Pacific Sun Pandora hyperion hybrid Fanclub

[therra978]

i meant which lfs. Im located in Malden, MA.

[jdamon]

I got mine through the LFS, but you can buy direct from pacific sun usa

[jdamon]

sorry, unique aquaria in tewksbury, they have one on a store display tank you can check out. Brendan (the owner) is very knowledgeable and helpful, and Pacific sun USA is out of Beverly MA, so the customer service is local.

[alexloic]

hello,: Wavehand:

I have a pandora hyperion s2 and wanted to know what was your choice for t5: brand and type.

greetings alexloic Switzerland

[Brian Crook]

Is the Pandora series a lot like the ATI T5/LED series?

[jdamon]

Originally Posted by alexloic

hello,: Wavehand:

I have a pandora hyperion s2 and wanted to know what was your choice for t5: brand and type.

greetings alexloic Switzerland

I have:

Coral plus
Blue plus
Led's
Coral plus
Blue plus

All ATI bulbs

[jdamon]

Originally Posted by Brian Crook

Is the Pandora series a lot like the ATI T5/LED series?

Same idea as far as combo fixture, but pacific sun led's are a lot better. Pacific sun added T5's to their LED fixture, and ATI added LED to their T5 fixture. Meaning pacific sun did lots of research and refinement of the LEDs then added an already tested technology, T5's, and ATI has always been focused on the t5 side. Check out both websites, good luck!

[jdamon]

Also, pandora LEDs are customizable, you can control each color separately and then dim them all as well. And you can dim each color individually over time (change the colors to simulate sun rise sun set). Don't think the ATI can do that.

[echoreef]

Here is my bulb combination.

ATI blue +
KZ Fiji purple
LEDs
ATI true actinic
ATI blue +

[alexloic]

my current t5: ati blue special, ati blue plus, LED, ati coral, ati blue plus.
I'm not completely satisfied I find too pop,
I'll try to replace the 2 blue plus by blue lagoon Giesemann ..... we'll see

alexloic

[JPMagyar]

Anybody wanting to join the club can get a great deal on a brand new 48 inch Pandora S2.


Hyperion S2 For Sale


My loss your gain!

[jschultzbass]

I have a Pandora coming in for my new 300 gallon build. I'm very excited for this fixture and the control possibilities. I'll take pics when I get it!

[JPMagyar]

This is a duplicate of a post I made in the Pac Sun Sponsor forum, but after I posted there I thought that really this thread would be more appropriate so here it is . . .

I just hung the lamps yesterday and from a PAR perspective my fears were clearly unwarranted. More importantly based on my readings I would say that those folks using the 145 watt units should exercise considerable caution as the power you hold in your fixture is formidable.


I own two 48 inch Pacific Sun Pandora Hyperion S2 fixtures.


My tank is 48 inches x 48 inches x 24 inches deep. I started with the units at 5 inches and took readings and didn't like the distribution so I moved the lights higher and higher until I found a light distribution I liked. For my units I found the "ideal" distribution at 8 inches. So what is my ideal . . . well I have readings on my tank going back to my 400 watt Radium days so I know very well what my tank is adapted to in terms of PAR. Typically I expect about 1000 to 700 µmol/m2/sec at the surface and 100 to 200 on the bottom of the tank.

With the 48 inch Pacific Sun Pandora Hyperion S2 set 8 inches above the water line and with 8 ATI Aquablue Special T5s installed and the LEDs set at 100% across the board here are the readings:

At the four corners of the tank on the surface I read 300 µmol/m2/sec.

Along the 6 inch wide channel on the surface under the LEDs I read a low of 600 and a high of 750.

Along the outer edge of the fixtures width at the surface I read 350 to 550.

At an underwater depth of about 6 inches where my highest light loving corals live I have readings fairly consistent around 400.

At the bottom of my tank in the four corners I read 200 to 250.

Dead center of the tank on the bottom which is not directly under either unit but rather in between the two I read 200.

Now based on my experience with LEDs and the Apogee PAR meter I feel comfortable adding an additional 30% to all these numbers. Which means my 24 inch deep tank is getting 2-300 µmol/m2/sec on the bottom and peak PAR around 500-600 µmol/m2/sec at the position of the highest up corals and remember these are readings with the fixture set 8 inches above the surface. Basically the whole tank is in between 200 and 700 µmol/m2/sec. My ideal SPS tank would have a low of 100 on the bottom which I feel would easily be achieved if my tank were 30 inches deep instead of 24.

My Personal Conclusion: The Pacific Sun Pandora Hyperion S2 with 75 watt LED panels provides enough PAR to keep even the most demanding SPS in a tank up to 30 inches deep and could cover a tank up to 36 inches wide and 60 inches long although at those outer reaches of tank size the top edges would be low light acros only.

