Help not burning out my corals.

[sbrad14]

I'm not new to saltwater, but new to keeping corals. I have a smatfarm 140w g6 light, my tank is 50 gallon bow front 36in wide and around 20 in deep. I have my light mounted about 7inches off surface of water. I’m trying to figure out if I am going to burn my corals I am introducing running the light on its sps or lps mode percentages. And if I should be mounting the light higher up. I have had some zoas in there already. Im introducing more zoas, duncans, candy cane, button scolys, cyphastrea, and a leptastrea. I have researched all the individual lighting needs for these types of corals, but dont have a par meter so I'm not sure if even on the bottom of my tank it will be too bright for some of them. Any help would be greatly appreciated sharing photo of the tank and light specs. Ive attached light spec photos, and tank photo Ive been keeping my lights on very low blue percentage right now since just got the corals in on thursday. Thanks!

 

[Red_Beard]

That should be just fine for SPS, just don't mount any mid or low light corals in the central upper parts of the scape. If your corals are getting too much light, they will show you by browning out or getting really light, or sliming up.
That said, if you could raise that light a few more inches, the perimeter of your sandbed would get a lot better coverage and it will level out some of the hotspots.
For what it's worth, I have zoas and candycanes that are probably sitting around 4-500 par.

 

[Reefing addict Clay]

Not familiar with this light but without a par meter or even people with same light to get information from it’s gonna be tuff cause you can burn corals with a light being 24 inch’s off the waters surface. I would have more like 10-12 inch’s if the light spill isn’t bad and just run at 50% first and test for a week and see how things react and can always bump it up after till you hit the sweet spot when corals up high are doing just as good as the coral in sand bed.

 

[Tahoe61]

Definitely raise the fixture. I am not worried about the intensity, but you will get much better coverage. I have a Smatfarm the BOT mount is very easy to adjust. I run mine on the default mixed reef setting.

 

[sbrad14]

Thanks all for the responses. I was leaning towards raising it. How many inches do you think it should be from water surface for better spread?

 

[Red_Beard]

12-14 is probably your sweet spot.

 

[Red_Beard]

That would help a ton in these areas. They look to be pretty heavily shaded as is. probably sub 100 par.

 

[sbrad14]

Just wanted to thank everyone for the help. Raised up my light and looking way better for light spread. Keeping an eye on the corals this week. Mostly lower light ones, so I'm mainly worried about bleaching them.