Pacific Sun Pandora hyperion hybrid Fanclub

[Wolfgang]

Originally Posted by jschultzbass

I ordered some of the new PacSun bulbs for mine. I'm going to try a couple different combos and let you guys know what I think!

Normally I'm an ATI fan using ATI fixtures and bulbs but am excited to try the PacSun combo.

Great! Looking forward to your Review!

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by echoreef

Here's a picture from yesterday. It's still a new tank so not a lot of SPS colonies.

Any updated photos showing coral changes? Any losses? Any color changes? How about algae on the sand? Any problems with red algae on the sand?

[Rudimenta]

Growth is no issue with these fixtures, that's for sure, I want less growth and more colour now, adjusting my water parameters accordingly atm

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by jschultzbass

I ordered some of the new PacSun bulbs for mine. I'm going to try a couple different combos and let you guys know what I think!

Normally I'm an ATI fan using ATI fixtures and bulbs but am excited to try the PacSun combo.

Hello,

Are you able to provide your thoughts on the PacSun tubes?

Thanks in anticipation

[jschultzbass]

Well I put in 2 crystal blue (similar to ATI Blue+) and 2 Spectra+ (similar to ATI Coral+). SO far I like them a lot but can't see too much difference between them and the ATI bulbs. Prices are similar so I will probably stick with PacSun bulbs to match the lamp (and customer support). I have a Pigment Int (similar to ATI Purple+) as well that I'll swap in this weekend and take out a Spectra to see if it looks better to the eye. Below is a picture (cell phone). Picture was taken with all LED channels at 100% and lamp power at 50%.

[jschultzbass]

By the way..how do you add pictures in line instead of doing the attachment thing?

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by jschultzbass

By the way..how do you add pictures in line instead of doing the attachment thing?

Thanks for your feedback. I am not surprised you have not noticed any difference because both brands of tubes have very similar spectrum. I am curious to know if the PS tubes will hold their brightness as long as ATI tubes. I guess yit is too early for you to comment on this aspect.

To add pictures, you need to upload them to a photo site like Photo bucket, then click the "insert image" icon while creating a post and add your picture's URL address, which Photo Bucket provides you with.

The cost of PS tubes is 50% less than that of ATI tubes at the minute in the UK thanks to a 20% promotion by Pacific Sun. I am going to get quite a few of them as soon as my local reseller receives his stock from Poland.

regards

[Pacific Sun RD]

They are similar but not the same :-)
Very good combo for 8pcs tube lamp (like Diuna T5) is 6pcs Crystal Blue and 2pcs Pigment INT+.
It give very good color rendering(because Pigment INT is much more intensive then Purple Plus) and have overal lower CT.

[DiscusHeckel]

Originally Posted by Pacific Sun RD

They are similar but not the same :-)
Very good combo for 8pcs tube lamp (like Diuna T5) is 6pcs Crystal Blue and 2pcs Pigment INT+.
It give very good color rendering(because Pigment INT is much more intensive then Purple Plus) and have overal lower CT.

What does "CT" mean?

I have ordered 3 X Crystal Blue and 3 X Spectra Plus from my reseller in the UK. Will your tubes last as long as ATI tubes do? Hopefully they will .

I have never been keen on ATI purple plus or KZ Fiji purple. I find the purple/pink hue overbearing

What would be your recommended 6-tube combination?

regards

[Pacific Sun RD]

Hi,
CT mean colour temperature :-)
Our T5 tubes will have similar life time like all 3 and 5 phosphorus T5 tubes from ATI/KZ/AM.
I'm not sure what kind of light you like, but I suggest two combo
- 1:1 Spectra Plus and Crystal Blue(like you choosed)
- 4pcs Crystal Blue, 2pcs Pigment INT(if you preffer deeper blue light - better corals pigmentation but slower growth). Pigment INT will not give pink/purple light and not wanted algae boom - and this second combo could be very suprsing for you also.

