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Recently there have been quite a few led lighting options coming on the market emphasizing a slimline form factor.\u00a0 Seems the goal has been to simplify the designs to have less moving parts and more passive cooling while ensuring\u00a0 the proper spectrum and uniform area coverage.\u00a0 Thanks to our friends at GHL, I have been provided with three of their latest Mitras Lightbar 3s to try out on one of my systems.<\/p>\n
The Shipment<\/h2>\n
The system I am planning to install is the GHL Mitras Lightbar3<\/a> on my 40 Breeder under my 80 Rimless Frag tank.\u00a0 The challenge with that system is the lack of overhead space available.\u00a0 Having a slimline form factor was a huge benefit in this application compared to the system I had originally which required me to rig a custom mounting solution with some PVC piping. That was not ideal since the OEM mounts didn\u2019t fit in the 6-8\u2033 space above the tank and made them highly susceptible to salt spray and corroded the paint right off the aluminum body.<\/p>\n GHL provided the following package:<\/p>\n Though GHL normally recommends 2 lamps for my 40 Breeder, I chose the 3 most Reef related combinations to see what is possible.\u00a0 The 3 lamps had a full range from 12,000 Kelvin to 27,000 Kelvin CCT.\u00a0 I liked that GHL provided the color temperature range since I am an old schooler who was used to using metal halides which the bulbs were sold based on the color temperatures.\u00a0 The classic ones I have had great success with were the 14,000 kelvin and 20,000 kelvin color temperature bulbs on my old mixed reefs. The existing livestock in my 40 Breeder mostly consist of corallimorpharia, bubble tip anemones and chalice corals. I arranged the light bars in the following position from Rear to Front so that the whitest color temperature is in the center.<\/p>\n The GHL team provided me with 3 types of lamp mounts, Default angle brackets that come with the lamps, the Flat Holding Bracket<\/a> for flush mount, a cable Hanging Kit<\/a> for ceilings and the Mitras-SLB-Holder<\/a>. From the package I chose the Mitras-SLB-Holder which allows me to mount the lamps on the rim of the tank and raise it to the maximum height in the stand.\u00a0 This configuration provided the best clearance above the waterline reducing salt spray contamination and improved accessibility.<\/p>\n If you want to run the lights at 100% at all times then no controller is necessary. It will just be ON\/OFF at full spectrum at 100% intensity. But for dimming some sort of controller is needed.\u00a0 What I was provided was the Profilux Light WiFI controller<\/a> though the light bars can be also be integrated into the full Profilux 4 controller<\/a> ecosystem. The instructions provided point to resources<\/a> on the GHL website.\u00a0 Though there are 2 possible ways to setup the Mitras Light Bar 3, I focused on the GHL Connect phone app so make sure to select the information tab for that on the page.\u00a0 The directions were pretty straight forward but my personal preference of setting the spectrum is by using the Color temperature slider the following Process after you configure the lighting system to Lightbars 3 via the wizard.<\/p>\nLighting Selection<\/h2>\n
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Mounts<\/h2>\n
Setting Up<\/h2>\n
Initial Observations<\/h2>\n
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