Reef Radiance LumenTek Pro180. I want to hear from you!!

[NanaReefer]

Title says it! What has been your experience thus far?!!

 

[NanaReefer]

What?! No one besides me running these lights? Well after 19 weeks running, here's what I know. These are some strong butt lights!! I'm running them on my 40B. Hung 11 1/2" from waters surface, 26" from the sand bed. A whole lotta light for this tank!! I've been playing with intensity A LOT! Discovered white lights past 20% max and Blues past 40% max and LPS look faded and my Favia & Birds Nest get bleached.

So today I started a new schedule. 8hrs, 30min ramping 20/30% max. Lunars ramping down from 20% to 0 from 5pm till 9pm.

So channels 1 & 2 on at 9am till 5pm. Lunars on at 5pm till 9pm, ramping down starting at 20%

 

[heathd.hd]

I have a 240 Nana and my stuff I doing great. I'm even getting good colors on my acan. Cell phone pics at max intensity in my program.

 

[NanaReefer]

Very nice!! What's your schedule, max percentage and hight from waters surface?

My only Acan

 

[heathd.hd]

Uh. I'm about 14" above water. Ramping to 30% white and 50 blue. I run alot of blue compared to white.

 

[zemuss]

I have this light and its great. I ramp to 30/50 in an 8 hour period.

 

[heathd.hd]

I run mine for 12 hrs. But mostly blues for the first and last 2 hrs. Only 30% white for 3 hrs.

 

[NanaReefer]

I have this light and its great. I ramp to 30/50 in an 8 hour period.

How far from the water surface & tank depth?

 

[zemuss]

Tank is 24 inches deep and they are about 12 inches from the surface. I might drop them a bit lower soon.

 

[swk]

Sold mine lol.

 

[NanaReefer]

Sold mine lol.

May I ask why?

 

[swk]

May I ask why?

Honestly, sps were doing horrible under them as were some chalices

I switched to ati t5 and my alk and calcium demand TRIPLED in 6 weeks. Things suddenly sprang to life after being essentially dormant under the lumenteks.

Acros would bleach at 250 par levels and turn brown when they were at lower levels.

Things have really turned around since the switch and I'm very pleased with the results.

They may be great lights, but they certainly didn't work for me and I was looking around and didn't see anyone really thriving with acros with these lights. Oddly enough it seems that people have more success with acropora and reef breeders lights, so maybe it's something to do with the spectrums used or layout?

 

[NanaReefer]

Your the first person I've heard say this

 

[heathd.hd]

I've had no issues. I think if your light height gets set and you get the right program going leds of any sort will be fine. Just have 2 tinker alot longer with leds vs MH or T5.

 

[heathd.hd]

I mean Adam at battle corals is growing tons of sps with led.

 

[swk]

I think some leds are great. These did not work for me

 

[swk]

I think some leds are great. These did not work for me

Adam is using radions and reef breeders which has 2x the amount of blue leds as rr lumentek.

 

[heathd.hd]

Alright which means we just need to run higher % of blue. I run mine very heavy on the blue side.

 

[swk]

I've had no issues. I think if your light height gets set and you get the right program going leds of any sort will be fine. Just have 2 tinker alot longer with leds vs MH or T5.

Are you keeping acros?

 

[DFW]

My lumentek 180 was not above my tank for very long because the blue LEDs have a green tint to them. I have all kinds of Royal Blue LEDs over my tanks, but this is the only one that has a green cast to it, which I don't like. I never could find out if they are all like this, or if I just got the odd variation of color from the batch of LEDs used on this fixture.