- Today on "BRStv Investigates",
how well will a nearly one foot by one foot
diffused panel of LEDs
effectively cover a two foot by two foot area?
How about two over a two foot by four foot area?
Using the Philips Coral Care Gen 2 LED,
we're gonna be answering that question
with some data,
but more importantly,
we're gonna give you the settings
that we recommend
to get the most out of this large panel of light.
(upbeat music)
Hi, I'm Randy
with this Friday's "BRStv Investigates"
where we experiment on our own tanks,
so you don't have to experiment on yours
and today we find out
if Philips,
who's been manufacturing lighting solutions
for well over a hundred years,
can use the vast knowledge they've gained
and apply that to reef tank lighting
with the Philips CoralCare Gen 2,
which they've specifically designed to provide
the most natural reef appearance possible
both for our corals energy needs
and as close to natural light patterns
as you would see in the ocean.
I can tell you right now
that Philips' choice
of a passive cooling approach,
which makes for an absolutely dead silent fixture
with minimal to nearly no maintenance
for moving parts
and super simple two-colored channel control
already has it winning me over
as a solid reef lighting contender
but the real question today will be
if the roughly 11 inch by 12 inch panel of 68 LEDs
can meet our goals for spread, spectrum
and PAR to create stunning tanks like these?
That journey begins with our test
that will determine the Gen 2 CoralCare spread
and how well the panel of LEDs
with diffusion plate distributes the PAR output
within our 24 inch by 24 inch testing area
and then we apply that data
to our two foot by four foot 120-gallon tank
to help give you a better idea
of how many Coral Care LEDs you should consider
for your tank,
how high to mount them
for the best spread performance possible
and how we would recommend spacing
more than one fixture
to provide the widest coverage possible.
The first aspect of spread
that we look at is to determine
the coral care's optimal mounting height,
meaning how high off the top of the water
can we mount the light
that finds a balance between maintaining
the most amount of light
inside a 24 square inch testing area,
reduces any warm spots directly under the light
and spreads the most amount apart evenly
from the center to the outer edges.
We started with the coral care suspended
at six inches above the water line
with both blue and white channels set to 100%,
which provides the maximum output possible,
then tested our standard 36 grid of PAR points,
which is just six inches deep in the tank
where we found a center average of 754
and an outer ring of 298 for a total average
across the top of the tank of 417.
With our goal in mind
to reduce that hotspot center
and more evenly distribute the PAR
over the entire 24 by 24 inches,
we continued to raise the coral care
off the water inch by inch
until we stop the test
with it mounted at nine inches.
Here instead of a 60% difference
between the center and outer PAR averages
that we saw in the beginning,
we've now smoothed out the PAR distribution
to 503 in the center and 296 in the outer ring
or now a more evenly distributed 41% difference
between the two.
That 41% difference, not the best LED we've tested
but nearly identical distribution
to the 8-Bulb T5,
making it one of the better options
and also making a nine inch mounting height
our recommendation for how high
we would use the Philips Coral Care
over our own tanks.
Now that we know our optimal mounting height
to wrap up today's spread discussion,
we take a quick look
at how many coral cares we recommend
and how to space them to cover the most area
as evenly as possible,
given the roughly 18 inch by 16 inch size
of the single coral care logically,
we can only mount one over our 24 by 24 inch cube
and two over 120-gallon two foot by four foot tank
keeping in mind that they are much heavier
than your average lighting option
and it's worth the extra thought
to mounting them securely.
Effectively spacing multiple coral cares
are also pretty easy because of their larger size
and actually by centering two of them evenly
over our 48 inch tank
and using our recommended color
and spectrum settings
I'm about to share with you next,
we tested an amazing 96% even coverage
from the 208 center to just 200 PAR
in the outer edges, 12 inches deep in the tank,
which is by far the most even distribution
we've ever tested for more than one fixture.
Up next, we take a look
at the Philips Coral Care spectrum offering
and adjust the available spectrum
in a way that makes the tank look awesome
but more importantly where we believe
it best provides the light energy
our corals need for both growth and coloration.
We then take that BRS recommended spectrum mix
and compare it to one of the most
historically successful spectrum blends
we've seen in the hobby,
being the ATI Blue Plus T5 bulb
and lastly, for spectrum testing,
before we share the coral care PAR data
and recommended settings,
we see how the glass diffusing plate transforms
each of the 68 LEDs
into one cohesive spectrum blend inside our tanks
in our dynamic spectrum blending test.
First, let's see what spectrum options
are available from the Philips LED
and out of the 68 total LEDs,
at least 44 of them fall
within 400 to 500 nanometers
which is typically the range we target
for creating a wide blue spectrum band,
however, unique to the coral care,
is how they are controlled
to achieve a more blue tank or a more white one.
That control is extremely simple
with only two sliders needed to make adjustments.
One is the overall intensity
while the other balances how much blue
or how much white you desire in your tank,
with the color temperature slider
directly in the center,
both blue and white channels
are being driven at 100%
and if you slide to the left,
the output of the blue channel goes down,
giving you a more white look
while conversely, sliding it to the right,
lowers the white channel output,
providing you with a bluer look.
Basically, all you need to do
is change the slider
to where your tank looks the best to you
and adjust the overall intensity
to meet your PAR goals.
It doesn't get much simpler than that.
