Acclimation Advise for LED to T5 Hybrid

[GoodKat]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had any advice or experience going from LED only to Hybrid lighting. I know to go slow, and careful of high PAR.

Since I can't dim the T5's, should I just turn them on for a little longer each day. I was thinking of starting in 15 min intervals and running them for max of 6 hours a day, while running the LEDs 10 hours, ending with blues. I was thinking of keeping my LED schedule the exact same and using the T5 to boost PAR and cover new wavelengths.

I rented a PAR meter and it looks like on average the jump is about 100 par.
[with only LEDS] bottom 80, 120 middle, 180 top
[with the hybrid] 150 bottom, 200 middle, 300 top

I know some people run tanks with as high as 400 PAR, but I am worried that because my tank has been running for two years at these lower levels, a boost of 100 par will cause die off. I have a very mixed reef tank and am nervous the high 180-200 par will fry my gonis, favia, and psammacora. (although my sps will probably love it).

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.


Tank info:
I have a 170 liter tank, 24 inch across, 18 deep, 20 width.
Previously I ran two AI primes peaking at 22% clear white and 50% blues for about 6 hours, with 2 hour ramp up times.
The hybrid is two AI primes, 2 ATI Actinic, 1 Purple Plus, 1 Coral Plus.
(I chose this selection to really cover the higher wavelengths that AI primes lack.)

 

[andrewey]

I didn't have a par meter when I switched over and the forum's generally suggested going from LED to LED/T5 wasn't as big of a deal as going from T5 to T5/LED (however I never really saw any concrete directions for par increases per day/week). Since I couldn't find any benchmark numbers, I started my tank at 1 hour of T5s per day and let my corals acclimate to the additonal par. I increased the T5s by 1 hour each week and did not have any episodes of SPS bleaching, browning out, or any negative changes in any of my corals. Unfortunately I wish I could give you more than a single anecdote- hopefully someone will have better data to drive your acclimation schedule!