ROUND 2! PAR Shootout! Seneye Reef Monitor v2 VS. Apex PMK vs. Apogee MQ-510 Full

jason2459 · Mar 5, 2017

Man I am far from the right person to recommend PAR values for any corals. I'm new to this light measurement thing and really wish I got into it a long long time ago as now that I am doing this I can see how useful and important it could be.

I can get par values and I can report what my eyes enjoy but that's about it. When I get a chance I can do that for each coral but I might wait until I figure out my T5 bulb combo to led channels.

And I'm also figuring out the ramping and intesities as I go here as well.

Twocorns · Mar 5, 2017

Where the measurements conducted with wavemakers off? Curious if they read the same with water surface agitation going on.

jason2459 · Mar 5, 2017

Twocorns said:
Where the measurements conducted with wavemakers off? Curious if they read the same with water surface agitation going on.

I did not turn off any circulation. BRS found very little difference with and with out them on. I also figured why do I care what it's like with them off as they are always on.

Monkeynaut · Mar 5, 2017

Twocorns said:
Where the measurements conducted with wavemakers off? Curious if they read the same with water surface agitation going on.

Of course wait until you settle in a lighting program. I'm still fidgeting with mine as well.

The PUR and PAR would be helpful to get a better idea for placement for coral. Say you like a certain light color and it ends up being 70 PUR and you have an Acan at 140 PAR and it's growing best you have ever seen. That's 98 usable Par.
If I like the look of 80 PUR then I would shoot for 122.5 PAR to place my ACAN.

It puts me in a better position to get similar results. If I shot for 140 and could only find a good spot at 155 PAR or 107 PAR then I would use the position at 155. But if I knew I was looking for 122 and ended up finding the same two spots then I would know to place the coral at 107 PAR.
The band is tight in this scenario but you can see where knowing both PAR and PUR could better help replicate results.

Does this make sense?

jason2459 · Mar 5, 2017

RBTAs keep looking better and better every day. But something that I didn't think was having any issues actually look the best I've ever seen them.

My red mushrooms. They seem fuller or something. Not so much a color change.

Par right there was low 80s with no T5s. But I think that's before I went up 2 more %. I have to stop taking par readings. I'm getting overloaded with data. It's been addicting.

I don't plan to increase intensity at all anymore but get my bulb/led spectrum figured out. Then I'll get more par numbers. For now I think I'm good there.

jason2459 · Mar 6, 2017

Premium Aquatics has shipped the seneye wifi web server. I think I will keep the seneye plugged in up in the DT area and monitor in the back overflow box I have (beananimal overflow). I've got a billion sensors in my sump area and only a high level switch in my overflow box. This will be good for run dry event in my overflow. Because well, that would be bad if that happens with out me purposefully turning off my return pump.

Then having up in the DT area I could then pull it out from back there and drop it in certain areas I want to get PAR/LUX/PUR readings on periodically. Even just leave it in a spot for a day or two like I did this weekend.

What I'm really hoping for with the web server is that I can just drop in the seneye in the DT and pull up readings right from my phone with out having to drag my old clunky laptop out from underneath the tank every time. I know lazy. It's called a severe case of LARS.

Then I will see if I can get live readings from the seneye cloud with the webserver and if I can't I will feel a heck of a lot more comfy setting up port forwarding to the seneye web server then a full rdp session to my laptop that probably has a billion security vulnerabilities still running Winidows XP. It will be pretty restricted to just the webserver that I wouldn't really care if they compromised that and get my tank data... oh no. Then I could get the local seneye live PAR/LUX/PUR readings from anywhere which would be cool if I have it sitting in a spot in the tank one day.

But will see soon enough now what it can do over just plugging the seneye into a laptop.

Monkeynaut · Mar 6, 2017

jason2459 said:
Premium Aquatics has shipped the seneye wifi web server. I think I will keep the seneye plugged in up in the DT area and monitor in the back overflow box I have (beananimal overflow). I've got a billion sensors in my sump area and only a high level switch in my overflow box. This will be good for run dry event in my overflow. Because well, that would be bad if that happens with out me purposefully turning off my return pump.

Then having up in the DT area I could then pull it out from back there and drop it in certain areas I want to get PAR/LUX/PUR readings on periodically. Even just leave it in a spot for a day or two like I did this weekend.

What I'm really hoping for with the web server is that I can just drop in the seneye in the DT and pull up readings right from my phone with out having to drag my old clunky laptop out from underneath the tank every time. I know lazy. It's called a severe case of LARS.

Then I will see if I can get live readings from the seneye cloud with the webserver and if I can't I will feel a heck of a lot more comfy setting up port forwarding to the seneye web server then a full rdp session to my laptop that probably has a billion security vulnerabilities still running Winidows XP. It will be pretty restricted to just the webserver that I wouldn't really care if they compromised that and get my tank data... oh no. Then I could get the local seneye live PAR/LUX/PUR readings from anywhere which would be cool if I have it sitting in a spot in the tank one day.

But will see soon enough now what it can do over just plugging the seneye into a laptop.

I have the wifi web server. I am able to view all the readings it can take from anywhere. So, it is going to do what you want.

jason2459 · Mar 7, 2017

Monkeynaut said:
I have the wifi web server. I am able to view all the readings it can take from anywhere. So, it is going to do what you want.

