine.

[dcforester1]

Originally Posted by sahin

Did you buy your unit new? If so, contact ATI USA to help you sort this out. My laptop is around 2 years old and works fine.

Yes, brand new and why I am disappointed. I don't want to say the service was horrible, they answered on the first ring, person was nice, and tried to be helpful. It's just that they offered ZERO tech assistance. No screen share or any advice, just put it on default. I don't know what else to try. I am going to remove and then re install the software.

Any other suggs?

[sahin]

Originally Posted by dcforester1

Yes, brand new and why I am disappointed. I don't want to say the service was horrible, they answered on the first ring, person was nice, and tried to be helpful. It's just that they offered ZERO tech assistance. No screen share or any advice, just put it on default. I don't know what else to try. I am going to remove and then re install the software.

Any other suggs?

To be honest, I dont think its for ATI Germany to provide the technical support. It is your retailer/ATI USA.

On the new laptop, do you have issues connecting and recognising other USB devices?

If the laptop isnt at issue then you may have a faulty cable or controller. But unless some technical support is given, its hard to determine via an online thread.

[westreef]

Originally Posted by dcforester1

Yes, brand new and why I am disappointed. I don't want to say the service was horrible, they answered on the first ring, person was nice, and tried to be helpful. It's just that they offered ZERO tech assistance. No screen share or any advice, just put it on default. I don't know what else to try. I am going to remove and then re install the software.

Any other suggs?

I agree that the hardware is top notch, however, getting the program loaded onto the computer and getting it working isn't that easy. (Here I still have to say thank to Sahin and Ryan for the clear instructions in this thread -- it saved me tons of time and headache.) I suggest they should have a better software instructions/installation along with the shipment. If I didn't search for help in RC and found this thread, I would be in trouble.

As I mentioned before, I had to dig out my broken PC and spent a lot of time and got it working (they should have Mac version for Apple user, I wonder if they are working on it or not).

My old "broken" PC was working intermittently with internet. But anyway, I got it connected and downloaded the software from ATI northamerica. My PC uses Vista an antique OS to today's standard. So initially when I installed the software, I wasn't careful enough and skipped the driver installation thinking that it was not necessary. but then the whole thing did not work. So I deleted everything and redid it again very carefully and installed the driver recommendation it popped up in the monitor. Then everything worked just like Sahin illustrated here. Maybe the new OS in your PC doesn't require driver installation. But mine needed to.

Now, whenever I want to use this program, I have to connect the USB from the controller to the PC first before I load the program from the hard drive. Somehow if I didn't do that, I won't have connection, strange -- maybe this is my stupid "broken" PC issues. Anyway I found the working procedure and I have created many light schedules/profiles since then. I backup the schedules to a flash stick -- just in case this PC hates me and is working against me. Haha. So far, it is working fine for me -- fingers crossed.

Good luck.

[dcforester1]

Thanks Guys a lot of good info. You am going to uninstall it and reinstall it. The strand part it both PC have USB that work if something is connected, but only the old one makes the noise that it's connected.

When you say my retailer ATI/USA do you mean the place I bought it or is there local tech support? I just called the contact number in the ATI NA page. I didn't expect him to fix it, but it would have been nice if he had something to try to see if it was connected. When I get home I will try again.

Derek.