Reef Radiance DM-155e

[TitansFan]

Hello MTRC.

Long time no talk... Curious if anyone has experience with these Reef Radiance LED lights? DM-155e - Reef Radiance
Also maybe someone can explain the Len's Angle and what that means to me in layman terms? I'm just use to the ole buy a big'ole high powered MH and plug her in. This time around would like to try something different instead of installing a tanning bed over my tank.

 

[Rob.D]

I don't know about that specific brand LED but I do use a similar unit made by Ocean Revive, I'm more than pleased with the LED's.

 

[TitansFan]

Rob.. on the lens angle.. Assuming 90 degrees is straight down. When changing the degree I assume its of course changes the focus angle. I'm guessing this would be for an instance where you can only mount the lights at the rear or front of a tank and not the middle? This would give you the line of sight for light intensity? If you are able to mount in the middle then 90 degree would be sufficient?

 

[thejoshdavis]

Sending you a PM

 

[JOKER]

The lower the number on the lens the more focused it is. With a deep tank you would go with a 60 or so. Shallow tank would be around 90 or more. Also would depend how high above tank plan to keep lights.

 

[FishNFrags]

Nate has those lights.... talk to him..

 

[pickupman66]

I have a dm-132 on my frag tank. Love it. Very good light for the $$. Think of the lens angle like a cone with the tip at the led. The Lower the # the more focused the light. For the 3 watt ones they use the lends is just fine.

 

[Volitans67]

I have 4 across my tank, and while they have only been up a short time, everything seems to be happy with them. I know I was happy with the price!

 

[TitansFan]

Volitans67 you have 4 across what size tank? I'm putting equipment together for a 72x24x31. I'm hoping I can make it by with 3 instead of 4.

 

[thejoshdavis]

I had 3 over my 125 and it was perfect

 

[TitansFan]

I submitted on their site for recommended setup as far as lens angle and hoping 3 would cover it but with those dimensions what would you recommend?

 

[solar]

Im pretty sure 3 would cover it.

 

[thejoshdavis]

I would leave them at 90 degrees

 

[Volitans67]

I would say you should definitely be covered since mine are over 96".

 

[TitansFan]

One more question do these have the same light shimmer that MH create?

 

[Ground Zero]

I've been doing a lot of research in choosing my own LEDs so I can hit a few points there.

In regards to lens angle, it's the angle of the reflectors mounted around the individual LEDs. A 90° means the light is focused 45° downward on each side... an easy way to think of this is like this, that makes a right triangle, so for every inch down from the light to your tank bottom is one inch out the beam goes in each direction. With 90[FONT=arial, sans-serif]° optics if your light is 18" up, the light goes 18" out from the center.... however that's for EACH LED not the whole unit. it's not a single source of light like an MH bulb or a Kessel (and as such, does NOT create the shimmer like those units do), so you have overlapping patterns created by each reflector on each LED. That is, in our example the light may be going out 18" from each edge, but only the outermost LEDs reach that far. since the unit is 15"x8", you have to subtract the length and width from the edges to determine the area of full coverage. at 18" from the floor, the area of full coverage is about 21"x28"

90[/FONT]° is great general purpose, if you have a shallow tank like me you'll want 120°, that means each bulb goes 60° in each direction so you get an approximately 30" radius (per LED), and it (of course) doesn't penetrate as deep as 90[FONT=arial, sans-serif]°. So at the same height as the last example, 18" your coverage area is roughly 45"x 52" thought it's probably less than a third as bright at that depth. 60[/FONT]° optics are best only used in tall tanks.

[FONT=arial, sans-serif]Please don't think I've got it all figured out, this is just a little math and the culmination of some reading on the internet. I'm still looking for good advice myself. I will tell you, call Reef Radiance, I called a few weeks ago and spoke to Rick and learned more in 15 minutes than in a week of reading.

My frag tanks are 72x18 in footprint and 12" deep and i'm putting two of the Reef Radiance Lumentek 180s with 120 optics on those... hopefully next month.

You might want to take a look at the Lumentek units, they're more of course, but when you consider that you'll need three dm-155e units, and timers, add all that up and a couple of the Lumenteks (don't know if you'd need the 180s or 240s) wouldn't be much more with a better featureset, that was the conclusion I came to. Just food for thought.

Russ[/FONT]

 

[TitansFan]

Nice second post. And good info. The shimmer effect or lack thereof is troublesome. I was hoping to sell my MH fixture while setting up this new tank. The wife and I really like the shimmer effect as it is something I never really experienced in my fresh water experience.

And welcome to the club/forums

 

[Ground Zero]

Thanks for the welcome!
Yes, that was initially a hangup for me too, the only LED I've seen with the shimmer is the Kessel units, and they're pretty hefty at $450/ea for lights that need an external controller. They do make pretty light though.

 

[reefscaper]

As to your post on the DM_155 s, I just bought 2 of them before Christmas and love them. I currently have them both on a 46 bow front...Overkill, however I bought them for my 110 I am working on. I have had MH on this tank as well and no they don't have as much shimmer but they do shimmer. Another factor is that I only turn up the whites to 50% because they are so strong. E mail Rick at Reef Radiance, he is prompt to get back with you and will also deal on the price. Great lights...Very pleased.

 

[Ground Zero]

That's another good point, Rick also offered me better pricing on the phone than what's on the website.

reefscaper, I've thought about doing the same thing on my 46 Bowfront, how much overkill is that? How high do you have them turned up?