Your tank converting to LED's is BIG news. Going to follow closely for sure. :)

Oh wow, that thing looks long and slender. :lol:Now I am curious on what kind of fixture could it be. Just curious, your current lighting isn't cutting it anymore?

That's what she said?!:)




-Tony

Yea I'd say!
Your a brave man. Prove em all wrong.:lol: I know you can do it.

shipping that must have been fun. the box is huge!

are the strips a full 6 feet long?

I am pretty sure if it was LEDs, you wouldn't be mentioning it :lol:

I hear reefbrites are great supplemental LEDs!

Why mess with whats already working?

What led did you get?

I am pretty sure Kien is sitting at a corner, looking at this thread (maybe eating popcorn), and laughing. :razz:

Pretty sure he is not moving away from halides ;) I am sticking with reefbrite supplements :smile:

http://[IMG]http://http://i1343....psao4tezlo.jpg[/IMG]

That didn't work . Whats in that box

Haha. It's funny to see how curious all are.

HOLY CRAP BATMAN!!! Your seriously switching to LED's!! I will believe it when I see it.

[IMG]http://i1343.photobucket.com/albums/...ps98d1f3e0.jpg[/IMG]

That box is too thin to be a full LED fixture.

I am willing to bet there are reefbrite's in there for supplemental lighting to add "pop".

:pop2:

Need a like button

Yah that's my guess too. Kien was looking for reefbrite few weeks ago ;) its all about pop :razz:

No longer a Loser Without LEDs.
 

So this past November while I was in Toronto I had the fortune of meeting up with the fine gents at MadJelly Corals. We hung out and they showed me around town. Thanks to them I got to see A LOT of different reef setups from vendors and hobbyists. One thing that stuck out with me during the entire trip was how nice everyone's corals were. They had this amazing rave look to them. Quite simply, they POPPED! Upon further discussions I was convinced that what I needed to add POP to my tank were LEDs. So I asked the guys what LEDs they recommended. Tony's mouth was full of ginger beef at that moment. He mumbled something and all I could make out were the words "bright" and "reef" as he continued to stuff his face.

Once I got home from my trip I proceeded with my research on these "Bright Reef LEDs". Let me tell you guys, they were not easy to track down! I did however mange to find a vendor after an extensive trek through the googles.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psd984fd14.jpg

As you can see here they came in this cool tubular packaging. I don't think I've ever received anything this long before. Anyway, here's some product and promotional shots of the packaging.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps78b15b76.jpg

I was kinda hoping they would mention something about coral POP.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps814811e9.jpg

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psfa7bfa92.jpg

The whole kit actually came in two packages. One very long tube for the lights themselves and another reqular package for the power supply.

Speaking of the power supply, here's what it looks like in case you were curious.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psdb65971f.jpg

You can see here that they are fully certified with all the appropriate glyphs. Michael will be happy about that. As I continued to sift through the various bits and bobbles I came accross another nice surprise. The LED unit also came with a state-of-the-art bilt-in timer. SCORE!

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psawcwjoxo.jpg

After sorting out all the pieces, I finally cracked open the tubular box to check out these sweet LEDs. I have to admit, I was a bit startled when the LEDs virtually exploded out of the packaging. This thing was PACKED full of LEDs!

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6295dac0.jpg

As I slowly pulled on the LEDs it became apparent to me that I was getting a **** load of LEDs here. And as it it turns out I ordered two of these so I'm actually getting twice the **** load of LEDs. More on that later..

Just to test them out I decide to hang just one set in my canopy. They were surprisingly easy to mount.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4838b09f.jpg

Please note that I've only got half the channels on here. That's why some of the LEDs are off. I didn't want to shock my corals.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psb3fdf867.jpg

So, my first impression of these lights as I fired them up was, WOW! These things look super cool! And by cool I mean 'neat-o', not cool as in 'blue'. You can clearly see here that I have the 6400K LED modules installed as they are quite yellow. The nice thing about this LED unit is that you can purchase an expansion pack of replacement LEDs to get a virtually infinite colour combination! I plan to hit up Canadian Tire this weekend in fact, to pick up some Red, Green and Blue LEDs to get the whole full-spectrum thing going. I'm not really a fan of the purple.

http://cdn2.bulbamerica.com/media/ca.../x9rm500_5.jpg

So after I hung up half the lights (from one package) I started to ponder what I would do with the rest of the lights. Did I mention that there were a **** load of them?? I wasn't sure if I wanted to add more heat to my tank by stringing up more LED lights inside my canopy, so I came up with the brilliant idea of stringing them outside of my canopy instead.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5d16dea1.jpg

I know that traditionally LEDs run fairly cool but I didn't want to take any chances. I decided that running the LEDs outside of my canopy would be better for my tank in the long run.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8d114aa4.jpg

So, have I mentioned yet that I've got a **** load of these LEDs?? I only had one out of two packages of LEDs open and the tank already looked great! I thought that maybe I would just return the other package. As I contemplated this for a bit my 4 year old suggested that I should just throw caution to the wind and hang up all the lights. So that's what I did.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps90675ac1.jpg

I have to admit, I do like that it adds a bit of needed flare and POP to the whole tank and not just the corals.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psf5e7bd99.jpg

Final Thoughts:

WOW! What an amazing set of lights. I would highly recommend these lights to anyone who is looking to add a bit of POP to their tank. These lights are so versatile and affordable. They are so easy to install with their flexible wire frame design. They are expandable with a dizzying array of colour temperature options.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4d098bfd.jpg

And of course, thanks again Tony and Long for suggesting these lights. They're a keeper! :thumb:

Thanks for looking.

