AI Vega Color/Blue Owners Thread!

[spinsonic]

Originally Posted by Nob35

Finally have water and rocks in. Red Sea Max S 650, 4 AI Vega Colors, modified sump with 2. 4"x7" sock filters,refugium and GFO and carbon reactor. 2.5 hours after setup.

great tank, however that doesnt look bright to me, compared to the 10x t5. the back seems a bit dark... think im going to have someone build a canopy, since i have a s650 as well and just ordered 4 vegas today

[Nob35]

The pictures are from a iPad so they really do not show the colors well and I only have them up to 70% on blues and 60% white, 50% green,40% red. If I put everything up to 80% and take a picture everything gets washed out. And the blue pics are no white with all blues below 50% they were ramping down for the night. If I wanted to do it again and pay a little more I might go with 3 in front section and 2 in rear section to highlight the back but the way they are is fine for what I want you can position the light more to the back of tank if you want more light there by pushing them back a couple inches and it does not take away from the front of tank unless you have things up against the front glass
This is a picture of everything at75% before I put water in


At 60% after water and rocks

The back looks dark but it is not the camera does not do it justice all the rocks to the right have a deep purple coralline
This is how I mounted them

[jonowilliams]

Sorry for the question as its probably already been asked I'm a similar way....

Would these be ok on a tank that is 36L x 28W x 30 Tall, going to be an sps and lps dominated tank hopefully...

I'm in 2 minds wether to wait for these to arrive in the uk or just get the ghl mitras?

[sfmacguy]

I am currently using them on my 48x24x30 and am extremely happy

[Jedidad]

I'm setting up a new 36"x36" cube that is 26" deep. It will be up as a corner tank with one corner in the corner of the room. How many vega colors would i need to get good coverage and par/pur. i'm afraid i will need 4 but am hoping i could get away with 3.

[Nob35]

I think 3 would be doable. 2 running parallel along the walls and one triangled on the front corner but would all depend on how you plan on having your rockscape done. If rocks along walls and sand bed in front corner I think this would work and possibly get away with 2 if not worried about the few inches of the front glass. AI claims you get 24"x24" coverage at 5"to 6" above water. Hope this helps but there may be someone on here with the same tank that can tell you for sure.

[spinsonic]

Originally Posted by Nob35

The pictures are from a iPad so they really do not show the colors well and I only have them up to 70% on blues and 60% white, 50% green,40% red. If I put everything up to 80% and take a picture everything gets washed out. And the blue pics are no white with all blues below 50% they were ramping down for the night. If I wanted to do it again and pay a little more I might go with 3 in front section and 2 in rear section to highlight the back but the way they are is fine for what I want you can position the light more to the back of tank if you want more light there by pushing them back a couple inches and it does not take away from the front of tank unless you have things up against the front glass
This is a picture of everything at75% before I put water in


At 60% after water and rocks

The back looks dark but it is not the camera does not do it justice all the rocks to the right have a deep purple coralline
This is how I mounted them

that looks great! getting mine tuesday so we'll see how it goes. thanks for the pics

[Nob35]

Originally Posted by spinsonic

that looks great! getting mine tuesday so we'll see how it goes. thanks for the pics

If you have a Red Sea max s series there is a couple things you should know. In order to get the Vegas to not hang below the bottom of the canopy you will meet to cut out the slides for the reflectors for the T5's and also cut or drill vent holes for the fans. I used a dremel with cutting blades to do everything.

They are great after a full daylight cycle my temp is the same at night as it is in the morning, so does not effect temp at all

[joeyman15]

Got mine installed, i can't see how anyone would say they aren't bright. Looks like the gates of heaven opened in my office where the tank it. Very impressed and happy, hopefully i don't toast any coral along the way.

[ctlegacy]

I had the Sol fixtures. Just switched to the Vega Color fixtures. I have a 240g Acrylic tank. 64"x30"x30"

First, the controller is complete ****. Sorry for the language, but I really feel that strongly about it. Almost UNUSEABLE. The buttons are ultra sensitive and react without being touched. Programming my lights took me 2 hours because I was forced to do the same thing multiple times because of button issues.

Second, The lights are half as bright (visually, haven't got to par meter them yet) as the Sol's. My Sol's were a MUCH more vibrant and bright white. This is a very "soft" white color. We'll see how the corals and anemones react.