That's awesome thanks for the input.

jason2459 · Mar 10, 2017

This is cool. I've got the SWS web server from Premium Aquatics and getting it setup and I like the local interface and is now reporting up the seneye.me I've had some issues but mostly my own. I'll write up a Seneye SWS vs Laptop connection thread later.

On another note there's been some issues with BRS's PAR measurements with their Licor and their Apogee which looks like Apogee will be having to fix their new MQ-510. Seneye looking pretty good about now... lol

Starting at about the 7 minute mark. Pretty cool they are doing this and getting response from these manufacturers to get things fixed.

jason2459 · Mar 10, 2017

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/p...meters-to-the-test-brstv-investigates.294492/

FYI, BRS refunded the MQ510 purchase back with the bug of the MQ510! I also reached out to Apogee already and asked about a warranty claim. Lets see what happens.

jason2459 · Mar 10, 2017

I got a reply back from Apogee and they are currently testing and working on a resolution.

" currently testing and developing the best solution for our MQ-510 and aquarium customers."

NCreefguy · Mar 10, 2017

jason2459 said:
I got a reply back from Apogee and they are currently testing and working on a resolution.

" currently testing and developing the best solution for our MQ-510 and aquarium customers."

I've been using an Apogee SQ-520 so I'm anxious to see what they come up with as well.

jason2459 · Mar 10, 2017

NCreefguy said:
I've been using an Apogee SQ-520 so I'm anxious to see what they come up with as well.

If it's software related you'll be set with just a patch or nothing at all if it's just the hand held device that has the problem. If it's sensor related then we'll all have to send back something.

gus6464 · Mar 10, 2017

jason2459 said:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/p...meters-to-the-test-brstv-investigates.294492/

FYI, BRS refunded the MQ510 purchase back with the bug of the MQ510! I also reached out to Apogee already and asked about a warranty claim. Lets see what happens.

So they gave you the money back and let you keep the unit?

jason2459 · Mar 10, 2017

gus6464 said:
So they gave you the money back and let you keep the unit?

YEP! Plus, Apogee when they figure out the issue will warranty it! Pretty astounding.

And if you look through this thread I didn't seem to run into this glitch or what ever the correction problem is. But I'm sure I've sent enough sales out to vendors like BRS, Premium Aquatics, Aquarium Specialty, etc with this thread and people picking up Seneye's I don't feel so bad. LOL

Edit:
And it was kind of an expensive thing to do just to find out my Seneye was perfectly fine and up to the task of reliably monitoring PAR. HA! Curiosity kills the cat... But I do like the portability of the MQ-510.

gus6464 · Mar 10, 2017

jason2459 said:
YEP! Plus, Apogee when they figure out the issue will warranty it! Pretty astounding.

And if you look through this thread I didn't seem to run into this glitch or what ever the correction problem is. But I'm sure I've sent enough sales out to vendors like BRS, Premium Aquatics, Aquarium Specialty, etc with this thread and people picking up Seneye's I don't feel so bad. LOL

Wow nice.

Ryan did state in the video that the issue with the 510 might not be global and just with some units so maybe you got a good unit and it won't need a warranty replacement.

jason2459 · Mar 12, 2017

With the money back I've reinvested it in the Neptune's PMK.

Round 2 coming soon...

jason2459 · Mar 16, 2017

ROUND 2!

I put the money I got back from the Apogee into the Neptune Apex PMK which I got in yesterday. I really like the little rock mount it came with as it's not to big but looks like a little rock sitting on the bottom of my tank in the sand. It has some artificial color to it and underwater it doesn't look bad at all. I don't know if I will keep it in all the time or if I do I'll have to preposition it as I'm not liking the cording going up the middle of my tank.

But for this test it's sitting right on the sand in the same spot I took a lot of readings last week with my Seneye for getting some monthly averages to track over time.

Those results are here:https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...installation-testing-and-review.292314/page-4

Post 58

Just as a recap this is the lighting schedule and channels (can ignore the PUR side it's just an image I had) First post of this thread has a lot more details of my lighting setup.

So, this morning I laid down the Seneye side by side with the Apex PMK and will log results through out the day. I have access the the Seneye's SWS (web server) which allows me live readings and PUR measurements which I can't get yet on the seneye.me cloud. Hopefully they'll get that updated soon to get the PUR measurements up there.

Yesterday's readings where pretty well universally about a PAR of 20 lower then the Seneye readings last week. But who knows it could be my water quality too so today will tell. Then later tonight I will go through each individual channels again at 30% with the Apogee in hand next to each and get a reading from all 3 and see how they match up.

So far the Apex is not reading the Royal blues at all with them at 2%. The Seneye is fluctuating between 6-7. Which is not surprising considering the Apogee 200 series scale drops over in the blue range.

jason2459 · Mar 16, 2017

FYI, I have changed the thread's title and added a link to Round 2 start point instead of starting a new thread so it's easier to see Round 1 flow to Round 2.

jason2459 · Mar 16, 2017

I've gone through a few individual channels at 30% and the results so far are very surprising to me. Will finish up the rest of the channels later and I'm still tracking the hourly changes in my light schedule.