Bahaha. Awesome. That made my night. Thanks

Kien I do believe you have found the answer to our prayers concerning proper LED lighting for our tanks thank you for enlightening our day.....you are still the master of suspense

Too Funny :lol:

From what I remember of your house you can see the tank from the street, I can only imagine what your neighbours are thinking. Probally holy crap batman he has completely lost his mind.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That deserves a trophy

http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...B392FFD09F.jpg

Looks like I was correct...haha.

Lmao Kien !


-Tony

Those aren't LEDs, you got ripped off bud :neutral:

Not if they also saw the beanie babies. This is a step towards normal lol.

Wow gotta say those LED does make your tank pop pop!!!


-Tony

Kinda reminds me of the Neverland Ranch - must be fun

Aside from the wandering hands I usually enjoy my visits. I prefer to tank sit tho.

That is sure a lot of LEDs!!! Hahahaha. Gold.

Meanwhile..
 

Yup, it's that time of the year again..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psfbqpfkq1.jpg

That's more like it! :mrgreen: Who would of thought the future of reef tank lighting was in Christmas lights. It was obvious all along... white, blue, red and green spectrums

Enough with the Gundams already !
 

Don't worry, I'm a lifer :-) As frustrating as this hobby can be (mostly all the time), I can't image not having a reef tank with *something* in it. That 'something' might evolve over time, but I will always have a reef-ish tank.

Speaking of reef-ish.. I suppose it's time for an update. I hate long winded update posts so I'll keep this one real short.

It's been a busy winter for sure, family, work, life, etc. We all know how that song goes. After I got my new bulbs installed last Christmas I figured it was smooth sailing. And it was for a time, or so I thought! In about mid January I ran into some issues with the tank that at the time I couldn't quite figure out. I was starting to lose colonies to STN, RTN, FTN.. All of my parameters were good so I couldn't quite figure it out. It started to frustrate me so I naturally ignored it and proceeded to build more Gundams.

Fast forward a few weeks and things started to really look bad. Cyano had started to take hold and I knew the tank needed an intervention. But first I needed to go to Disneyland. I was hoping my tank sitter would sort out the tank for me but sadly he did not.

Fast forward another couple of weeks and I finally made the time to sort out the tank. So back in January I had noticed that the water in my RO/DI reservoir had a slight odor to it. I dismissed it at the time because I thought that maybe the order was from the basement itself and not from the water. It was pretty faint. As time went on the oder got stronger. I checked my inline TDS meter and it said everything was okay (zero TDS). What finally clued me in was when my son said, "Daddy, why does the water smell?" after I cracked open a fresh bucket of RO/DI. He was right. It did smell. I guess I forgot about it and kinda got used to it. I checked my TDS meter again and it still said zero TDS. Well, that can't be right can it? I started to doubt this. So I pulled out my external hand held TDS meter. It said zero too. Well, the water must be okay. I kept using it, even though it smelled a bit funny. In hind sight, I really shouldn't have, but I trusted my instruments. Finally I broke down and got a new TDS meter. Sure enough the the new TDS meter read a very very non zero TDS value. FRAK!

I did a couple of hefty water changes, cleaned up the sand, changed out all my media. Pretty much right away the tank started to look good again. I suppose I could have just done that from the get go. Another lesson learned. Looking back I think I just got overly frustrated because I really wanted to figure out what was causing my issues this time around. Test after test turned up nothing.

After the fact I spoke with another local hobbyst and I told him my story. He said that he encountered the exact same thing and deduced that the smell cam from bad DI resin. He has since stopped using DI. I'm considering this myself because I kind of remember now the water smelling like this once before back when I had my first tank wipe out.

Anyway, the silver lining is that it wasn't a complete catastrophe. The gold lining is that I now have more room for new corals. I lost half a dozen colonies but I can live with that considering everything else going on in the tank.

Here are some pics I took a couple of months ago but never got around to posting. I was playing around with a background because I really don't like how the photos of the see-through tank looks.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2235/1...716b5101_o.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3819/1...27fa716e_o.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2137/1...01925ae1_o.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7391/1...0934ddc2_o.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2233/1...b2f001b4_o.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2823/1...7137757f_o.jpg

WOW.

looks freaking sick man . love that red flower pot . its huge .
nice work

Kien, sorry to hear about the mishap there. You got a fine son there helping you out in figuring the problem! I think he deserves a few more Gundams!

Glad to hear you've turned it around to minimize the loss and your tank still looks spectacular!

that background looks awesome for the fts.

i thought you told your tank-sitter they turned things around for you in your absence? :twised:

be damned if they'll throw in the bonus glass scrape next time.

Thanks :-) Tank is far from spectacular at the moment but heading back in that direction I think.

I just told him that so that he would come back at the end of March. Don't tell him I said that though. He's sensitive like that.