Third, I HATE THE SHADOWS. I hate seeing all the colors in the sand. It's very distracting. Not to mention that the controller is such a pain in the *** that I have just resorted to all lights being at "x" percent.

Overall, I'm disappointed. They are expensive lights and they don't put the light out that the Sol did. I think the controller is garbage. I hate the fact that it's impossible to get a response from customer service (which I'm pretty sure is one guy). I'm glad that a few people have had luck getting email responses and phone calls, but I haven't. Their website is horrible. The disco effect drives me crazy. I'm not even sure if I want to keep them.

Another thing that I think is stupid is that there are no "Here's a few good starter settings..." I would have put that, or at least a place for users to post their settings for others to try.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I'm not happy at all with these lights. Makes me wonder if I even have the same lights.

[Nob35]

Sorry for your experience with these lights. I will not defend the controller but I had problems with mine also until I did the update and switched to a old iPhone plug then it started working better and I say better so its still not great. As far as the light I think the ideas behind the different colors for most people is to get better colors out of there coral and fish and not to just light up the tank with bright light. I have had small tanks with a bunch of white LEDs and they lit the tank better than my Vegas but I lost a lot of the color. My tank with these lights is new but the couple things I have in it really show their color under these lights. As far as the controller goes I'm hoping the director will come out next month or January and that should solve a lot of issues as I have read the reviews on it and they say it will be very easy to operate and set custom programs. Also the pucks should be available soon so that we can order different configurations with the lights and if you want more white and less red and green you can change them. I'm just hoping they will make the lenses changeable also. Hope I'm not sounding like a jack*** but just trying to give my opinion on them I am happy with mine so far except with the controller which the problem should be solved when the director comes out or when you can control them with a apex Neptune or something like it

[ctlegacy]

OH MY GOD!!!! Yup, I'm done with these. Controller just reset itself and I lost all my programming. So now I have to spend another 2 hours with this JUNK. I don't even know what I want to do. I want to throw them in the trash, but that seems extreme. I hate these lights!!!!!

[ctlegacy]

Okay, so I have found a cheater method for quick programming.

MANUAL PROGRAMMING

Turn off all timers.
-Turn on "Timer 1"
-Pick a start time. Mine is 6:00am
-Set the intensity you are going to run your lights at. Mine is 80%
-Set the ramp up time to 5:00 (That means won't hit full 80% until 11:00am)
-Turn on "Timer 2"
-Pick at dim start time. Mine is 7:00pm
-Pick your night time light intensity. Mine is W:0, B:0, RB:7%, DB:7%, R:0, G:7%zzz
-Set the ramp up time to 4:00 (that means tank is fully dark at 11:00pm)
-Hit Okay
-Test Cycle
-Ready to go.

[ctlegacy]

Its bright enough, but i still dont like the colored shadows.

[Nob35]

Have you turned down the red and green that should lower the intensities of the colored shadows without losing all the color you get from them. I keep them about 15% to 20% less than my white the red is really the biggest culprit I keep it 10% less than green. Hope this helps

[rhinonm]

I wish they would change the optics of the red and green to say 100-120 deg to get rid of the disco effect.

If people are only using the red/green a <20% intensity there is alot of reserve power for wider optics.

[ctlegacy]

So day 2 I'm getting used to the color. I still get a little queasy with the disco effect, but it's tolerable.

Lens option would be great, but I don't want ai to make another thing until they remedy this PATHETIC controller. I would have been embarrassed to put these things in a box.

I think anyone who was forced to ever touch one of these pieces of crap should get the director controller for FREE if it ever comes out.

[SteveWong]

I think the idea of wider red and green optics is terrific! I've also taken to using them in low intensity to reduce colored shadows but a wider optic would, I expect, spread those colors out to enhance larger areas.

I hope AI has someone lurking here to take this suggestion up!

[Nob35]

Yes I would like the optics option also I have read rumors going both ways, that the new pucks you will or will not be able to change optics, I'm hoping you will be able toas this would make it easier to adjust for depth and coverage on all colors

[joeyman15]

Hey guys,

The clock on my controller will not run. I set the time and it just sits there. Is there a button to make it start running?

[ctlegacy]

Okay, I've found what appears to be my finished setup on the AI lighting system. My tank is 6' long. I'm hanging my lights 18" off from the water surface. I have 3 AI fixtures (2) Vega's and (1) Sol.

