Lux meters to check Led????

mcarroll · Jul 16, 2017

Mark Gray said:
Well I am way behind on how to get the most out of my lights.But ok I think I understand the difference between lux and par meters but wouldn't a full range spectrometer give you all you really need?

This topic is still rolling around in my noggin....any chance you meant spectroradiometer?

What is the difference between radiometers, spectrometers, and spectroradiometers?

Mark Gray · Jul 16, 2017

mcarroll said:
This topic is still rolling around in my noggin....any chance you meant spectroradiometer?

What is the difference between radiometers, spectrometers, and spectroradiometers?

Lol yes I am a tearable speller lol and trying to get over jet lag

mcarroll · Jul 16, 2017

No, that was a serious link, not a jab at your spelling. (I hadn't noticed any spelling issues to be honest!!!!! ;Vulcan)

The thrust is that there is a measuring device that uses a spectrometer like salty and I are talking about that we have. We can observe through ours...but not really measure anything. A specroradiometer has a measuring apparatus/device integrated with it.

Somewhat like a lux or PAR meter.....but it reads in watts.

clsanchez77 · Jul 18, 2017

This took me a while to get back to. I used the lux meter on my phone and the PAR meter borrowed from the reef club and I have some measurements to share with the group here. I disclose up front that lighting is not my expertise, but then that has never stopped me from anything before.

Lux was measured from my iPhone (5) by floating the phone on the surface of the water using a clear ziplock storage container lid. Only went in the water twice and still works

(Disclosure, dropped the phone and broke the screen today crossing a street, so turns out reef tank was not the biggest risk for the phone after all). PAR was measured using an Apogee MQ-200 with the photosensor set at the surface of the water (the bottom of the probe was below water). The values provided below are the peak/max value I could reproduce 3 times.

Tank is a Marinland 110 gallon (48" x 18" x 30")

HO bulbs run on a BRS HO dimmable ATI ballast set at 100% via Apex.

HO 54W Geisemann Actinic, Lux: 31,023, PAR: 215
HO 54W Geisemann Aquablue Azure, Lux: 31,023, PAR: 175

The bulbs are located 14" apart, so I cannot get a surface reading of both bulbs combined, however the reading are not exclusive either. I can't run one at a time so I can't say how much is bleed over.

LED lighting is provided by four AquaIllumination Hydra26's (non-HD models). The lights are oriented with the pucks perpendicular to the tank at 10" spacing such that each side of the tank has 4 pucks in a quad pattern. Each color channel was run at 100% and then all combined at 100%.

Red, Lux: 1,071, PAR: 70
Green, Lux: 5,427, PAR: 75
Deep Blue, Lux: 5,247, PAR: 290
Royal Blue, Lux: 12,069, PAR: 500
Indigo/Violet, Lux: 2,565, PAR: 70
UltraViolet, Lux: 423, PAR: 40
Cool White, Lux: 72,567, PAR: 500
All LEDs, Lux: ?, PAR: 1,550

Unfortunately, I shattered the glass on my phone today so I did not get a good Lux reading on the All LED's, however in my mind this should be additive...so 99,369. A few notes, first all the PARs measured total up to 1545, and 1550 was actually measured, so I have good feeling on my PAR measurements. Secondly, I did not over look that green has more lux than deep blue, despite having only 2 LEDs per fixture vs 8. I suspect I have a bum PAR reading on one of those two, but Im not sure which one. With the glass cracked (right over the camera), I can't get another reading.

Now, to put these numbers into perspective, I measured PAR at 43 (coral mounting) points throughout my tank for each color channel and for all lights. The HO lighting at 100% has an average PAR of 48. The LEDs at all 100% has an average PAR of 272.

The settings I use on my lights currently produces a total blended light with an average PAR of 200. The PAR range at the coral mounts ranges from 40 to 320. The corresponding PAR at the surface was 500 and the Lux was 57,080.

My tank is primarily LPS so I find the number satisfying. I do have a few corals with heavy bleaching and I now see why. These will be relocated to more shaded areas. I will soon be looking for an easy SPS to put into my sets that are PAR 240 or higher.

I did calculate the Lux to PAR and PAR to Lux factors and these did NOT correspond to the tabulated values in the Apogee manual. I leave this information for you all to parse.

mcarroll · Jul 18, 2017

clsanchez77 said:
I do have a few corals with heavy bleaching and I now see why.

Bleaching is not exclusively related to light levels.

