Well .. I got my PAR meter today. I have not gotten a chance to play much yet, but I wanted to start a thread about it for the people who are interested in it and/or having me stop by to measure their bulbs.

If you do want me to come over and measure your bulbs I would be more than happy to! I would love if you gave me a 5$ or 10$ donation (or whatever). I will take this $$$ and put it into a pool until there is enough to order another PAR meter to just pass around the club. Don't feel like you HAVE to give anything though. Its my pleasure just to come look at your tanks!!!

I'm still figuring all this out and I have a couple of questions, but here is the info I have gathered so far. I TOOK most of this directly from post on RC.

The meter I have is a Apogee Instruments http://www.apogee-inst.com/bqm_spec.htm - QMSS-ELEC Quantum meter with sensor. Calibrated for electric lamps.

First, what's a PAR meter

A PAR meter measures light intensity. For example, in the sun the meter read about 1600 PAR, while the 250 watt bulb over the clams measures about 350 right above the water. This meter is calibrated for electric lamps. There is a conversion to use, I think based on bulb Kelvin rating, because the light frequency affects the measurement.

A PAR meter can be used to compare lighting systems, see the impact of an upgrade, etc. It can also be used to detect degradation in your bulbs, based on a change in intensity. Again, if anyone has specific information about that, feel free to post.

The instructions are included, and it is VERY easy to use.

What should I do with it?
Get measurements from anywhere in your tank ... from one spot, or many different spots. The probe is water proof and the sensor is fully submergible. In fact you will get a much better idea of how much light you are providing to your corals by taking in tank measurements. Water clarity plays a huge role in the amount of light reaching your animals, as such you can find large differences from one tank to another even when using the same lighting.

As time goes on, that we can give light requirements of certain corals in terms of PAR rather than high, medium or low light. It really helps other to understand what lighting you have a coral under when you can tell them the coral is under an Ushio bulb receiving 380 PAR.

By the way, the light sensor is attached to the meter with a cord. You can hold the probe over the water, and the meter NOT over the water, so the meter won't get dropped it.

from apogee:

As you can see from the website, the Apogee sensor does have an imperfect spectral response. This is due to the difficulties of getting silicon to absorb the entire range of visible radiation. As a result, we calibrate our sensors to specific light sources to correct for the spectral variation. This works very well for plant researcher's who use a limited number of light types in their greenhouses.

Given the number of lights available in the aquarium industry we can not possible go through and calculate the correction factor for each of the different lamps. However, Joe Burger is also interested in quantifying aquarium lighting, wanted to get correction factors and we have supported his studies. You can find his results and correction factors on the web at http://www.cnidarianreef.com/lamps.cfm - http://www.cnidarianreef.com/lamps.cfm.



AGAIN
Great site with bulb and PAR info. http://www.cnidarianreef.com/lamps.cfm - http://www.cnidarianreef.com/lamps.cfm

My first Q ... Joe Burgers website is very clear, but how does this relate to sanjays bulb data? He (sanjay) doesn't list a straight PAR value.

Ok I know Shane is first on the list for a visit and I will bring it with me to Jeff and Brads on Friday. Anyone else?

Man that was a long post with lots of opprotunity for spelling errors... Yes  I did that one on purpose.

dnellans wrote: i'd love to have you come over corey!  i'm very interested to see how people with a LOT of power compacts compare to those with 1 metal halide...  a donation is waiting in sugarhouse.

And I have a LOT of PC's on my 75 gal tank.  I would gladly donate and would definitely like to enourage you to come by mine and Steve Lopez's.

I get home most days at 4pm and am home most weekends now.  Just call ahead or schedule a time!

Home phone: 801-282-2744

Cell phone: 801-554-4641

TIA!

I would also appreciate a visit for the reading as well as your opinions on lighting improvements.  I am running pc only and am ready to make improvements.  I am in WVC near Dkle.  Willing to contribute as well!

Corey -

Next week would be just fine - just PM me and let me know what works for you. I'll pay for your gas money. It can't be cheap driving all over salt lake doing us favors

No Doubt! It will be fun to see all these tanks. Shane thanks for the offer of gas $$$, not necessary though. 

