Sunday, June 17, 2012

New AquaRay Aquarium LED Lights

I installed new TMC AquaRay LED aquarium lights on my 450gal aquarium.

Lights:
          2 - GroBeam 1500 Natural Daylight 6500K
          2 - Ocean Blue 1500 : half blue and half white 9000K
Controller:
          MultiController 8
Light Framing Structure:
          Bosch-RexRoth 30 Aluminum T-slot

The framing structure was made from Bosch-RexRoth aluminum T-slot structure. I had acquired the aluminum framing a couple of years ago when they were being thrown out, so I just had to buy the connectors.

Completed Light Support:
          The light modules can slide along the rails to tweak their position.

Closeup of framing:
Controller:
          The controller ramps up and ramps down the lights over a user defined period to simulate sunrise and sunset. The blue LEDs are on a separate channel so they ramp up and down 30 minutes before and after the white lights. It also has a manual storm function that will ramp down the lights to 5% over 5 minutes and then randomly flash lightening for 30 minutes then ramp the lights back up to the normal programed setting.  This controller runs all lights using only one power plug. The laminated card on the controller is my programed light cycle.
Lights under canopy:
          The two types of lights are alternated. The Ocean blue counteracts the yellow in the GroBeam to produce a whiter light. This combo helps bring out the blues in my blue fish as well as highlight the yellow and orange fish. Without the blue lights the blue fish would appear more white with the blue washed out. (Sorry for the reflections from my windows.)
Close up of one light:
Spectral Response of LED Lights:
           I measured the spectral response of the lights with an Ocean Optics 2000 spectrometer.

Storm Mode Warnings: