AI Sol Review

[Aquattro]

I got home in time to actually see the lights on today. After the trial of attempting 3 units on the 180 and seeing it was obviously not enough, I added 3 more for a total of 6 Sol Blue units (Black casing).

I have replaced 3 x 400w Radium MH bulbs in lumenarc mini reflectors.

Thoughts so far...the color of the light is nice, maybe nicer than the radium bulbs. 6 units at 75% are fairly bright, but I'll ramp to 100% over the next week. That will still not compare to the MH bulbs in top of the line reflectors.

Color separation between white and blue still clearly evident, but that's a LED thing, not specific to any fixture.

My controller showed 12amp running the halides, it now shows 0.6amp. Substantial savings there. My chiller also hasn't come on in a week. Nice!

No more fans in my canopy, so I can turn the volume down on the TV. another nice feature.

Light quality - Unfortunately I have to say the light from the MH was far better for coral color than LED. I can see differing shades flickering in the corals as the lights hit it through the water shimmer. Some look like cuttlefish flashing. A couple of pieces are nicer, but some of my favorites are lacking the pop they had. Pink lemonade is lacking the brilliant yellow. Some of the blues and purples are washed out. Not much, most people would still say wow, but I notice the difference.
The sand bed has a couple of focused blue spots here, some white over there.

Most of these issues are not Sol specific, if any. While LED is certainly the way of the future, I'm sure I'll miss the color that the radiums gave. It just doesn't compare.

Overall, the Sols themselves are good solid units, well made, easy to setup, even via the Apex controller. No heat, don't have to replace bulbs, although I should start saving now for the day I need to replace the entire units Great price compared to other similar products, and I think the best value for my dollar given my needs.
I've seen other tanks without as noticeable points above, but those either had DIY units or Vertex units with a lot more LED bulbs, which probably minimizes these effects.
I don't think I'll be sorry I went LED in the long run, but sitting in front of the tank right now is a bit sad...don't get me wrong, it still looks great, but it's just not the same as Radiums....

I'll update my thoughts on this in a month

[sphelps]

My thoughts where the same when I switched to LEDs, I wanted to throw mine in the garbage or at least sell them off. However it does get better overtime and you adapt by selecting certain corals and colors that do better under the LEDs. In addition your eyes will adjust and you'll kind of forget about how good it was before, that is until you visit someone else still running halides.

Another thing you'll benefit from is red and green LEDs, not to say you should have bought the Radion but these colors actually do make a significant difference. They can be easily added as you continue on.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by sphelps

In addition your eyes will adjust and you'll kind of forget about how good it was before.

Lol, I think that about sums it up!! haha. I agree, I think it will sink in. From across the room, the tank looks fantastic. Maybe better than the Radiums. More of a magenta tone to it, which is really nice.

I thought of maybe adding a T5 across the front to fill in some areas of concern, but I'll leave it for now and see how quickly I forget how good it was before

[sphelps]

I think you're current is off to, no way 6 sols running close to full blast are only pulling 0.6amps which is only 70W. 3 400W halides using 12amps sounds right as that's 1400W. The sols should be pulling closer to 4 amps so you're basically using 1/3 the energy.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by sphelps

I think you're current is off

You're right, just checked at peak usage, it's probably 2.8amp

[sphelps]

They are rated at 72W each I believe so if you run them 100% then you're looking at 3.9A.

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

I'll update my thoughts on this in a month

I'm thinking it wont be a good review. Seriosly dude. Turn the intensity down. I started mine out at the recommended 30% and got impatient and cranked them up to 75% and my corals went down hill. It took a couple of months for them to recover. 10 months later after slowly ramping them up 5% every week or so I now am at 100% for 1 hour a day and slowly increasing the time. The corals are now used to the change to LEDs and growth is way faster and color is great. You did alot of research on these lights and your failing to follow almost everybodies advice on the intensity settings.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

I'm thinking it wont be a good review. Seriosly dude. Turn the intensity down. I started mine out at the recommended 30% and got impatient and cranked them up to 75% and my corals went down hill. It took a couple of months for them to recover. 10 months later after slowly ramping them up 5% every week or so I now am at 100% for 1 hour a day and slowly increasing the time. The corals are now used to the change to LEDs and growth is way faster and color is great. You did alot of research on these lights and your failing to follow almost everybodies advice on the intensity settings.

Well, here's my thoughts on this. Running a 400w bulb 12 inches away from the coral is a lot of light. The AI isn't nearly the light. I ran the 3 units at 100% for a week, 10 inches from the coral, no issues at all. The people that said they had issues, had them in a day or two. Adding 3 more was a big jump, so I did turn them down, and I'm happy with the level. Not too dark, and not what I used to have.

Still, I needed to consider more. Rich (bblinks) took some of my frags from under the 400w, and added them to his 9 AIs at 100%, no problem. So if we reverse that move, taking his lights at 100% and putting them over my frags, still should equal no problem. Right? Or am I not considering something in that example?
Now I'm not gonna leave town and just believe they're going to be ok, 'cause that's reckless. Ok, I'm a bit reckless. But I'm on vacation now and home for the next three weeks, and able to closely watch the corals every hour or so. I've seen them react to too much light before, so I'm confident that if they start going bad, I'm there to catch it.
I'm not just MarkoD'ing the advice, I've carefully considered everything. My SPS collection is worth thousands, so I'm not just going to let them get toasted. Yes, I could be wrong, but I don't think so (this time)

[tang daddy]

Brad, that's awesome you got 6 ai blacks!!

Your new name should be darth vader, could I make a suggestion?

I found that after a month of running my sols that alot of stuff browned out, the intensity was alot lower for acclimating but previous to this I had ran diy led and had decent colour but the temperature ofthe light was more 10k because the ratio of cw to RB/b was 1:1 now with the ai it 1:2 so it's pretty obvious that there is less white making the tank abit dim.

Getting back to what I was saying alot of the corals browned, I noticed the reds pinks and yellow suffered abit even purple and blues were browning abit, that is until I added 2 Fiji purple....

Within a week everything colored up and is continuing to color, I was so fascinated I told Rich to add some to his tank.
I truly believe that as the colour blends the only colour missing is the reds. I oftensee green in the sand and that is a mix of the cw/b. You previously mentioned that you may want to add t5 supplementation in the future, if you do try the KZ Fiji, you will be happier with the colour of the corals.

Also if you think about it there is only 24w of white per fixture multiply that by 6 and you got 144w of light that the corals use that is nearly not enough for fast sps growth. I am sure now my 75g sps tank may need another 2 fixtures because 2 fixtures isn't enough light for my sps.

[Aquattro]

Ya, I'm probably going to try a single strip of T5, probably that bulb. I gave away my T5 strip fixture, guess I'll see if I can get it back

On a good note, this morning is the first day I've been able to see the sunrise ramp, and I'm really liking it!