MarsAqua question

[JCOLE]

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.

That is a good idea about the electrical tape and I am going to try that. Do you have any pictures, etc of the layouts you used? Also, I thought 420-460 was an intricate part of SPS growth. These are the spectrums ATI Blue+ T5s hit hard.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I thought removing the lens decreases PAR on the BBs?

It does a little. It's not drastic.

 

[JCOLE]

It does a little. It's not drastic.

Ok. Does it help blend the light? Also, will it give a better blanket like T5s?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Ok. Does it help blend the light? Also, will it give a better blanket like T5s?

It helps immensely with blending, like T5's.

 

[JCOLE]

It helps immensely with blending, like T5's.

Do you have your lens removed on yours?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Do you have your lens removed on yours?

Yes.

 

[JCOLE]

@blasterman Well you were right. After taping up the lens it looked best with just 4 - 12000K whites at 100%. I am going to replace all 3500K and greens with blues first then go from there. Would I mess the spectrum up needed for corals if I eliminate too many whites?

 

[robinhood639]

Not sure whether you all have seen this calculator but I have used this website to plan out my LEDs.

SPECTRA

SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。

spectra.1023world.net

I am currently deployed and my wife and son are running the tank with the help of an APEX back home. I have been running 2 Hobbie Bug Euphotica CBBs for over 4 years now on a 65 Gallon 3 ft tank. Only one LED has burnt out which is great considering but I only run them at around 50 Blue and 25% White. When I get back after my 2 year trip (1 Year Down) to the other side of the world I plan on changing out the diodes. Done a bunch or research and I am just doing my final tweaks on it. Trying to mimic the orphek atlantik v4 compact in spectrum. Or as close and I can with little tweaks in aesthetics. Not going to even try to get the 800+ nm. I also supplement with 2 Current USA True lumen Marine Fusion and one Marine Blue which provide about 46 Peak Watts of 453nm and 23 Peak Watts of 12,000k.

I found it very interesting to use the website to compare all the different offerings. Will attach my findings as well. Hope this helps!

 

[JCOLE]

Not sure whether you all have seen this calculator but I have used this website to plan out my LEDs.

SPECTRA

SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。

spectra.1023world.net

I am currently deployed and my wife and son are running the tank with the help of an APEX back home. I have been running 2 Hobbie Bug Euphotica CBBs for over 4 years now on a 65 Gallon 3 ft tank. Only one LED has burnt out which is great considering but I only run them at around 50 Blue and 25% White. When I get back after my 2 year trip (1 Year Down) to the other side of the world I plan on changing out the diodes. Done a bunch or research and I am just doing my final tweaks on it. Trying to mimic the orphek atlantik v4 compact in spectrum. Or as close and I can with little tweaks in aesthetics. Not going to even try to get the 800+ nm. I also supplement with 2 Current USA True lumen Marine Fusion and one Marine Blue which provide about 46 Peak Watts of 453nm and 23 Peak Watts of 12,000k.

I found it very interesting to use the website to compare all the different offerings. Will attach my findings as well. Hope this helps!

Very cool. Thats an extensive sheet you made. Also, Thanks for your service!

Yeah I seen that website. I cannot seem to map out my mars aqua because I do not see the 3W diodes I need. Also, I do not see 12000k diodes as well.

 

[robinhood639]

Very cool. Thats an extensive sheet you made. Also, Thanks for your service!

Yeah I seen that website. I cannot seem to map out my mars aqua because I do not see the 3W diodes I need. Also, I do not see 12000k diodes as well.

Thanks for your support! So... The website is built around 1W diodes... So I just used 3 of those per diode that I have bought and plan to install. So I would increase by 3 every time I added a diode into the calculator.

Another estimation is the available diodes for purchase. If the ones I bought are between 440-450 I just tried to evenly spread the watts between the two. For the Warm White, Neutral White, Cool White and Super Cool Whites I just estimated. If I was using a cooler white than what is listed I just captured that in assumptions that I would be getting less reds, oranges, yellows.... It's not an exact science but as i researched the same trends popped up.

I have been reefing off and on since 1994 when I was back in college.... Still actually using the Wet/Dry sump that I bought used back then. Converted it to a roller filter sump this Christmas when I was home. Carbon Filter and Aqua Maxx HOB-1 skimmer. Auto feeder and manual ATO. Had a whole bunch of other stuff that I have tried over the years but since I was going to be gone for 2 years I needed to keep it simple for the wife. Clean Glass, Clean pumps, Change 10 gallons every 2 weeks and carbon every 2 months. Still on my first roll of filter since Christmas. I rely mostly on in tank flow and only run a single dc pump to the sump. And some reef roids and amino acids to the corals of course...

Anyway... I have hijacked this post. Sorry. The biggest takeaway that I got from the study was that the Mars Aqua, although some people have good results, its probably in spite of the lights and probably due to the resilience and adaptability of the corals. For the money the Viperspectra did really well. Its a little more difficult to hook up to the APEX because its not 0-10v dimmable. Need a PWM Chip to drive the dimmer. The SB Reef DIY board is a good one to swap out for the Mars Aqua stock board and any of the other ones that you can buy for that matter. Not sure that I would actually do that with a Viperspectra unless you actually like the look better. Performance I think is negligible for coral growth.

I am a tinkerer so doing DIY projects doesn't scare me and it will be something that I can do with my son when I get back.

And the Orphan Atlantiks, and most other lighting solutions for that matter, are seriously too rich for my blood. ;-) $770 each for the Compact and I would need 2! If I can get the sameish performance with $100 in LEDs I am in. Thanks!

 

[JCOLE]

I put this in another black box thread but figured it would be appropriate to include it here since this was originally discussed here. I changed out the newer COB diodes with the older style. I made some mistakes on the first box change out. I implied the corrections to the second one and it went pretty smooth.

Completed layout over frag tank on new light. Spectrum looks really good. On my DT I am going to use this layout except I will change out the 4 7500K diodes for 20000K for a crisper white. These are the newer Mars Aqua boards with COB diodes so I had to get a little creative.

Prepped and attached new diodes to heat sinks.

What I did first was break the first diode on the incoming negative side so I could use my meter and test voltage for every diode before testing lights to make sure I had a proper connection.

Then I scraped the old diode off the board to break the circuit. Important to do this one at a time for easy testing. Cleaned all old glue, residue, etc off board. Then scraped black paint off both incoming and outgoing circuit to expose the bare copper.

Soldered buss wire from the board to the heat sink. This is where you can use your volt meter to check which side is positive and negative if you are unsure. Once new diode is mounted then you can test the first diode that was scraped off in the beginning with a volt meter for voltage drop. If the voltage is correct then you know you have a good connection. Switch the meter to continuity and this will cause the circuit to light up when applied to the copper of the first diode.

Took a little time but once started it was about 2 hours from start to finish.

 

[JCOLE]

@Flippers4pups and @trido I wanted to get your opinion on this. I posted this in another thread but wanted to post here to see what you think.

I am about to work on 4 more boxes that are above my DT. I converted 2 over my frag tank already. The first one I made a mess of and learned from. My second one turned out good. The newer Mars Aqua boxes have COBs and I have to pop them off and scratch the paint back to expose the copper. I mount them to heat sinks and use thermal paste on the diode and the bottom the heat sink.

The issue is the bottom of the heatsink is attaching to mostly paint on the board. How will this work on transferring heat if any? I don't want to start a fire from them overheating. The first box gets really hot when both channels are at 100% so just wondering.

 

[trido]

I dont think that lack of heat transfer would cause fire. If anything, the diode will turn brown and burn out more quickly than it would otherwise. It looks good and should work fine