05/13 -- Jeff & Brad

05/16�20 � ShaneS / Kevin (Sandy)  Chris / Dave(dnellans) (sugarhouse) 

05/23-27 �  Susan (on my way home) /

05/30-03 �

06/13-17 �

Corey,

I would love for you to come by and test mine.  Susan

These are the results that Corey and I came up with in my tank.

Putting the meter directly under my 150 w oceanlight/ab20k the meter read 1310. (btw my bulbs are only two weeks old)

On the water surface about 6 inces away it read 650.

By my sps , about 8 inches underwater and 12-14 inches from the lights it read 150,  but when I turned off my T-5 lights it read 80, so the T-5 supplimentation does make a difference.  This is what I really wanted to know , so I hope to see improvement in my growth now that I have the T-5's

Brad, are the T-5s actinic or daylight?

[edit:  never mind... I just read your sig ]

Bulb on the left is a bit older. This is conformation that I got my bulbs mixed up when swapping them around a couple of months ago.

I am running 20K -- 14K -- 20K DE 250w ... Right now I am sure my water quality is very poor (IMO). I am running my old Remora Pro skimmer that is about 1/2 of what it should be for this tank. Not running ozone on this tank.

I'll post my 60g later today.

Awesome Corey!  I love those pictures.

That would be great Corey, but dont make a special trip just for me, just if you are close by .  I have a feeling that you are going to be a busy man in the next few weeks.

Your maps of your tanks are great.   It's nice to know what kind of light you are really getting in certain areas of your tank.

ShaneS / Kevin (KeoDog) (Sandy)  (Thursday) starting about 6 - 6:30 pm at shanes house ... Does this work for both of you?

Chris / Dave(dnellans) (sugarhouse) (Friday) starting about 6 - 6:30 pm at shanes house ... Does this work for both of you?

Back to Jeffs house on Monday or Tuesday ... Does this work for you Jeff?

Depending on how busy my week gets .. I may have to kick one of these to next week. I dont think so though.

Please PM me with your Address, City, Zip code and Phone number ... that way I can do a mapquest map and call you when i get lost. Also any notable features on your house would be good.

Herriman is south of South Jordan and west of Riverton.  Almost straight across the valley from the point of the mountain (State prison).  Herriman used to be a little tiny quiet town (real close to Copperton, I think), now it covers a LOT of ground!  I think it covers from 126th South to the mountain!

Good luck, and thanks for all your work!

2x400 Watt EVC halides, 2 54W "Blue" T5's and 2 54W Actinics. Thanks for coming out Corey!

coreyk wrote: Again ... I forgot to write down the lighting setup for this tank. So, Hopefully Kevin will fill in the blanks on # of bulbs and wattage. It is VHO and PCs. 72g Bow Front

440w VHO (2 actintic, 2 10k)   and   96w actintic pc.

coreyk wrote: Kevins 300g ... Running 4 175w halides and 4x36" VHO. What are the dimentions of this tank Kevin?

8' L x 24" H x 30.5" W

Thanks again for coming over Corey.

I was kind of looking at what tanks are on this thread and I think that tanks that are running ozone are getting better penetration to the sand bed.  Can this be confirmed?  I know ozone is supposed to clarify the water, and I would think the PAR meter would be a good way to confirm this.  A setup with the same bulbs, before and after running ozone would be the best way to confirm this.  Anyone going to start running ozone in the near future?

Fax

Alright fine.  You talked me into it.  You supply the ozone unit and I'll supply the tank.

Adam

Took me a while to notice that Corey had put my tank on this thread, thanks again for your time and effort Corey.  I am running two metal halides (I beleive they are magnetic pulse start ballasts but not positive) with AB 10k bulbs (supposedly more of a 13k color) with two vho actinic's.  The biggest question that I had was the disparity in the par reading from one side of the tank to the other, the right side is a lot stronger.  The only thing that I can attribute it to is about four months after I got my lights I had one of the ballasts stop working and the Aquarium promptly gave me a new one, so could four months really have that drastic of an effeft on PAR reading or is there normally that large of a difference in ballasts.

Preston

phuntsman wrote: I am running two metal halides (I beleive they are magnetic pulse start ballasts but not positive) with AB 10k bulbs

250 watt?

Sorry, yes they are 250 W HQI.

Preston