[outeastreef]

Hi, Przemek I would like to ask you which pacific sun light would you recommend for a 220 gallon tank with sps coral the tank is 72 inches x 24 inches x 30 inches. I have a 5 inch dsb so from the water line to the sand is 25 inches. Thanks Greg

[JPMagyar]

Not that this is scientific, but at some point you begin to ask yourself if there isn't more to the issue then first meets the eye . . . is it possible the LEDs are a problem?

Originally Posted by alle81

I say .... I used my pandora 145W for a specific year and the tub has never shone, despite having carefully followed the acclimation then a slow increase of the percentage.
I want to clarify that I have not lost animals, but I tell you with certainty that the Acropora were not 100%.
I sell the pandora and I mount an ati 8X24w and magically in the span of two months the exact Acropora show signs of recovery, both as a color of growth.
the bath immediately to a new maturation which is still carrying on, but is also seen with the naked eye a significant decrease of zooxanthellae inside the fabric, and consequently a better coloring.
my conclusion, and that if you want to breed lps, soft, Pocillopora and Montipora-and-Seriatopora stilophore (without major outlets coloring) this ceiling light (I speak of the S 145W) is fine, but if we are maniacs of gaudy colors of Acropora, my advice and keep up the good old narrow metal halide or t5.
this is my experience in a year of pandora S145W.

Originally Posted by goreef170

Hi Przemek,
I need you expert opinion...
I have had my lights for 5 months now, and still trying to figure out what light intensity to use. As of now i'm struggling with my sps corals. Most are turning brown with little to no polyp extension.
My water chemistry is good. test my water 3 x a week. So please lets assume its the lights.

Originally Posted by Fant4

Hi all

I have a fixture T5 + LED Pandora Hyperion S2 2x145W + 4x39W T5, my aquarium is 90 x 60 x 60 cm all sps dedicated and some lps in the bottom (photo attackment)...

I'am not satisfied (i have that fixture for about 7 months) because i can not get colors and growth on sps corals that i have before, despite water parameters ​​are more than good (po4 0.05 no3 1) and wants to know if something is wrong in the setting and want some advice..., now the fixture is setting like that: all the LEDs at 60% + T5 for 10/12 hours day in total. Now don't have growth and colors (all corals turn brown).

Software version: 1.1a

Thanks and sorry for my english

Filippo

Originally Posted by Benar

I had a table brown out and go absolutely horrible when using low % power settings. When I noticed it start branching upwards I realised something was up.. Raised the fixture up to spread light evenly and increased power to 100%. Either:
a) my fixtures a dud (possible.) or has deteriated.
b) there's huge inconsistency between the same fixtures. or
c) I go MH.
I will report if my brown outs return. I'm not in the camp that 14-17k tubes are bad for corals Przemyk, so many tanks include these in their t5 or hybrid setups and have results. We only have 4 bulbs to rely on though as opposed to 6 for eg; ATI hybrid or 8 for lots of others.

and, of course, you can add me to the list of folks with a similar experience.

[Braver69]

Joe you hated the light from the get go. You wanted to return it and could not due to the no return policy. You stated multiple times you thought it was a mistake to get this fixture since you dont think leds work for reef tanks. Then you got the light and decided to run it at power while covering the leds on your bed, which caused the led light covers to burn and melt, which you then could not believe would happen.

You then proceeded to use the light over your tank even tho you had doubts about it. Then almost immediately said you dont think the light is bright enough and said it had very low par at full output and produced a picture of your tank that was very dim saying it was at full power. Of course owners of the lamp doubted the truth to your picture and those having trouble with their tanks seized on that as the reason their tanks were having issue.

Then after at most 3 weeks you took the lights down and proclaimed leds suck and halides are the best. You then went on the Pacific Sun forum and ranted that leds cant possibly sustain corals cause they are flawed and they flicker due to the fact they are pwm at a high hertz. At that time I pointed out and others pointed out all lights flicker even halides due to the modulating nature of AC current, so obviously that has no effect on coral. I dont know why you feel the need to take on some crusade against led lighting, but if you hate it then dont use it. No need to come on a forum thread and stir up trouble and tell people that their is no way they can have success with their light cause you did not.

