Arcadia OT2 Hybrid T5 and LED Luminare

[Clearwater]

Arcadia OT2 LED


Dimensions

1500 mm x 470 mm x 50 mm at the deepest point

Light sources

The Unit has 6 X 80 Watt T5 Tubes and 56 X 3 Watt Cree LEDs

The LED's

The LED panels have two separate groups of LEDs,

28 white and 28 blue which are controlled either by Switch's White and Blue, or Arcadia Dimming Controller in this case.

Deep blue LEDs have a spectral colour of 450nm,
White LEDs selected for a colour temperature above 8000 Kelvin at full power



T5 Tube Combination

I chose not to use the Arcadia T5 Tubes and went with ATI Tubes

2 x 80 W Aqua Blue Special 450 nm in the centre positions
3 x 80 W Blue Plus 20,000 K
1 x 80 W Purple Plus peaking at 450 and 620 nm


Control

The, six T5 lamps are in a bank of three each side and are controlled as follows

One group of four lamps, two each side of the LED array "Whites"

One group of two, the centre of the three tubes "Blue Tubes"

The LED's are also controllable as White and Blue Channels


Each group can be separately controlled allowing the overall combined colour temperature of the Illumination from LED panels and T5 tubes

Cloud, Storm and Moonlight settings are possible if desired

I used the cloud function to help acclimatise the corals to the brighter illumination

Currently I have the following settings on the Dimming Controller


Settings for the four channels

Channel 1

Outer T5s each side - Blue Special and Purple Special

Start 14:00 > 15:00 100% Dimming 22:30 out 23:00

Channel 2

Centre T5s each side - Blue Plus

Start 12:00 > 12:30 100% Dimming 22:00 out 22:45

Channel 3

White LEDs

Start 13:00 > 14:00 100% Dimming 21:00 out 22:00

Channel 4

Blue LEDs

Start 11:00 > 11:45 100% Dimming 23:00 out 23:30

By extending the lighting period of Channel 1 it creates a warm sunset
before bluing out with the LED's

Mounting

I have the unit mounted via Arcadia mounting brackets, which slip over the back and front glass of the tank, the Luminare rests on top in channels

One nice feature is you can change the T5 tubes from above by lifting covers so the replacement of Tubes will not require the removal of the unit

A suspension kit is provided with the units to work with celling mounts or wall brackets

PAR readings

Taken with an Apogee quantum sensor

The Unit is 6" above the water, all readings are taken in the centre of the tank, which is below the LED array

Distances are from the Luminaire

12" PAR 500

18' PAR 328

24" PAR 200

30" PAR 110

Link to Arcadia web site

Arcadia the leaders in pet-care lighting technology - OT2 LED

Link to Apogee Quantum Sensor

Omnima*Limited*::...

Observations

This unit replaced an Aqua One 1500 mm Metal Halide unit
MG 1500 with 3 x BLV 10,000 K Bulbs 3 x Aqua One compact blues 3 x Coral Star Blues

The light visually was much much brighter, so much so the fish went into hiding for a few hours

Coral growth has accelerated in all the SPS corals with no detrimental effect noted to the LPS

The light intensity was increased slowly over a 3 week period not to create a danger of bleaching

A Bi- Colour encrusting Montipora has transformed from a dull purple Gray colour to bright blue and yellow polyps

for images see my tank thread

Evaporation

On the Triple Halide was around 35 Ltrs per week its now down to 20 Ltrs

which bodes well for the Hot Summer Weather to radiated heat into the tank must be much less

[Clearwater]

Arcadia OT2 LED after 10 months

The Corals have improved colour generally compared to the old lights with considerably more growth

Old lights


New Lights




SPS are much stronger in colour especially under the LED's you can actually see two halves on some corals for colour, growth is not effected
as the LED array is only 100 mm wide, It would appear the lens are a fairly narrow angle giving much greater PUR under the LED's
and punch down to the sand (Tank is 30" deep )
don't put plating Monti's under the LEDs they colour up fantastically then bleach out the output is too high for them

To see if I can improve this colour issue, when re tubing I have done the following

2 x ATI Blue Spezial 15,000 K
2 x ATI Blue Plus 460 and 420 nm output
1 x Giesemann Pure Actinic
1 x Giesemann Mid Day 6000 K

One of the Blues specials popped after an hour and has been replaced with Coral Plus

Led's are 450 nm and 8,000K

The Purple Spezial which I liked, but probably was nice for me but doing little for the corals has been replaced with the Giesemann Pure Actinic,
the tube looks dull to the eye, however the PUR is reputed to be 99% of all the Actinic Tubes I looked at this had the highest output

This was balanced with a Mid Day tube

I like the more natural colour without the Purple Plus, the Coral colours under the Actinic are getting stronger

The Coral colours are balancing out as I hoped, so next time

I may try
2 x Pure Actinic in the blue channel
2 x Mid Day
2 x ATI Coral Plus a new tri phosphor = 50% Blue + 40% Blue Special 10 % Purple Plus

I will do new PAR numbers once the tubes have had chance burn in @ 100 hours

a nice feature of the Controller is the auto burn in, you reset the hours counter and it won't allow dimming of new T5 tubes until 100 hours are reached to maximise the tube life