Help setting scedual on new photon v2

suttonheatingandcooling · May 25, 2020

hey guys and gals! I just acquired a 36" photon v2. Trying to setup a good schedule. I can't get my hands on a par meter right this moment so I'm reaching out for someone's settings.

My setup is a 65g 36" tank. Light is about 7" off the water. Highest point in my rockwork is a little over half way up. I have a good amount of sps in the tank.

Does anyone have a schedule they use or can help me setup a good schedule for my sps?

Thanks in advance

Ron Reefman · May 26, 2020

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

I assume your tank is 24" deep?

I have been using Photons V2 and V2+ for some years now. I currently have two V2+ over my DT. I use 2 because the tank is 30" front to back and 1 just doesn't cover 30" as well as I want. I also run the front Photon with a fairly 'normal' schedule and the rear Photon with a much more blue schedule. It gives the tank an even bigger look front to back.

OK, I do have a PAR meter. I run my front Photon from 6am till 10pm. I do a 4 hour sunrise that is all blue at 6am and gets gradually more white and more intense over the 4 hours. From 10am till 4pm I run a midday setting that is 90% on both blue channels and 30% on the white channel. IMHO, that 6 hours, plus the hour before midday and the hour after midday are intense enough for the zooxanthellae to do photosynthesis. Then I run a 6 hour sunset which becomes all blue and still kind of intense in just 2 hours. I love that most of my corals and Rock Flower Anemones fluoresce and make the tank look like a 1960's hippy poster under a black light.Then the blues just slowly wind down in intensity the last 4 hours.

At midday I have PAR of 250 to 300 at the top of my rocks which are under 10" of water. And a PAR of 125 to 175 down at the sand which is under 18" of water.

I hope that helps. BTW, I used these lights and very similar setting on a 120g all sps tank I ran for a few years and everything grew well and was healthy. At least right up until my chiller thermostat failed and the 1hp chiller ran all night. At 6am my tank was below 60 F and by noon all the sps sticks were pure white skeletons! But that's OK. I'm happy now with crazy fluorescing zoas and RFAs along with just a handful of fluorescing lps and sps corals.