Sorry, but I haven’t had the time just yet to take all the proper readings. When I do, probally this weekend, I will only be taking readings with the lights just how I use them. In other words, no data on just the blue LEDs on OR just the white LEDs on. I took some quick readings the other day and with the pumps on, it really makes the readings jump. So, I will take both kinds of readings, with pumps ON and with pumps OFF.
Does anybody know what the ideal par readings for SPS corals might be? Just wondering out loud.
Not going to be much help with this post, but some food for thought. That is like asking what the ideal temperature for a fish is. If the fish is from a reef look at reef temps if the fish is from the Delaware bay or the arctic it is a different story.
Ever heard of deep water Acropora? There is such a thing and it won’t tolerate the light which some corals exposed to tropic sun at low tide will. To get a general idea of waht I am talking about take a par reading right about the surface of your tanks water and right below it. Watch the numbers leap up and down as you raise and submerge the probe. Now compare the bottom of your tank and the top.
You can find averages, but experience with what a healthy looks like and proper placement may be more helpful…
John I’m still playing with my LEDs also but when I had the MH over the 180 most of all the corals did ALOT better on the bottom. I seem to get so many bleach up top until the MH were over a year old. 14k Phoinix
:: I’m checking my w/c water right now, and just waiting for the temp to come up…
thanks John, besides what the “numbers” say… is everything else still doing ok, i know before you said there was some small issues with coral, but other than that… still good? any growth to note with the new setup?
The 2 montis are both doing much better, think they just needed more time to acclimate to the new lights. And the growth is going fine, I can see new growth on just about all the corals. No doubt, I will be keeping the new LED setup.
Here are the first readings that were taken with all the lights on, which include 2 VHO attinics and the LED’s (36 white and 36 blues) and all the flow in action.
With the pumps all on, the par readings jump around, so I recorded the highest numbers.
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Here are the first readings that were taken with all the lights on, which include 2 VHO attinics and the LED’s (36 white and 36 blues) and all the flow in action.
With the pumps all on, the par readings jump around, so I recorded the highest numbers.
Hope you can make out the numbers.
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looks fantastic! those numbers are great and very similar to mine on my 75, which is much smaller than yrs. what’s the tank size and how high are the lights away from the w/l?
The tank is a 180 gal 6’L x 2’W x2’H. So the readings were taken at these heights, waterline above water, 6"’ 12" and 20". The last level put the par meter just about on the top of my sand bed.
Tim, the LED’s all have optics on them.
Bill, sorry, but I never measured my MH.
I will take some readings tomorrow without the pumps on at the same heights.
You have to look at more then PAR with LED, it’s reported that LEDs can have a higher PUR then MH or T5HO
But then again that would depend on the emiters you are using , after Ken’s presentation it has driven me to research on Wave lengths of the 420 and 455 peaks, You could end up with double the PAR readings and not having peaks in the 420 or 455 range and then have half the PAR with double the peaks in 420 or 455 range. and have the same PUR
So had to do a w/c todayand I took some par readings with the pumps all off. This in turn lowered my water levels. The distance from the Led’s to the top of the water line was 11.5 inches.
In the first test the distace was 10 inches
It did not change to much from the 1.5" increase on height. I can’t wait to test my par out on my tank. I am very curious since I have an all in one setup and the reflectors for the MH are fairly small imo
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