What pieces are bleaching and what's their recent history? (e.g. New to the tank?)

What are the tank's nutrient levels?

I'd assume flow and cal/alk/mg are all OK, but those are the other main contributing factors.

clsanchez77 · Jul 18, 2017

clsanchez77 said:
This took me a while to get back to. I used the lux meter on my phone and the PAR meter borrowed from the reef club and I have some measurements to share with the group here. I disclose up front that lighting is not my expertise, but then that has never stopped me from anything before.

Lux was measured from my iPhone (5) by floating the phone on the surface of the water using a clear ziplock storage container lid. Only went in the water twice and still works (Disclosure, dropped the phone and broke the screen today crossing a street, so turns out reef tank was not the biggest risk for the phone after all). PAR was measured using an Apogee MQ-200 with the photosensor set at the surface of the water (the bottom of the probe was below water). The values provided below are the peak/max value I could reproduce 3 times.

Tank is a Marinland 110 gallon (48" x 18" x 30")

HO bulbs run on a BRS HO dimmable ATI ballast set at 100% via Apex.

HO 54W Geisemann Actinic, Lux: 31,023, PAR: 215

HO 54W Geisemann Aquablue Azure, Lux: 31,023, PAR: 175

The bulbs are located 14" apart, so I cannot get a surface reading of both bulbs combined, however the reading are not exclusive either. I can't run one at a time so I can't say how much is bleed over.

LED lighting is provided by four AquaIllumination Hydra26's (non-HD models). The lights are oriented with the pucks perpendicular to the tank at 10" spacing such that each side of the tank has 4 pucks in a quad pattern. Each color channel was run at 100% and then all combined at 100%.

Red, Lux: 1,071, PAR: 70

Green, Lux: 5,427, PAR: 75

Deep Blue, Lux: 5,247, PAR: 290

Royal Blue, Lux: 12,069, PAR: 500

Indigo/Violet, Lux: 2,565, PAR: 70

UltraViolet, Lux: 423, PAR: 40

Cool White, Lux: 72,567, PAR: 500

All LEDs, Lux: ?, PAR: 1,550

Unfortunately, I shattered the glass on my phone today so I did not get a good Lux reading on the All LED's, however in my mind this should be additive...so 99,369. A few notes, first all the PARs measured total up to 1545, and 1550 was actually measured, so I have good feeling on my PAR measurements. Secondly, I did not over look that green has more lux than deep blue, despite having only 2 LEDs per fixture vs 8. I suspect I have a bum PAR reading on one of those two, but Im not sure which one. With the glass cracked (right over the camera), I can't get another reading.

Now, to put these numbers into perspective, I measured PAR at 43 (coral mounting) points throughout my tank for each color channel and for all lights. The HO lighting at 100% has an average PAR of 48. The LEDs at all 100% has an average PAR of 272.

The settings I use on my lights currently produces a total blended light with an average PAR of 200. The PAR range at the coral mounts ranges from 40 to 320. The corresponding PAR at the surface was 500 and the Lux was 57,080.

My tank is primarily LPS so I find the number satisfying. I do have a few corals with heavy bleaching and I now see why. These will be relocated to more shaded areas. I will soon be looking for an easy SPS to put into my sets that are PAR 240 or higher.

I did calculate the Lux to PAR and PAR to Lux factors and these did NOT correspond to the tabulated values in the Apogee manual. I leave this information for you all to parse.

mcarroll said:
Bleaching is not exclusively related to light levels.

What pieces are bleaching and what's their recent history? (e.g. New to the tank?)

What are the tank's nutrient levels?

I'd assume flow and cal/alk/mg are all OK, but those are the other main contributing factors.

I dont want to sidetrack this thread

but I am considering other factors, tank temperature being another.

mcarroll · Jul 18, 2017

clsanchez77 said:
I dont want to sidetrack this thread but I am considering other factors, tank temperature being another.

PM me?

litenyaup · Jul 19, 2017

Monkeynaut said:
I'm glad that works for you.
With the Mac you get to the information using a web browser and the web address that is created when setting up the SWS.

Correct, but I didn't was to spend the money on the sws on top of the seneye itself. So I sold the seneye and got the mq200 for $150.

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 19, 2017

clsanchez77 said:
This took me a while to get back to. I used the lux meter on my phone and the PAR meter borrowed from the reef club and I have some measurements to share with the group here. I disclose up front that lighting is not my expertise, but then that has never stopped me from anything before.

