Treefer32
Valuable Member
o.k. I had some time to learn new things about my 6 year old LED lights. This said, my corals are doing great, SPS growing slower than I'd like, but I attributed that to higher nutrients and things like that. But, I'm also tweaking lightning now that we're moving into fall and I have more time.
I have 3 AI Hydra 52s, and 4 T5ho 80 watt bulbs (2 aquablue special and 2 blue + bulbs) over my 6ft by 3ft wide and 31" tall 340 gallon mixed reef.
I just learned how to configure the lunar lighting in the AI hydra app, I thought I had it configured but a couple youtube videos later and I realized I wasn't using it at all. 6 years in..
Now that I got that fixed. I looked for ideal settings as I noticed my lights are on at 100%+ for 6 hours a day. with 2 hour ramp up and 2 hour ramp down. And now I have the 4 blue lights on at 10% for 3 hours after the lights wind down.
One thing I noticed is I had my cool whites set at 100% during those 6 hours. A couple more youtube videos later and they showed the blues at 100% and Cool whites at 35%... I guess with the deeper tank I felt I needed all the light I could get to the bottom of the tank as possible. But with 320 watt of T5s plus the 3 LED fixtures. Do I need cool whites on throughout the day at 100%.
I thought we wanted as much as possible of the daytime light (which I thought was cool whites) as possible. That presumption is very wrong it appears.
That said, if I start backing off the cool whites, can I go down by 20-30% from 100% to 70% for 6 hours without impacting corals negatively?
I wish there would have been more information configuring these when they came out. Is the 6 hour with 4 hours (total) ramp time sufficient? Like I said, it seems my corals have gotten used to this. So, I don't want to make dramatic changes, but trying to boost growth and coloration as well! (colors are good, just may overall look even stronger once I get things more dialed in).
I don't like the tank being completely blue, but even as it stands my tank's been more white than most reef tanks I see even with the T5s.
I have 3 AI Hydra 52s, and 4 T5ho 80 watt bulbs (2 aquablue special and 2 blue + bulbs) over my 6ft by 3ft wide and 31" tall 340 gallon mixed reef.
I just learned how to configure the lunar lighting in the AI hydra app, I thought I had it configured but a couple youtube videos later and I realized I wasn't using it at all. 6 years in..
Now that I got that fixed. I looked for ideal settings as I noticed my lights are on at 100%+ for 6 hours a day. with 2 hour ramp up and 2 hour ramp down. And now I have the 4 blue lights on at 10% for 3 hours after the lights wind down.
One thing I noticed is I had my cool whites set at 100% during those 6 hours. A couple more youtube videos later and they showed the blues at 100% and Cool whites at 35%... I guess with the deeper tank I felt I needed all the light I could get to the bottom of the tank as possible. But with 320 watt of T5s plus the 3 LED fixtures. Do I need cool whites on throughout the day at 100%.
I thought we wanted as much as possible of the daytime light (which I thought was cool whites) as possible. That presumption is very wrong it appears.
That said, if I start backing off the cool whites, can I go down by 20-30% from 100% to 70% for 6 hours without impacting corals negatively?
I wish there would have been more information configuring these when they came out. Is the 6 hour with 4 hours (total) ramp time sufficient? Like I said, it seems my corals have gotten used to this. So, I don't want to make dramatic changes, but trying to boost growth and coloration as well! (colors are good, just may overall look even stronger once I get things more dialed in).
I don't like the tank being completely blue, but even as it stands my tank's been more white than most reef tanks I see even with the T5s.
