AB+ Spectrum on AI Prime 10 Gallon Nano

[josh1591]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to share information in case this is useful to anyone with a nano and an AI Prime. The BRS AB+ spectrum has been working really well for my zoanthid frag tank. It's currently running at the 25% as shown on the chart below with the light being 8" above the tank. I run an hour ramp up, then 7 hours at full peak, then an hour ramp down. When I first got the AI prime I was struggling to find a light program. After doing a ton of research I ended up on the BRS AB+ spectrum because it was based on Coral Labs research of spectrum that would maximize coral coloration and growth (and reduce operational cost).

A while ago I did an experiment and gradually reduced my white lights over a period of time and ran blue only. The fluorescence looked great but I was not getting nearly as good of coral growth. I slowly adjusted the white lights back up to where they were originally and can tell a huge difference in the growth of my frags.

Hopefully this information is useful to someone looking at lighting for their 10 gallon or looking for a good spectrum to maximize coral coloration and growth.

 

[thomas_neil]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to share information in case this is useful to anyone with a nano and an AI Prime. The BRS AB+ spectrum has been working really well for my zoanthid frag tank. It's currently running at the 25% as shown on the chart below with the light being 8" above the tank. I run an hour ramp up, then 7 hours at full peak, then an hour ramp down. When I first got the AI prime I was struggling to find a light program. After doing a ton of research I ended up on the BRS AB+ spectrum because it was based on Coral Labs research of spectrum that would maximize coral coloration and growth (and reduce operational cost).

A while ago I did an experiment and gradually reduced my white lights over a period of time and ran blue only. The fluorescence looked great but I was not getting nearly as good of coral growth. I slowly adjusted the white lights back up to where they were originally and can tell a huge difference in the growth of my frags.

Hopefully this information is useful to someone looking at lighting for their 10 gallon or looking for a good spectrum to maximize coral coloration and growth.

I use the 70% for my 20 gallon cube. Works great for my lps/softie tank. When you want cool pictures just drop the white all the way down in demo mode get the fluorescence and then back to normal spectrum. I do a 1 hour ramp up, 8-hour photo, 1 hour ramp down.

 

[GrimReefer51]

I use the 70% for my 20 gallon cube. Works great for my lps/softie tank. When you want cool pictures just drop the white all the way down in demo mode get the fluorescence and then back to normal spectrum. I do a 1 hour ramp up, 8-hour photo, 1 hour ramp down.

I too have an LPS/Softies tank. Its a small 7 gallon Cube measuring 12 inches x 12 inches. I run my blues at 70% and my par levels are on the lower side which makes me wonder if you could up your light intensity seeing that you're tank is much bigger than mine.

My sandbed is around 70 PAR, middle 100-130 and 190 below the surface.

Here's what my tank looks like.

 

[Hooz]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to share information in case this is useful to anyone with a nano and an AI Prime. The BRS AB+ spectrum has been working really well for my zoanthid frag tank. It's currently running at the 25% as shown on the chart below with the light being 8" above the tank. I run an hour ramp up, then 7 hours at full peak, then an hour ramp down. When I first got the AI prime I was struggling to find a light program. After doing a ton of research I ended up on the BRS AB+ spectrum because it was based on Coral Labs research of spectrum that would maximize coral coloration and growth (and reduce operational cost).

A while ago I did an experiment and gradually reduced my white lights over a period of time and ran blue only. The fluorescence looked great but I was not getting nearly as good of coral growth. I slowly adjusted the white lights back up to where they were originally and can tell a huge difference in the growth of my frags.

Hopefully this information is useful to someone looking at lighting for their 10 gallon or looking for a good spectrum to maximize coral coloration and growth.

I know this post is a few months old, but I ran across it linked in the "related posts" in another thread. Anyway...

I don't doubt that your corals reacted to turning the whites down, but I'd venture to guess it had less to do with white light and more to do with overall PAR.

In the BRS AB+ settings, the white channel represents a pretty big chunk of the overall output. For instance, say a coral is happy in 100 PAR. Now you remove the white light that accounts for maybe, I don't know, 15% of the output? Maybe more, maybe less. But the coral that was happy in 100 PAR is now in 85 PAR and less happy.

But what if you raised the blue output to compensate, and got our example coral back up to 100 PAR? Would it be happy again? My guess would be yes.

Also, you never mentioned what sort of time period you ran it that way. Coral growth is something that's measured in weeks and months.

 

[josh1591]

I know this post is a few months old, but I ran across it linked in the "related posts" in another thread. Anyway...

I don't doubt that your corals reacted to turning the whites down, but I'd venture to guess it had less to do with white light and more to do with overall PAR.

In the BRS AB+ settings, the white channel represents a pretty big chunk of the overall output. For instance, say a coral is happy in 100 PAR. Now you remove the white light that accounts for maybe, I don't know, 15% of the output? Maybe more, maybe less. But the coral that was happy in 100 PAR is now in 85 PAR and less happy.

But what if you raised the blue output to compensate, and got our example coral back up to 100 PAR? Would it be happy again? My guess would be yes.

Also, you never mentioned what sort of time period you ran it that way. Coral growth is something that's measured in weeks and months.

Sorry I should have stated that this was over the course of about 8 weeks. I also did up the blue light channels to compensate for par. From what I noticed in my tank (zoanthid only tank), they grew significantly faster with the white light in the AB+ spectrum. Of course this might not be the same for everyone as parameters could also affect it. When running only blues I had maybe a couple frags that popped new heads. When running AB+ I notice a couple new polyps forming every month. Granted some zoas are faster growing than others, etc. I'm just sharing my experience and I believe the white light in that spectrum has actually helped the coral growth in my tank.