Lux was measured from my iPhone (5) by floating the phone on the surface of the water using a clear ziplock storage container lid. Only went in the water twice and still works (Disclosure, dropped the phone and broke the screen today crossing a street, so turns out reef tank was not the biggest risk for the phone after all). PAR was measured using an Apogee MQ-200 with the photosensor set at the surface of the water (the bottom of the probe was below water). The values provided below are the peak/max value I could reproduce 3 times.

Tank is a Marinland 110 gallon (48" x 18" x 30")

HO bulbs run on a BRS HO dimmable ATI ballast set at 100% via Apex.

HO 54W Geisemann Actinic, Lux: 31,023, PAR: 215

HO 54W Geisemann Aquablue Azure, Lux: 31,023, PAR: 175

The bulbs are located 14" apart, so I cannot get a surface reading of both bulbs combined, however the reading are not exclusive either. I can't run one at a time so I can't say how much is bleed over.

LED lighting is provided by four AquaIllumination Hydra26's (non-HD models). The lights are oriented with the pucks perpendicular to the tank at 10" spacing such that each side of the tank has 4 pucks in a quad pattern. Each color channel was run at 100% and then all combined at 100%.

Red, Lux: 1,071, PAR: 70

Green, Lux: 5,427, PAR: 75

Deep Blue, Lux: 5,247, PAR: 290

Royal Blue, Lux: 12,069, PAR: 500

Indigo/Violet, Lux: 2,565, PAR: 70

UltraViolet, Lux: 423, PAR: 40

Cool White, Lux: 72,567, PAR: 500

All LEDs, Lux: ?, PAR: 1,550

Unfortunately, I shattered the glass on my phone today so I did not get a good Lux reading on the All LED's, however in my mind this should be additive...so 99,369. A few notes, first all the PARs measured total up to 1545, and 1550 was actually measured, so I have good feeling on my PAR measurements. Secondly, I did not over look that green has more lux than deep blue, despite having only 2 LEDs per fixture vs 8. I suspect I have a bum PAR reading on one of those two, but Im not sure which one. With the glass cracked (right over the camera), I can't get another reading.

Now, to put these numbers into perspective, I measured PAR at 43 (coral mounting) points throughout my tank for each color channel and for all lights. The HO lighting at 100% has an average PAR of 48. The LEDs at all 100% has an average PAR of 272.

The settings I use on my lights currently produces a total blended light with an average PAR of 200. The PAR range at the coral mounts ranges from 40 to 320. The corresponding PAR at the surface was 500 and the Lux was 57,080.

My tank is primarily LPS so I find the number satisfying. I do have a few corals with heavy bleaching and I now see why. These will be relocated to more shaded areas. I will soon be looking for an easy SPS to put into my sets that are PAR 240 or higher.

I did calculate the Lux to PAR and PAR to Lux factors and these did NOT correspond to the tabulated values in the Apogee manual. I leave this information for you all to parse.

I have to say. Use a lux meter. Not a phone.
Apogee has no led conversion listed. I have not seen anyone yet who has who has done lux par on individual spectrum leds yet.

tdunmore2 · Jul 25, 2017

@saltyfilmfolks - Can you recommend a decent meter to use? I've seen a few on AZW but they do not look submersible. Or at least, not for long....

And taking a reading at the top of the tank would be irrelevant.

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 25, 2017

tdunmore2 said:
@saltyfilmfolks - Can you recommend a decent meter to use? I've seen a few on AZW but they do not look submersible. Or at least, not for long....

And taking a reading at the top of the tank would be irrelevant.

If your taking a reading at the top of the tank you can pretty much estimate the rest or the tank.
I.e. , 1000 500 and 300 par at the top and adjust from there, similar to finding the sweet spot with a par meter.

Milwaukee does make a submersible model for about 75 new, and several folks have just used a ziplock bag or waterproof bag like for cell phones at the beach.

tdunmore2 · Jul 25, 2017

Thanks! Good to know. I'm gong to do some more reading. Given a fluids dispersion properties, I'd expect 50% depth of tank doesn't equate to 50% par?

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 25, 2017

tdunmore2 said:
Thanks! Good to know. I'm gong to do some more reading. Given a fluids dispersion properties, I'd expect 50% depth of tank doesn't equate to 50% par?

