AB+ versus BRS light settings

[jweiner]

I noticed that with an AB+ lighting spectrum, the blue and royal blue are set at higher intensities than are the UV and violet wavelengths. With BRS, their examples have the UV and violet wavelengths set at high intensities than the blue and royal blue. Does anyone know which spectrums should be set at higher intensities? This is a bit confusing.

 

[cwills75]

It's really just personal preference. AB+ is pretty dated at this point honestly. It was "invented" back around the Radion G3 days. Their literature says:

"Prior to using Radion® G3 Pros RW (Reef Wholesale) determined that the best coloration and growth in their SPS corals were achieved using T5 bulbs. Specifically *ATI Blue Plus and *ATI AquaBlue Special in a combination of 80%/20% and specifically in *ATI Powermodules. In the same time period given the same parameters and
frags from the same mother colony, this T5 bulb mix generally outperformed (for most, but not all corals) their original lighting staple, metal halide."

They also show an image how to set the light for SPS AB+. It has UV, B and RB at 100% and white, green and red at 24% with the G3 Pro. This was a program designed for SPS corals specifically, and their LPS/Soft spectrum from the same literature had the white, green and red at different values.

If you look up AB+ spectrum online, you will see a spectrum chart that looks about identical to the image I've attached. This image is from EcoTech's XR30 G3 Pro and it specifically says "Chart shows max output on all channels", but like I said before, their literature says to have three of the channels at 24%, so that's confusing on its own.

BRS' spectrum is more modern, utilizing the violet/UV wavelengths more and IMO would account for more growth. BRS' spectrum is more in-line with WWC's lighting philosophy. There's a good video here on that:



WWC also has their profiles available to download on their website if desired, but they go over how to make one of your own in the video also. They like high blues, keeping the other channels down but then they have a window with a white ramp up/down for coral growth. They go over how to adjust your lights without a PAR meter based on your corals behavior and what your goals are.

I have seen some youtube videos also where people weighed their frags before/after testing with WWC and AB+ lighting profiles and the WWC showed more growth over AB+. Another thing that most people don't consider is the LED density/power of different fixtures when applying profiles. Someone could make a profile for an AI Prime 16 HD for AB+ and apply it to another light that has the same channels, but due to LED color density/wattage, it will result in a completely different spectrum. The Radion XR30 G6 Pro for example has 101 total LEDs, with 16 blue, 32 royal blue and 18 violet/UV. The XR30 G6 Blue has 32 blue, 32 royal blue and 22 violet/UV, so even between those fixtures, the same profile would look a lot different.

Earlier, you could see that AB+ was designed to mimic a specific combo of T5 HO bulbs to achieve a similar look/profile. They had multiple settings available in that document for different light brand make/models. The old XR30 G3 Pro only had 40 LEDs, but some of them were higher powered than others. Deep Blue channel was rated at 40W, Blue had the same amount of LEDs (8), but was only rated at 24W, UV had 4 and had only 10W available. None of this really translates to modern light fixtures. The Hydra Edge and Blades if you look at their spectrums have a much expanded blue band over any of the latest Radion fixtures.

AI and Ecotech are both owned by the same company and the latest lights, the Blades and Edge have done away with the red/green LED channels completely and the ratios are completely different. The Edge 44 HD has 44 total LEDs with 10 blue, 6 royal blue and 16 violet/UV. The Blades are marketed to be used in combos, and every combo has a completely different spectrum. Bottom line, and my point is that any old lighting profile designed for whatever light/s available at the time is somewhat useless on new hardware, and you should just create your own profile based on how you would like it to look. The WWC video will be very helpful once you watch it.