Just (3) Vega's


(2) Vega's (1) Sol


I wasn't happy with just the Vega's. The light wasn't very bright. The shadows were rediculous. I am waiting to borrow a par meter, but I don't think they deliver near the punch they advertise.

Now the shadows are evened out and you have to look to see the "disco effect" where before it beat you in the face every time you looked at it. I still have excellent color (imo) on the corals and the fish.

The controller is still ****!, but I am happy with the light now.

[m_i_k_i_e]

Hey guys,

Just like to share my experience with the new Ai controller. Well kinda of a rank since I'm so P'd off. Got one with the Vega and worked with few minor issue like others mentioned before, Sensitivity issue with button and had to switch different outlet plug blah blah blah. After a month of usage I noticed the connection strength bar on the controller would have an red X but still has Vega next to it (still connected but no connection strength???) Anyways, everything worked till I reset the damn thing and no matter how I tried to connect the controller again it cannot find it. For eg. use different cable,outlet plug,connect using computer etc. Finally got it to connect if I place the controller right next to the light itself but indicator still the same. X and Vega but who cares as long as it worked. So I talked to Justin from Ai support, great service btw, response was within minutes. After few email exchanges he sent me a new one but I had to cover the shipping fee because I lived in Canada. Not happy about that but it was only $13. Suppose to be 6-10 days took 3 weeks but not Ai's fault. Plugged in the new controller, connected with no problem *Awesome* screen saver set to 5 mins. Later on the night I noticed the screen didn't turn off. (which also happened to my 1st controller but solved but resetting the power) so I tried that but didn't work. Tried few more times still didn't work than I finally noticed the time on it did not change. Tried plugging in the computer and didn't change. Updated the firmware didn't work. Now I tried to use my old controller and it doesn't connect anymore even if I place it next to the light. After trying like 30 times I got it to find the Vega and second msg popped up saying comm error. %$#@%#$%@!!! kept trying few more times and same thing!!! $%#$%#. Now I'm stuck with 2 useless controllers, well the new replacement isn't totally useless. I can change the color % and use it as an wireless on and off switch . Finally today, received email reply from Ai about this problem. They asked if I have it plugged into a power source the whole time. hmmm kinda annoyed me by that but obviously yes and asked like it was a surprised that the clock didn't work??? Yes the clocked doesn't move. So now I'm just waiting for reply now as I asked if I can get a replacement from LFS where I purchased it since I don't want to wait another few weeks especially when I have to turn my light on and off manually everyday and I ain't paying for shipping again. Oh and almost forgot to mention that the fan started to having issues starting up, makes loud noises and you can see it struggling to turn but works after few mins. .

Final thought with my first Ai product. Controller is POS, never own anything with so many issues. What's the odds of both controllers having different issues. Or I just have horrible luck lol. No complaints about the Vega other than fan. So far I have no confidence in Ai products. If it was just pos controller than I'm still happy with the light but common lights as well ??? WHY CAN'T YOU WORK PROPERLY!!!! that's all I have to say for now, will keep you guys updated.

*Phew* I feel a little better now and thanks for listening.

Originally Posted by joeyman15

Hey guys,

The clock on my controller will not run. I set the time and it just sits there. Is there a button to make it start running?

[kajung2k]

To get similar par from vega (compared to sol) you nee to have the vega 4-6" awl due to the 70 degree optics

Originally Posted by ctlegacy

Okay, I've found what appears to be my finished setup on the AI lighting system. My tank is 6' long. I'm hanging my lights 18" off from the water surface. I have 3 AI fixtures (2) Vega's and (1) Sol.

Just (3) Vega's


(2) Vega's (1) Sol


I wasn't happy with just the Vega's. The light wasn't very bright. The shadows were rediculous. I am waiting to borrow a par meter, but I don't think they deliver near the punch they advertise.

Now the shadows are evened out and you have to look to see the "disco effect" where before it beat you in the face every time you looked at it. I still have excellent color (imo) on the corals and the fish.

The controller is still ****!, but I am happy with the light now.

[lilc64]

So from what im reading radions are the way to go?

[kajung2k]

What makes you say that? Bc we have some problems here and there?

I'm happy. And I know several users are as well.

Originally Posted by lilc64

So from what im reading radions are the way to go?