With the light suspended
over one of our office tanks,
we adjusted the color slider
until the tank looked good to our eyes,
which we found at a 30% white
and 100% blue with the intensity at 100%
and when we compare that spectrum produced
by the historical gold standard,
ATI T5 Blue Plus bulb,
we see that it tracks pretty well
from 400 up to the coral care's peak at 445
and although it doesn't have
as much of the ratio as ATI
between 420 to 460,
still hits quite a bit of that entire range
in that wide blue 400 to 500
that we set out to achieve.
Up next is our "Dynamic Spectrum Testing",
where we take 10 spectrum measurements
under our 60-gallon test tank filled with water
while we watch for subtle shifts
or changes in the spectrum
with the coral care set to 100%
for both blue and white channels
as we cycle through
each of the 10 spectrum shots,
barring a subtle shift near 470
and some fluctuations in the green, yellow
and red ranges,
I would say
that the blending performance is right up there
with the similar sized LED panels
we've tested before
yet looking at the shimmer inside the tank,
there's very little color separation
visible to our eyes.
As we've seen so far,
the Philips Coral Care is not only easy
to size properly for most common sized tanks
but with only two controls to dial
in the spectrum and intensity,
it's also one of the easiest lights to set up
and run that we've had in our testing lab
and now it's time to fine-tune those settings
to help provide you with a starting point
for how to set one of these up over your own tank
and get a better understanding
of where the coral care performs best.
The settings I'm about to share are a culmination
of what we found
for our BRS recommended mounting height
of nine inches,
spacing recommendations
for using two Philips LEDs over a tank
like our four foot by two foot
and spectrum settings for a balance
between a great-looking tank
and our coral's needs.
Using that information,
all we need to do now is simply adjust
the overall intensity in the CoralCare app
until we reach our PAR goals
for two of the most common tank types out there,
either a lower-light demand tank
like this one filled with LPs Zoas
or soft corals that typically thrive
in PAR ranges between 75 to 150
throughout the tank or a tank like this,
that's jam-packed from side to side
and top to bottom
with higher PAR demand SPS corals
within 200 to 350 PAR.
I will say right up front,
if you like a bluer look to your tank
or a balance between blue and white,
like the spectrum that we recommended and tested,
there will be a significant trade-off
for PAR output by lowering the white channels
by 70% to achieve those blue colors.
As we're about to see in them both
the 60-gallon and 120-gallon test tanks
using our recommended settings,
there's plenty of PAR output
for a tank full of lower-light demand corals
yet under for our goal
for SPS-dominated systems.
That's not to say
that you couldn't hit those higher PAR numbers
if you chose to run your tank a little more
on the wider side to achieve higher PAR.
With that, we tested a single coral care
mounted at our recommended nine inches
above the 24 by 24 inch testing area
with the color set to 100% blue and 30% white
then we turned down the overall intensity
to 70% with the goal of filling the entire tank
from top to bottom
with PAR ranging between 75 to 150
and in doing so,
we found a stellar performance of 85% of the tank
or 92 out of 108 points within those PAR ranges,
85% of points at six, twelve
and eighteen inches deep in the tank
being right up there
with some of the best performances
that we've tested,
even beating out the gold standard, 8-Bulb T5.
To give you a better idea
of how the coral care performed
with our BRS recommended settings
set to an max overall intensity of 100%
using our SPS dominated goals of filling the tank
between 200 to 350,
you can see here by the three heat maps
that are 100% blue and 30% white spectrum choice
provides less PAR overall
throughout the top, middle and bottom of the tank,
where we were only able to achieve 43% of points
in that SPS zone.
As such, I would actually recommend this
as a very good option for mixed tanks
where you place more
of your higher PAR demand SPS corals
near the top of the tank.
However, if you desire a pretty overtly white look
in your tank,
you can increase the white channel
and very likely hit higher PAR numbers.
As for using two Philips Coral Care LEDs
over our 120-gallon tank,
twice the size of our 60-gallon,
again, we mounted them both
at the recommended nine inches above the water,
set them to 100% blue, 30% white
and adjusted the overall intensity
to target that 75 to 150 range,
with the overall intensity set to 60%,
we actually found a nearly identical performance
as the 60-gallon tank with 86%
or 171 out of 198 PAR data points at the top,
middle and bottom
in that PAR sweet spot
for LPS, softies and polyps.
We then cranked up the intensity
of our recommended spectrum to 100%
searching for those SPS dominated PAR numbers
between 200 to 350
and again, we saw a nearly equal output
to the 60-gallon test tank,
this time with 55% of the entire tank
reaching those SPS dominated ranges,
making for a very good option,
again for mixed tanks
with strategically placed SPS
and likely higher,
if more of the white channel is being utilized.
I actually think
that this is who the Philips Coral Care speaks to
in that for you mixed tanks lovers
or those who like a more natural
ocean-like appearance inside your tank,
this is definitely an option to get you there.
I also can't say enough
about how dead silent the coral care is
since there's zero mechanical noise
from cooling fans,
which is also pretty desirable
when you consider maintenance down the road,
especially if they're mounted in difficult
to access woods, ceilings or in-wall fish rooms,
there's something nice about knowing
that once it's installed,
I likely won't have to touch them again.
If that type of ultra low-maintenance approach
to reefing speaks to you like it does to me,
Ryan shares tips and tricks
to building a nearly self-sufficient ULM tank
in this video about lessons we learned
from trying it ourselves
and he's got the secret sauce that you need,
so check it out right here.