MarsAqua question

JCOLE · Apr 24, 2020

Well that sucks. I have two of them over my frag tank in the garage. I took one apart, popped off the lens and it appears to be the newer style diodes.

Flippers4pups · Apr 24, 2020

Yep, that does!

redfishbluefish · Apr 24, 2020

Well here's what little I know and actually don't know if I'm right.....the little square chips are either COB or SMD. It's my understanding that COB's can be changed out with regular soldering.....and I think I'm seeing solder points on those little chips. My understanding is that SMD are placed and soldered by machine and hand replacement is darn near impossible. I'd suggest searching replacing COB LED chips and see what you find....or at least verify that they are COB.....I think it means "chip on board."

cloak · Apr 24, 2020

Just saw this thread pop up. FWIW I've had my new fixture since 10/08/2018 and I've got about 7 blues that look dim now. (at 100%) Everything does look cool though. (not panicking this time)
I will probably just replace it with another one later on. For the price, (no work involved) these fixtures have actually treated me well. :)

Flippers4pups · Apr 25, 2020

cloak said:
Just saw this thread pop up. FWIW I've had my new fixture since 10/08/2018 and I've got about 7 blues that look dim now. (at 100%) Everything does look cool though. (not panicking this time)
I will probably just replace it with another one later on. For the price, (no work involved) these fixtures have actually treated me well. :)

In the almost 5 years I've had mine (replaced the diodes once on all three fixtures) they have been very good at growing coral.

2015:

Now:

JCOLE · Apr 25, 2020

redfishbluefish said:
Well here's what little I know and actually don't know if I'm right.....the little square chips are either COB or SMD. It's my understanding that COB's can be changed out with regular soldering.....and I think I'm seeing solder points on those little chips. My understanding is that SMD are placed and soldered by machine and hand replacement is darn near impossible. I'd suggest searching replacing COB LED chips and see what you find....or at least verify that they are COB.....I think it means "chip on board."

I stumbled across a thread where someone modified the newer ones and I cannot find it anymore. What they dis was pry off the old chip and scratch the PCB to expose the copper where I put circles. They then soldered the diodes onto the copper. I just can't remember if it was placed across both sides that I circled or just on one side. I want to say it was one side but that doesn't make since though.

**Edit - I found the post in this thread.

The Modified Black Box Thread

An easy way I found to help the blending and fixing disco ball was to install a panel of 3/8” acrylic for the top and lightly sand it. You can sand it to your liking. It decreased my par by 10-20% but I think it’s worth it. You don’t need to modify the lenses at all so you don’t have to open...

www.reef2reef.com

@Reefs of Space I came across your post. Is it on the same side across all diodes or across the old diode? Also, did you notice a difference in output power from these diodes versus the COBS?

trido · Apr 25, 2020

Late to the party, but I wouldnt put whites back into the mix. Not even 20K. In my BB's I always replaced the 5600K's with either a baby blue or UV leaving anwhere from 14-18 white emitters total.
I never did take the time to create a lay out to share.

JCOLE · Apr 25, 2020

trido said:
Late to the party, but I wouldnt put whites back into the mix. Not even 20K. In my BB's I always replaced the 5600K's with either a baby blue or UV leaving anwhere from 14-18 white emitters total.
I never did take the time to create a lay out to share.

No way! Better late than never :D So should I leave the 12000K Diodes or change those out to 20000K to have a more crisp blue look?

Flippers4pups · Apr 25, 2020

JCOLE said:
I stumbled across a thread where someone modified the newer ones and I cannot find it anymore. What they dis was pry off the old chip and scratch the PCB to expose the copper where I put circles. They then soldered the diodes onto the copper. I just can't remember if it was placed across both sides that I circled or just on one side. I want to say it was one side but that doesn't make since though.

**Edit - I found the post in this thread.

The Modified Black Box Thread

An easy way I found to help the blending and fixing disco ball was to install a panel of 3/8” acrylic for the top and lightly sand it. You can sand it to your liking. It decreased my par by 10-20% but I think it’s worth it. You don’t need to modify the lenses at all so you don’t have to open...

www.reef2reef.com

@Reefs of Space I came across your post. Is it on the same side across all diodes or across the old diode? Also, did you notice a difference in output power from these diodes versus the COBS?

That would help immensely knowing you can replace them that way. Taking the new form factor out and replacing them with the old form factor!

Question is which side would be negative and which side is positive.

JCOLE · Apr 25, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
That would help immensely knowing you can replace them that way. Taking the new form factor out and replacing them with the old form factor!

Question is which side would be negative and which side is positive.

I should be able to meter them out to determine the +/-, correct?

@trido How does this new spectrum look? I added some 20000K while keeping some 12000K evenly distributed with a total of 10 whites. I might have to reword these diodes depending on what channels they are on but if this should create a decent spectrum then I will play with this layout.

Flippers4pups · Apr 25, 2020

JCOLE said:
I should be able to meter them out to determine the +/-, correct?

@trido How does this new spectrum look? I added some 20000K while keeping some 12000K evenly distributed with a total of 10 whites. I might have to reword these diodes depending on what channels they are on but if this should create a decent spectrum then I will play with this layout.

As to Tridos post, which I respect highly with his background on using black boxes for all those years over his spectacular reef, his results where very impressive. He no longer uses black boxes because of replacing the diodes.

