The good, the bad and the BULL?

Need some honest advice before making a purchase for my 72 x 32 x 20 rimless reef tank.
I want to go with LED lighting. Looks are VERY important because of the rimless "open" look to it all.
I see a company (and 3reef sponsor) OC Reef sells a new 72 watt X series unit with a few cool bells and whistles (wireless remote for dimmer, UV and timers)
Does anybody have real life experience with one of these or even the older 60 watt model?
How does the unit look above the tank (I will be hanging from the ceiling) from an aesthetic appeal?
How would you rate the noise level from 1 to 10 (ie. fans) w/ 10 being the loudest?
Do you think I could get away with 2 units hung about 15 inches above the tank and a foot apart from each side and each unit?
Price is a concern or I would have laid out the money for the Vertex Illumina SR 200... I will not be SPS heavy at all.

Thanks for the input from a fellow 3-reefer getting back into the hobby in a BIG WAY!! Jumping from a 72 gallon bowfront to this 200 gallon beast!

Ryan

 

LED's are silent. Typically they don't need fans and if they do, small (quite) ones work great. With LED's, you would only need 1 72 inch pendant. I have 2 16 inch BOOST LED MU's on my 60 inch and it has wonderful coverage. I think even on your wider footprint it would be fine. If not, you could add supplemental T5 lighting in the future.

 

That's not entirely true; while LEDs can run without fans, typically you want to keep them as cool as possible. This usually demands a fan. It increases the life of the diode, and reduces the drop off in spectrum over time. Also the larger the fan the lower the RPMs required to create the same amount of air movement, and with lower RPMs comes quieter fans.

Fan noise is measure in Decibels or db, you can look at just about any case fan and see a CFM (Cubic feet per minute) and its db rating. Anything >16db is considered pretty quiet. You can see that OCreef is using a ~120mm case fan, and it is probably in the 20-35db range. A lawn mower is ~90db, and regular talking is ~60 for comparison sake.

It does not state what degree of optics are being used the measurement you are looking for (15" off the surface) Could be or could not be sufficient for spread.

Best of luck!

 

Have you compared a LED fixture to MH? MH is as loud as most of my pumps, my LED fixture does not make audible noise when engaged

 

What led fixture do you have?

I have the AI SOL and have yet to hear it make anynoise at all. I only run it at 35% and its cool to the touch so my fan has yet to kick on.

 

My MH is completely silent. The Electronic ballast makes no noise whatsoever and I use a good reflector, that allows me to hang it high enough not to need fans. I have a vantec stealth fan on my 6g edge, DIY led and that fan is so quite you can't tell it's on. I originally used a different fan though that sounded like a lawnmower LOL. If your buying a premade fixture, I guess you have less control over what they decide to use...

 

I have a 60 watt linear from OCReef and hate it. It is not suffecient to sustain my corals on the sand. Spread is pathetic. The thing gets super warm to where I am afraid to touch it while it is in full swing. And they refuse to take it back and instead suggested I buy more crap from them. I would stick to the more reputable companies such as marineland.

I have a 72 bowfront and one unit will not sustain lps on the sand let alone sps on the rock near the top.

Remember, in this hobby you get what you pay for. I really wish I would have remembered that earlier.

Sent from my Evo

 

I AGREE WITH M2434. i run mh, t5 and led on my tanks and no light makes noise. the fan on the mh is a little loud, but not in the sense i cant block it out. I think most mh fixtures are electric these days. I remember building hps and mh ballasts 10 years back. Those things made a ton of noise and heat.thats why i consider mh silent now though...

also if looking at leds, why not use a bunch of par30's or par38's. they get awesome coverage. cheap fixture that you can make very easily aesthetically pleasing.

Your tank also being only 20inches tall makes it a lot easier for selecting a light.

 

Yes I had MH over my reef for quite a while, they are inaudible above the other tank noises (overflow, return pump ect.) and designed, built, and ran LEDs. Both are virtually silent. MH should make no noise. It's just like you turning a light bulb on in your kitchen. Sure, there are fans involved, but that's why I gave a db rating for comparison purposes.

LEDs are virtually silent also. In fact, the only noise produced is from the fans, but cheap case fans are often used in these straight from china fixtures, and that results in a larger noise output. The commenter below mentioned their AI's being cool without fans, and that is because of superior heat disbursement. If you don't have that, as many companies don't, then you are left with fans to do the lifting on heat removal. OCreef is one of those companies IMO, hence the ~120mm case fan, and that may not be needed at lower input voltages, but certainly will be at full power on full daylight cycle. In your case, I am guessing that boostled has used a relatively low db rated fan (~16-25db) thus you don't even notice them.

@M2434 If a manufacturer decided on some fans you were not happy with, as long as its a standard size (60mm, 120mm, ect) and has a 12v DC supply with the appropriate mA rating, you could retro in a higher quality fan.

 

These are just a rebranded eshine fixture with no optics. AIs are almost the same price and SOOOOO much better.