I like my Pacific Sun fixture and it works good for me.

Originally Posted by JPMagyar

Not that this is scientific, but at some point you begin to ask yourself if there isn't more to the issue then first meets the eye . . . is it possible the LEDs are a problem?


and, of course, you can add me to the list of folks with a similar experience.

[Rudimenta]

One thing JP is likely correct on is that most people are running the led power too low and you need more par. However I understand that others warn against this as the chance for bleaching is likely higher then browning and for sure more devastating.

Growth I have is good to my liking, I am not knowledgeable on which corals can achieve what growth rates, but most my frags/small colonies have around an inch growth since April.

Colors, yes very hard to say, first of all when looking at an MH tank and the same tank with a Led fixture will look totally different to start off with. Personally I am aiming for more color but trying to work the water parameters for this not the lighting.

[jdamon]

Have had my Pandora S 3x 145 watt 4x 39 watt T5 going for a little bit now... I have had a similar experience to Rudimenta so far. Got a bunch of frags and small colonies in April, and everything is growing well. I have slowly ramped the power up to 45% and have not decided if I want to go any further. PAR is low from Apogee meter, but i feel there is enough PAR as everything is growing pretty fast. Not sure the PAR meter is particularly accurate with LED. I know there is a conversion, but not sure that is accurate either. The colors are another story though. For sure, the majority of the stuff in my tank, the color does not look as vibrant as the pictures of the same mother colonies (under MH). They don't look bad though either, so part of me is hoping that as the colonies mature, they will gain more color. Time will tell.

I still can not get a decent picture. I would like to try a top down box, but I am struggling with the white balance.

On a very positive note, my tank temp has not gotten out of hand with the house AC off and 90+ temps! No chiller needed

[Rudimenta]

Here a growth picture, i as Jdamon cant get the white balance right, really wish there would be a bloody setting on cameras for taking tank shots...

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by Rudimenta

Here a growth picture, i as Jdamon cant get the white balance right, really wish there would be a bloody setting on cameras for taking tank shots...

How about acans? I believe you mentioned you were having some difficulty. Have you lost acans that you were keeping on the sand?

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by Braver69

Joe you hated the light from the get go.

I spent over $3000 for two lights; I'm not sure how that qualifies as "hating" a light. I think more correctly I was afraid of trying, and tried to back out of the experiment at the last second.

Originally Posted by Braver69

You stated multiple times you thought it was a mistake to get this fixture since you dont think leds work for reef tanks. Then you got the light and decided to run it at power while covering the leds on your bed, which caused the led light covers to burn and melt, which you then could not believe would happen.

Yes, I like to think I have been totally honest from the beginning so anyone reading my comments can interpret them for what they are, a highly biased opinion, but at the same time I hope people will look at my long history on RC to know that I am human and make mistakes but I do not lie and try VERY VERY hard to come to the "truth". I also use the best facts I can to demonstrate why I believe what I believe. As to burning the bed I would point out again that I am completely open with regards to my human foibles and the fact that the bed burned proves LEDs get hot to the touch but such heat says nothing about the radiative output of a light source. The heating element on a stove glows hot, but it could no sooner over light a tank than a brick.

Originally Posted by Braver69

You then proceeded to use the light over your tank even tho you had doubts about it. Then almost immediately said you dont think the light is bright enough and said it had very low par at full output and produced a picture of your tank that was very dim saying it was at full power..

I still have the lights and can reproduce the PAR readings which I stated clearly at the time. The lights have VERY low PAR output over most of their area of coverage and this is corroborated by others online as well.

Originally Posted by Braver69

Then after at most 3 weeks you took the lights down and proclaimed leds suck and halides are the best.

I put the lights up on January 31st, and took them down on March 18th. You can check my thread for posts and photos showing the two dates. That is 7 weeks during which time I documented demonstrable loss in symbiodinium in the tissue of several corals with macro photos. How long was I supposed to allow my corals to lose color before deciding the light change was the cause?