No you won't lose that much. It's difficult to guage beacuse there Ian a slight loss from refraction but the bigger difference is actually in the optics of the fixture.
If you look at user generated par maps of the fixture you own you'll be able guage "fall off". You can also simply test the light in air and be pretty close.

clsanchez77 · Aug 3, 2017

tdunmore2 said:
@saltyfilmfolks - Can you recommend a decent meter to use? I've seen a few on AZW but they do not look submersible. Or at least, not for long....

And taking a reading at the top of the tank would be irrelevant.

Disagree for reasons stated. I also collected PAR data at the surface so I could correlate the two. The calculation is simple (clarification, calculation for light spread, not PAR conversion

).

tdunmore2 said:
Given a fluids dispersion properties, I'd expect 50% depth of tank doesn't equate to 50% par?

I dont expect you will find it significant in "inches of water". Consider it takes about 2-3 feet of water for a swimming pool to start to appear blue. The spread of the light from the fixture is far more significant. My fixture has 80 degree optics for example, so that light spread is easy to calculate. I'm not sure about the HO's. I was expected to find more losses with depth, but I found the reverse - they are pretty consistent throughout the water column.

mcarroll · Aug 3, 2017

Losses from water happen roughly logrithmic.....or levels drop by about 4 for every doubling of the depth I still can't find a good resource that explains this in laymens terms...it's something I heard a long time ago during my freshwater planted tank days. @Dana Riddle is this roughly correct as stated and can/would you explain it better by chance?

)

That's a very rough way of looking at it so it's easier to think about....but lots of things impact this number....from the lenses on your LED's to what you feed, whether you use carbon, etc.

Losses in air are roughly linear. Dropping by half for every doubling of distance from the light source. Lenses and things also affect this, but generally less in magnitude and fewer in number than water-related factors.

Dana Riddle · Aug 5, 2017

mcarroll said:
Losses from water happen roughly logrithmic.....or levels drop by about 4 for every doubling of the depth I still can't find a good resource that explains this in laymens terms...it's something I heard a long time ago during my freshwater planted tank days. @Dana Riddle is this roughly correct as stated and can/would you explain it better by chance? )

That's a very rough way of looking at it so it's easier to think about....but lots of things impact this number....from the lenses on your LED's to what you feed, whether you use carbon, etc.

Losses in air are roughly linear. Dropping by half for every doubling of distance from the light source. Lenses and things also affect this, but generally less in magnitude and fewer in number than water-related factors.

Took me a while to find light data I gathered while diving off Kailua-Kona coast. Probably raises more questions than it answers...

Jason mack · Aug 5, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
I use a photographer's meter, it does footcandles and lux. Around the tank I use a $14 luxmeter from amazon. Look for one that is 100,000 or 200,000 lux maximum.
Milwaukee makes a submersible one for $75. The Seneye lux meter is not a cosine corrected light meter and the readings are quite different and noted lux/par conversion dont work with it.

Its not an imperative to know the lux of the tank its just an optional way to check you par settings if a par meter is not available. but I do recommend it to par meter users who are really interested in understanding light.
In short, lux is intensity, intensity + spectrum is PAR.

A basic lux/par conversion constant for led at a 1;1 ratio is 60. Ie 6000 lux = 100 par. as the color changes to a more blue spectrum the constant is higher 65-75.
A typical MH say 20k radium bulb is around 50 as a constant. (some much lower) so 6000 is 120 par
Most t5 fall much lower in the 40 range. 6000 lux=150 par

When doing lux par conversion on leds with wacky color setting from the internet rumor mill, I run the conversion at 60, 65, 70 and 75 to estimate the range I'm likely working in.

20,000lux/60=333 par 20,oo0lux/70=285 par etc.......................Btw, 20,000 lux / 50 =400.,,,,,,,,,,this is worthy of note, MH and T5 in general have more par with less intensity. most believe it is the opposite.

Another use of the lux meter is to have a store or manufactures turn it up to full power and test a 12in. you immediately see the the difference in intensity between models (ap700 a 80 for instance) and then know approx what it can deliver when selecting them for your tank.
You can also take it to the lfs like i do to see how much light they use over the frag tank. I can do it so fast they don't notice, but round here, they all know me so they don't mind.(and then use more light on their SPS tanks.)

@mcarroll I find it particularly interesting in the last 18 months, the large number of users and random questions pertaining to lux and par and the large number of users who now own lux meters and do the conversions.
After 3 years of flaming and debate, it appears, Two nerds can change the world.