I personally like the way 20000k's look as opposed to the more yellow diodes. It's been around 6 months since I replaced all of my diodes and was the first time adding UV. They still look intact to this day, but I do expect them to deteriorate before long. Everyone that has put them in has stated that they will go bad faster than other spectrum diodes. UV diodes put out very low visible light intensity compared to the others, but are very powerful. So one with a heavy UV layout may notice the total visible light coming out to be low, which is misleading to what our eyes see. JMTCW.

JCOLE · Apr 25, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
As to Tridos post, which I respect highly with his background on using black boxes for all those years over his spectacular reef, his results where very impressive. He no longer uses black boxes because of replacing the diodes.

I personally like the way 20000k's look as opposed to the more yellow diodes. It's been around 6 months since I replaced all of my diodes and was the first time adding UV. They still look intact to this day, but I do expect them to deteriorate before long. Everyone that has put them in has stated that they will go bad faster than other spectrum diodes. UV diodes put out very low visible light intensity compared to the others, but are very powerful. So one with a heavy UV layout may notice the total visible light coming out to be low, which is misleading to what our eyes see. JMTCW.

Thank you @Flippers4pups and @trido!! I just changed up my layout. I think this is the one I am going to go with. What do you think? I have a total of 16 whites. 10 - 20000K's and 6 - 12000K's. I split up the white and blue channels and I think this would give good pop. Should I keep the factory reds and greens?

Blues Channel

Whites Channel

Both Channels

trido · Apr 28, 2020

JCOLE said:
Both Channels

Looks real good. I used to pretty much leave the bblue channel with the stock 460 and then only adjust the white channel. Bob Fenner and I had an in depth discussion years ago about the white emitters and he convinced me that the whites typically have enough red and green spectrum in them already. Because of that, I use only one red and one green in my fixtures. I still do have four on my system. Also keep in mind that the lower nm emitters will burn out more quickly. This layout will work awesome, but if you run it hot near 100% those 395s and 420s will likely be black after a year. If your careful, you can scrape the black (plastic) coating off them and they will still work for years.

JCOLE · Apr 28, 2020

trido said:
Looks real good. I used to pretty much leave the bblue channel with the stock 460 and then only adjust the white channel. Bob Fenner and I had an in depth discussion years ago about the white emitters and he convinced me that the whites typically have enough red and green spectrum in them already. Because of that, I use only one red and one green in my fixtures. I still do have four on my system. Also keep in mind that the lower nm emitters will burn out more quickly. This layout will work awesome, but if you run it hot near 100% those 395s and 420s will likely be black after a year. If your careful, you can scrape the black (plastic) coating off them and they will still work for years.

Awesome. Well your tank is one of my inspirations and I want to eventually get my lights to 100% like you do. You were right though. The tank does not have a good color after 50% on whites. Hopefully the spectrum will even out after getting rid of the more yellow diodes.

What was the lowest Kelvin white diodes you used in your BBs?

trido · May 1, 2020

I mostly used the 10-12k diodes.

JCOLE · May 2, 2020

I went ahead and purchased another 60" 2x80w T5 retrofit kit to add to the tank. This will give me a total of 4x80w ATI Blue+ T5s when installed. Coupled with 4 Marsaqua BBs I think this might be a little too much?

I was thinking about removing the lens and making the white channel a little more blue with focus on 420nm spectrum. I know removing the lens will drop par but just looking for more of a blanket coverage than a spotlight effect.

What do you all think? Should I leave or take off the lens?

Sebastiancrab · May 2, 2020

cloak said:
I've been using a 165 watt fixture for almost 2 years now and have been very happy thus far, but last week I noticed that two of the blue lights on the far left just aren't as bright as the other ones are. It's almost as if these two bulbs are running at 50% while all the others are at 100%. (which they are) I was just curious if this is a minor problem or an indication of something more serious? Thanks.

Can you point me to the model you have and is it noisy?

Flippers4pups · May 2, 2020

JCOLE said:
I went ahead and purchased another 60" 2x80w T5 retrofit kit to add to the tank. This will give me a total of 4x80w ATI Blue+ T5s when installed. Coupled with 4 Marsaqua BBs I think this might be a little too much?

I was thinking about removing the lens and making the white channel a little more blue with focus on 420nm spectrum. I know removing the lens will drop par but just looking for more of a blanket coverage than a spotlight effect.

What do you all think? Should I leave or take off the lens?

That's quite a bit of light. May not need the T5's if you remove the lenses.

blasterman · May 2, 2020

420nm will not grow corals betters and is just throwing light in your tank you can't see well. Also, violet LEDs, especially cheap ones are horribly inefficient. You could replace *all* the lights on your rig with 400-420nm and nothing will grow better but your tank will look darker.

Also, LEDs above 6500k or so are silly. The difference between a 6000k, 10000k and 20000k LED is the first one has a bit more green and orange in it. The amount of blue light is about the same...maybe a tad more in the higher kelvin LEDs because the phosphors are thinner.

I'm modified many MARs aqua units. The biggest problem is they have too many white LEDs so when cranked up your tank is too green / yellow.

What you want to do is make one entire channel blue and half the other channel blue. The remaining half of one channel should be a 50/50 mix of warm white or red and a few cool whites. Ditch greens. Thank me later.

One trick with a MARs aqua to test colors without destroying it is get a roll of electrical tape and cut 1" squares and put them over the lenses to test various color balances. What you'll find is you end up covering up most of the white ones and the greens to make it look good.

I also strongly recommend keeping both the 450nm and 460nm LEDs on the blue channel. The 460nm (sljghtly more windex looking color) helps mitigate the purplish tone of 450nm blue and gives more depth to colors.