Originally Posted by Braver69

You then went on the Pacific Sun forum and ranted that leds cant possibly sustain corals cause they are flawed and they flicker due to the fact they are pwm at a high hertz. At that time I pointed out and others pointed out all lights flicker even halides due to the modulating nature of AC current, so obviously that has no effect on coral.

I would disagree with your choice of the word "rant". I merely pointed out facts as I am doing here. As to comparing PWM to AC variability you are completely not understanding the two if you honestly think they are similar. Here is a post I made on LEDs in general that may help explain the science a little better:

Originally Posted by JPMagyar

Light produced from an LED is NOT the same as light produced from metal halide or fluorescent lighting. We know precious little about how symbiodinium differ in their reactions to light from LED sources as few if any scientific papers have yet to be written on the subject.

Most light we are familiar with comes from hot gases or hot pieces of metal that give off "excited" photons. The spectrum produced is broad in nature as the photons have many different wavelengths. That spectrum is not identical to the spectrum of sunlight, but it is broad in nature.

LEDs are Light Emitting Diodes. They use a microscopic "junction" called a PN junction. These "junctions" have a "band gap" or "forward energy gap". That "gap" determines the wavelength of the photon produced and does not change. LEDs by their nature produce photons of almost identical wavelength. LEDs do not produce a broad spectrum of wavelengths. In addition most dimming of LED light is done with Pulse Width Modulation. What that means is that the LED sends out a burst of maximum intensity for a fraction of a second and then turns completely off and the frequency at which that occurs determines the "brightness" of the LED. So imagine a fire hydrant that turns on for 1 second versus a sprinkler that runs for an hour. We don't know if symbiodinium react to the on/off fire hose the same as it does to a continuously running sprinkler.

Light is highly complex and comes in many many forms. It is a wave and it is a particle. It can be visible and it can be invisible. The point is LED light is NOT the same as metal halide light and we have little knowledge on how light from LEDs may or may not change the way symbiodinium react. Many advanced reefers have a LOT of experience in seeing real world differences in the way corals react to different light sources.

Also, LED light is directional. If you hold a basic light bulb above your head aside from telling the world you may have a great idea, that light bulb will broadcast light in all directions around you. LED light is directional like the beam of a flashlight. So much so that it creates "glitter lines" even at low intensity. The difference becomes more pronounced when you start to combine bulbs with reflectors. It is much more difficult to "surround" your corals with light when using most modern LED fixtures as compared to "surrounding" your corals with light when you use pairs of metal halide bulbs in good reflectors or groups of bulbs using good T5 reflectors. This above all else seems to impact coral growth as the shaded areas in LED lit tanks quickly become apparent when compared to the more even results seen in metal halide tanks. Some of the best lit LED tanks are overcoming this problem by adding far more LEDs in total than the first fixtures had. Some even begin to approach the wattage of traditional light sources in their endeavors to even out light distribution.

In any case directionality is another way that LED light differs from metal halide or fluorescent lighting.

In the end this is a hobby and you should enjoy the light you prefer. I have tried LED and prefer metal halide.

Photosynthetic Efficiencies of LEDs: Results of Short Term Exposure to LED Lights

The radiometric power of a photon matters not in photosynthesis - a blue photon (with high radiometric power) will drive photosynthesis just as well as a photon of lesser energy (say, a red photon.) So, it would seem that the issue is settled. It is not. The adage 'a photon is a photon' is true when discussing light production by various light sources, but it is not correct when considering how different light wavelengths (or bandwidths) promote photosynthesis.

EDIT: I would also note that you failed to remark on my earlier post wherein 5 individuals from around the world are all reporting the same experience: an apparent loss of SPS color while using Pac Sun LEDs. How many people need to speak up before someone says maybe just maybe there is something not right?

[Rudimenta]

Originally Posted by JPMagyar

How about acans? I believe you mentioned you were having some difficulty. Have you lost acans that you were keeping on the sand?

3 words: half black angel

Now how to catch it!?!!

