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lskurys 
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Location: Roy Utah
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 Topic: Led Upgrade or change
Posted: February 14 2013 at 9:04am |
I have a 220 tank 72x24x30 tank. When I got the tank I was under the impression that 3 AI Sol blue's would cover the tank. I also added 4 36†T5’s help supplement the Led’s. In the last 6 months they have been working but I am getting really slow growth and corals never seem too happy. I started checking in to the lighting and found that I should have had 6 AI's over the tank.
So here is my question. Should I add 3 more AI Sol's, add 3 Vega's or should I start over? I don't have the money for the upgrade right now just wanting some options
Edited by lskurys - February 14 2013 at 9:04am
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220g , large elite aquatics sump. 3 Radion Pro Gen 3 lights 3 Mp 40's
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Pete Moss
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Posted: February 14 2013 at 9:12am |
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I've always been a fan of building your own LED systems. You get to choose the exact colors, wattage, brightness, and position of the LEDs.
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125g 90g 2x33g 34g
What stores do I recommend?
Up North: Bill ( Saltwater Paradise 801-317-8115 )
Down South: Jerry ( Reef On 801-563-0600 )
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lskurys
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Posted: February 14 2013 at 9:36am |
Pete,
I did think about doing that to start but I was comming up with close to $2400 for the lighting that I wanted. So when I was told about the AI's I was like that is a really good deal and saved me about half what I was going to spend on lighting. So I put that in to a nice sump lol. well most of it any way. I then the extra went to taking my wife out and showing her a good time lol.
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220g , large elite aquatics sump. 3 Radion Pro Gen 3 lights 3 Mp 40's
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chris.rogers
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Posted: February 14 2013 at 10:11am |
http://shop.stevesleds.com/product.sc?productId=43&categoryId=22That one would require a bit of wiring and soldering. And you may not like the color selection, but the quality of LEDs and driver is very good. But it's only $550 + S&H. It's a retrofit kit, so you'd need your own canopy if you don't have one already. It may not work, but it's a much cheaper alternative than $2400. Yikes. No wonder you didn't go that route. If you needed help putting it together, I could spend a day with you in Roy wiring and soldering it up - in exchange for some frags, and with the wife's permission, of course.  PS - I am always pimping Steve's LEDs, I have their LEDs over my nano and I love it, so take my recommendation for what it's worth.  Edited to add: If you don't like the blue/white combo of LEDs that that guy is preconfigured with, I'm pretty sure they'd let you swap out a few blues or whites for the cyan, green, red, warmer whites or more purpley blues if you want.
Edited by chris.rogers - February 14 2013 at 10:12am
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Ils sont fous, ces Romains!
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lskurys
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Posted: February 14 2013 at 12:11pm |
 chris.rogers wrote:
http://shop.stevesleds.com/product.sc?productId=43&categoryId=22
That one would require a bit of wiring and soldering. And you may not like the color selection, but the quality of LEDs and driver is very good. But it's only $550 + S&H. It's a retrofit kit, so you'd need your own canopy if you don't have one already. It may not work, but it's a much cheaper alternative than $2400. Yikes. No wonder you didn't go that route. If you needed help putting it together, I could spend a day with you in Roy wiring and soldering it up - in exchange for some frags, and with the wife's permission, of course.
PS - I am always pimping Steve's LEDs, I have their LEDs over my nano and I love it, so take my recommendation for what it's worth.
Edited to add: If you don't like the blue/white combo of LEDs that that guy is preconfigured with, I'm pretty sure they'd let you swap out a few blues or whites for the cyan, green, red, warmer whites or more purpley blues if you want.
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Thanks Chris,
I did forget about Stevesleds. I did try to research his led's when I was looking at building my tank. If I remember right to get enough like for my 30" deap tank I needed to order 2 of the 6' sets with double lights. In price this was very close to what I paid for my AI's. I just could not find any one that had tried his lights on a deeper tank at the time so I was afraid to take the leap.
Right now I am leaning toward AI because I know the color will match what I have on the tank right now. But I don't want to need to spend more on lighting for 5+ years lol need to see the balance in lighting money,
Edit: Just looked the kit up. Looks like he has done some updates in the last year. Looks like it would cost me about $900 to change over to Stevesleds.
Has anyone tried them on a deaper wider tank?
Edited by lskurys - February 14 2013 at 12:20pm
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220g , large elite aquatics sump. 3 Radion Pro Gen 3 lights 3 Mp 40's
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Dion Richins
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Posted: February 14 2013 at 5:57pm |
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I ran 4 ai sols over my 200 at 63 +-%and they worked awesome with awesome growth. I have a client with a 7' 30" deep tank that is running their sol's at 70%, beautiful growth.
What Im saying is you should only need one more modgule.
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lskurys
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Posted: February 14 2013 at 6:33pm |
Dion Richins wrote:
I ran 4 ai sols over my 200 at 63 +-%and they worked awesome with awesome growth. I have a client with a 7' 30" deep tank that is running their sol's at 70%, beautiful growth.
What Im saying is you should only need one more modgule. |
I Realy do like my AI's with 4 of them I have 2 braces that split my 220 in to 3 parts. the only thing that I can thing of to keep the light even is to step up to 6 of them. Also 6 is the number that AI said is best on ther site. Not sure if you have seen Jbeck's tank he has 2 AI's over his tank and the color is beautful.
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220g , large elite aquatics sump. 3 Radion Pro Gen 3 lights 3 Mp 40's
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Dion Richins
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Posted: February 14 2013 at 6:46pm |
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The braces do hamper. I had a euro tank with no braces. I havent seen his tank. I did run the 4 over the 180 that I used after I tore down my 200 They worked just fine even with the braceing.
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ReefKeeper78
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Posted: February 14 2013 at 7:03pm |
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+1 on just getting one more module for your AI at this point. Braces are a pain but you should be able to work around them would split 2 for the center as far out as you can get them and then 1 on each side. But I wouldn't have done my 180 in Sol's unless I could have gotten 6 for it.
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180Gal Reef with 576 Watts of LED's
16Gal Innovative Marine Nano LED lit
150 Gal Frag tank with MH
PADI Dive certified sure love that ocean..
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lskurys
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Posted: February 14 2013 at 9:35pm |
yeah I think I will add 3 more AI's for a total of 6 and if it too much then there is that much more reason to set up a frag tank lol.  Thanks for all the input
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220g , large elite aquatics sump. 3 Radion Pro Gen 3 lights 3 Mp 40's
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