The way I approached buying my SOL's was sort of trial basis. I only ordered one the first time, I was 90% certain I would need a second with a 48" tank but with shipping being free for one or two I decided to see what one unit looked like. It took about five minutes to decide one was not enough and ordered the second. This same principal will work for anyone even if you had to start with say 3 or 4 and add units if needed.

kinda my plan as well. I"ll start with 3 and see how that goes. Problem I have is that the tank may suffer before I can afford to buy more.:razz:

Ask sbux for a V.I.P. discount card... :lol:

Just wondering what is the difference between one 3w LED and the other?
Other then dimming and fancy controls what is the difference between AI sols and these
http://www.aquatraders.com/EVO-48-LE...ht-p/56234.htm
?
They have single fixtures 5" wide and double fixtures 9.25" wide. If everyone is running their "fancy" LED's at 35%-50% anyway?
Really want to know what is the difference. thx

Just leave your existing lights in place, when the new ones arrive just get a bunch of people together to do a mock up and hold the lights over the tank for you as you sit back say "okay a little to the left, now up..no no the other up, you know down" All the time adjusting intensity to see how you like it. If you decide you need more units the original light is still there until the other unit arrives and swap out then. :biggrin:

shut.up!

Oh, absolutely. I currently have a canopy that can just lift off. It will go to the side until I'm sure the new lights can maintain color. If not, they go back on until I can buy more units.

But I'll try to run closer to 80%+ on the whites to try and keep intensity while raising high enough to keep coverage.

My lights are hung under my canopy pretty much sitting on the tank brace, so mine are pretty close to the surface, which makes them super bright. This in turn has caused me to have the whites about 40% and the blues close to 90.

If I had a way to have them up higher, I'd probably run them higher just to get the same level of brightness.

Holy look like night time in there? What's your white to blue ratio?

the spectrum doesn't change on LED's only there intensity. and at there rated live they are usaly still at 85% of there new intensity. of course different brands/models will have different numbers.

as for the life span, running them at 50% or 100% will make no difference on life span if the junction temp is the same, so in other words if you can keep them below there max junction temp even at 100% the life will be longer. this is why it is very important to think out your cooling (heatsink/fan) setup when building your own LEDs. If you buying them you would assume the company did there home work to be able to allow them to be run at 100% while keeping the junction temp under the max.

Steve