[Rudimenta]

JP has the shallow 75 watt panels if I remember correctly, for my setup that would not be enough my tank is 60cm/24" deep. Others report success running these babies at around 50%, while I run at 90... Each tank is different, I think one of the keys to my "success" to my "blasting" the corals is my 25% heavy clouding I have on... Just like nature par runs crazy within even hrs of the day.. But again par is not everything many sps corals grow at 200 par perfectly fine..plus par meters are notoriously bad with led. My par readings are 700-800 at highest corals and 150-200 at the bottom but it's a seneye and I take those measurements with a grain of salt!

Can't believe you haven't sold them JP, how much?? Would love one on a frag tank

[Braver69]

Joe 5 people is a small sample out of the many fixtures Pacific Sun has sold. People struggle with sps corals no matter the lighting they use. So many variables and so little knowledge about them. So much more to coral then just lighting affects corals, like nutrients, chemistry and even livestock. It's all about balance and if its out of whack things go down hill fast. The only thing I agree with you on leds is the fact they have shading issues, very hard to get them to surround a coral on all sides.

Thats why I use t5's to supplement the led lighting to help fill in areas where the leds miss. Just remember their is a difference from sharing your experiance and being on a crusade against leds. I mean even when you got TOTM you even mentioned you get over zealous about lighting. If led is so bad then why do so many succeed with it then? I like to read about people having success with their tank and sharing what they did to create that success, not trying to find failure in what others do.

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by Braver69

Joe 5 people is a small sample out of the many fixtures Pacific Sun has sold. People struggle with sps corals no matter the lighting they use. So many variables and so little knowledge about them. So much more to coral then just lighting affects corals, like nutrients, chemistry and even livestock. It's all about balance and if its out of whack things go down hill fast. The only thing I agree with you on leds is the fact they have shading issues, very hard to get them to surround a coral on all sides.

Thats why I use t5's to supplement the led lighting to help fill in areas where the leds miss. Just remember their is a difference from sharing your experiance and being on a crusade against leds. I mean even when you got TOTM you even mentioned you get over zealous about lighting. If led is so bad then why do so many succeed with it then? I like to read about people having success with their tank and sharing what they did to create that success, not trying to find failure in what others do.

Try to find 5 remarks about coral color loss and not coral death with the new ATI Powermodules . .

But, in any case . . .


Point well taken.


I promise, henceforth, to never mention Pac Sun individually and to try my best to "tone down" my anti-LED rhetoric.


Honestly though my real frustration is that I believe in my heart of hearts that LEDs are hurting the hobby because they are not simple to use and are problematic for beginning reefers so when I see 50% of folks jumping on the LED bandwagon (as shown by a recent poll here on RC) I feel a pressing need to point out the potential pitfalls while at the same time showing how simple and great T5 fixtures can be. None the less, I will endeavor to focus on the positives of T5 or metal halide versus the negatives of LEDs.

Thank you for your civil admonishment.

Joe

[Rudimenta]

I have seen an ATI power module (talking about a small sample) disaster right here in Ho Chi, ATI is more T5 plus Led less Led plus T5 as you know

I agree partially with your led remarks, but if you compare problems caused by lighting and problems caused by other factors I think there are better crusades to take

[Wolfgang]

Just received and Installed two of the Pacific Sun T-5 Bulbs, a PS Spectra+, and a PS Crystal Blue, along side a ATI Coral Plus and a ATI Blue Plus, in a Four Bulb ATI Sunpower Fixture.
Visually, The ATI Blue plus looks a bit darker blue than the Crystal blue. I'll update how the SPS do in a few weeks.
Bulbs were Shipped fast, two days, Packed well with no issues.
-Wolfgang

[Pacific Sun RD]

Originally Posted by Wolfgang

Just received and Installed two of the Pacific Sun T-5 Bulbs, a PS Spectra+, and a PS Crystal Blue, along side a ATI Coral Plus and a ATI Blue Plus, in a Four Bulb ATI Sunpower Fixture.
Visually, The ATI Blue plus looks a bit darker blue than the Crystal blue. I'll update how the SPS do in a few weeks.
Bulbs were Shipped fast, two days, Packed well with no issues.
-Wolfgang

Good to hear that - we hope to see your review soon ;-)