Has anyone found a cheap Par Meter to buy to use on your tanks. It seems all of them are really expensive and I don't have a local Shop to try and rent one from. If anyone can help point me in right direction it be greatly appreciated.
Cheap Par Meter
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HeyLookItsCaps
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PodYourReef.com will rent one to you for 35/day, it’s how I did it!
redfishbluefish
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My Tank Thread
I agree, too expensive and only need it for ten minutes! So what I did was to follow @saltyfilmfolks advice and knowledge and use an inexpensive LUX meter to set my lights.
I actually call it the Poorman's PAR meter......a LUX meter that is. For me it was hard justifying spending 3-400 dollars on a piece of equipment that I'd use for ten minutes and then not touch again until I got new lights. Yes, I'm cheap. However, @saltyfilmfolks wrote a number of posts on how to use a LUX meter and convert those numbers to PAR....especially for LED lights. I consider saltyfilmfolks an expert on lighting and unfortunately he hasn't been on the site in some time. Anyway, a LUX meter only cost around $15 (and I just looked and the one I purchased is now $18), and I could afford that! I used this in setting up my new lights I got about 4-5 years ago and worked like a champ. Bottom line, we measure everything else in our tank, and lighting should be one of those things we measure as well. If I remember my LUX numbers correctly, for LED's you want a LUX around 25K, and for very high light corals, maxing out at 40K. If interested I'm sure you can search on saltyfilmfolks for the number of posts he made about using a LUX meter. HERE is but one example from Salty.
And, if anybody is interested, THIS IS THE LUX METER I HAVE.
I actually call it the Poorman's PAR meter......a LUX meter that is. For me it was hard justifying spending 3-400 dollars on a piece of equipment that I'd use for ten minutes and then not touch again until I got new lights. Yes, I'm cheap. However, @saltyfilmfolks wrote a number of posts on how to use a LUX meter and convert those numbers to PAR....especially for LED lights. I consider saltyfilmfolks an expert on lighting and unfortunately he hasn't been on the site in some time. Anyway, a LUX meter only cost around $15 (and I just looked and the one I purchased is now $18), and I could afford that! I used this in setting up my new lights I got about 4-5 years ago and worked like a champ. Bottom line, we measure everything else in our tank, and lighting should be one of those things we measure as well. If I remember my LUX numbers correctly, for LED's you want a LUX around 25K, and for very high light corals, maxing out at 40K. If interested I'm sure you can search on saltyfilmfolks for the number of posts he made about using a LUX meter. HERE is but one example from Salty.
And, if anybody is interested, THIS IS THE LUX METER I HAVE.
Chrisv.
2500 Club Member
Local reef club is the way to go. Otherwise, BRS does a "rental" program where you can buy with the invitation to use and return within two months. They charge a $100 restocking fee. So basically this is. $100 /2 months rental program. Not a bad deal, especially if you have a couple y friends who want to split it over the two months.
gbroadbridge
2500 Club Member
Seneye works for me.
I have v4 whichs shows almost exactly double what an Apogee says, so is good enough just divided by 2
I think that bug is fixed with the V6
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