[JPMagyar]

And then how 'bout a couple pictures to spice the thread up a bit

[JPMagyar]

I played around with the PAR Table function and I am very impressed. It definitely solved my "disco light" problem once I removed the red and green glitter lines. With those LEDs out of the equation I got a nice actinic blue look which I love for dawn/dusk. Even better I posted in the Pacific Sun forum and Prezemek, the owner, offered to smooth the transitions for me by rewriting the PAR table. I sent him a copy of my .pss PAR table file and I will post the file somewhere for sharing once I have it back. For now here's a screen shot of what I did. In addition I have had the Dark Moon program running 2 days in a row now and I really, really love it! Truth is the moon phase programming was the whole reason I decided to buy these fixtures in the first place and from that aspect they are most definitely living up to my expectations. The big question in my mind is the optimum T5 bulb choice. Right now I am using the Aquablue Specials which offer 10000k color and a broad spectrum. Usually I would consider a Blue Plus bulb, but since the LEDs are so heavily tilted towards that end of the spectrum already, I'm not sure the tank needs it hence my decision to stick with only Aquablue Specials. Really only time will tell how the corals will like it or not. Thats the most frustrating aspect of this hobby. Here I have a MAJOR change on my tank with new lights, and I don't believe I'll know for sure if it's working for at least another 6 months to a year. In the meantime I do get to play around with the software.

A quick note for anyone messing with the PAR Table function. If you try to save the table while not connected to a lamp the program will crash, but if you are writing a complicated table it may take quite some time. I'm not sure how to solve this other than leaving your computer and the Pac Sun program turned on for the duration of time that you are writing the table. Has anyone found a solution to this problem? Am I the only one who ran into this trouble so far?

I honestly think the hybrid fixtures are the best lighting on the market today. I am very interested to see if I can get good growth and a TOTM quality reef while using these lights because as I see it the leading contender at the moment in the hybrid market is ATI, but with most folks opting for 8 T5 bulbs they are losing out on much of the benefit LEDs have to offer because the new ATI LED Powermodule has the same bulb cost, increased heat, and increased electricity as compared to the old ATI 8 bulb units that had no LEDs so other than glitter and moonlight I'm not sure what benefit the Powermodule offers. Comparatively the Pandora fixtures have half the T5 bulb cost and much less heat. Anyways, as I said before it will be some time before anyone has real evidence in the form of tank progression photos . . .

[Pacific Sun RD]

Hello Joe,
Thank you for review.
I think that adding offline PAR table editor with save PAR table to file without active wireless connection with lamp is possible and I will send this idea to our IT team.
About bulb choose - within next few weeks Pacific Sun USA will have our T5 tubes - and in my personal feeling combo Hyperion S LED panels with T5 Crystal Blue and SpectraPlus/Pigment INT+ tubes is completely amazing :-) You will love it - when your actual t5 tubes will finish their life you can think about them.

[Dashiki]

Any chances of making a 4 bulb 24" fixture? 2 bulbs just isn't enough.

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by Dashiki

Any chances of making a 4 bulb 24" fixture? 2 bulbs just isn't enough.

What size tank are you wanting to put it on?



My daughter has a 38 gal Innovative Marine Aquarium with a 6 bulb ATI fixture, and I wouldn't hesitate for a minute switching from the ATI to a Pandora S with 2 x 145 watt SMT LED panels and 2 x T5 bulbs. Currently my daughter's ATI fixture uses 4 ATI Actinic bulbs and 2 ATI Aquablue Special bulbs. I would consider the SMT panels a perfect replacement for 4 ATI Actinic tubes as the SMT panels are loaded with light in the 420nm to 450 nm range which is the exact same as the ATI Actinic bulb. In fact the 2 x 145 watt panels over any tank in that range of size is probably WAAAy more light than needed and would need to be run at partial power for certain.



Here's a picture of my daughter's aquarium . . .

[Dashiki]

I have a 60 cube.

I had a radion pro over it for a year and did not like it. Too many hard shadows and the tank looked dim.

I wanted a brighter tank and too fill in the shadows. I added 4 t5 to the radion and loved the look of the tank so I made the switch to an ati 8 bulb hybrid.

I am having issues with the ati LEDs flickering and there is no fix to it according to ati north America at this time. They are fixing a firmware issue is what I was told.

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by Dashiki

I have a 60 cube.

I had a radion pro over it for a year and did not like it. Too many hard shadows and the tank looked dim.

I wanted a brighter tank and too fill in the shadows. I added 4 t5 to the radion and loved the look of the tank so I made the switch to an ati 8 bulb hybrid.

I am having issues with the ati LEDs flickering and there is no fix to it according to ati north America at this time. They are fixing a firmware issue is what I was told.

That's a bummer about the ATI LEDs!

It's unfortunate you can't see a 24 inch Pandora S setup over a tank because based on my experience with the S2 on my tank I personally feel you would find the fixture is ideal for a 60 cube. The T5 lighting really smooths out the look of the light during daytime and then during dawn/dusk I found turning the red and green LEDs off makes for a very pleasing 20000k look and then turning the cyano LED off makes for a perfect actinic simulation. In other words the SMT panel can simulate a broad spectrum of colors and looks depending on intensity of the individual LEDs.

Wish I could be more helpful other than to say I think you shouldn't eliminate the 2 bulb T5 Pandora from you consideration.

[Rudimenta]

ImageUploadedByTapatalkHD1391960635.032690.jpg

[alexloic]

my reef tank with pandora hyperion S2
[IMG]file:///C:/Users/christophe/Pictures/aquarium%2002.2014%202.jpg[/IMG]

Alexloic

[alexloic]

[Rudimenta]

Pic not working here

[Dashiki]

didn't realize I started some many sentences in my last post with I.

the ATI fixture is great don't get me wrong but the intermittent flickering is annoying. if they don't fix it soon I will most likely make the switch to the pacsun fixture or DIY myself a hybrid.