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Originally Posted by hillegom
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Those are great links, thanks for sharing. I have an old light meter from the 'film' camera days and have often wondered if I could somehow use it to measure the light output of my fixture(s). Searches for conversion of LUX to PAR a couple of years ago didn't yield much in the way of useful info. The tables on the Apogee site & in the Advanced Aquarist articles appear to have what I may need without having to purchase a sensor. I do have a multi-meter at home, as I'm sure many others have as well, so the Apogee option of simply buying the sensor is awful tempting.
In the end though, it does still appear to be a tricky proposition to get useful data trying to measure the light output a LED fixture, particularly the UV, Blue & Red spectra. One of the best ways to tell if you have the appropriate spectrum & enough intensity with your LED fixture still appears to be personal experience & a few months of actually running a fixture above your tank. But that has it's own risks in that you can easily burn certain coral trying to eyeball light intensity instead of measuring it. Most LED lighting manufacturers have now done the research & are providing fixtures with intensity & spectra that work pretty well depending on what you're keeping in the tank. For us DIY folks, it's a bit of a gamble & takes some research to get the LED combination right. I reckon a PAR meter or sensor is probably not a bad investment. Might have to jump on the bandwagon after all & get one of these, depending on price & availability.