How fast do you increase PAR?

bdare

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Hello all,

I finally got around to renting a BRS par meter. I have several SPS in my tank and I wanted to be double sure about the amount of light I was giving my corals. I'm currently running 4 Kessil 360x and 2 80W T5's over a 72" 220. At the peak of the lighting schedule, the Kessils are running at 25% color 100% intensity, 50 UV and 20 each of green and red. This is when I took my readings.

As some of you may have guess, my par numbers were a little low. On the rocks where my SPS were mounted PAR numbers were reading anywhere from 195 to 210. In order to increase PAR, rather than buy a new light, I purchased 4 of the 55 degree kessil magnetic lenses. If you're a Kessil owner, you need to check these things out. Same reading, just by adding the lenses, boosted my PAR to 350 and up. The $120 I spent on the lenses suuuuure beats 450 for a new light.

So... after adding the lenses, I dropped my intensity down so my PAR numbers match the pre lens measurements. I definitely want to go slow when increasing the intensity. I fully understand you kill corals faster with too much light, but how slow must one go?

Those of you who have experience with light acclimation, please let me know your thoughts and hopefully experience with doing the same.

Thanks,
Ben
 

revhtree

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Hey Ben sorry I have to ask this first. Is there a reason you want to increase the intensity? Sps not doing well, color, growth etc?
 
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bdare

bdare

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Hey Ben sorry I have to ask this first. Is there a reason you want to increase the intensity? Sps not doing well, color, growth etc?
They're actually doing OK. Guess I'm just basing on the fact that most of the data I've seen recommend PAR numbers closer to 300 for SPS. Perhaps I'm hoping to increase growth?

Also - The guy I buy my SPS from measure PAR in the 500-600 range and his stuff looks AMAZEBALLS.
 
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Waters

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You definitely have to be careful increasing intensity with LEDs. I normally don't do more than a 2-3% increase weekly.
 

outhouse

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I fried my 210 with too much light when I started leds. was at 50% and growth slow so I upped intensity. Wrong way. After years of thinking leds are junk, I moved down to 8% blue and literally 1% white and things are looking so much better. People underestimate the actual power of leds. Make sure your not going the wrong way. I took a year acclimating and kept thinking the slow growth was due to lack of intensity.
 

blasterman

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I run about 500 right under my lights, but I have a shallow tank. Some acros and montipora do fine at 250 or even a bit less. Slimers for instance, or some caps. For the rest however I am clearly in the solar flare camp.

I never make a one time adjustment over 10%. Also, the brighter your lights the corals are used the less chance of bleaching. If you are already at 300 PAR SPS will typically tell you via localized bleaching (sunburning) vs just turning all white in a few days.
 

Ocelaris

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I'm in a similar boat. My 250 gallon, 60x36x27 has been on two a360s and 10 t5s for the past almost 3 years. I just switched to two ap700s, one a360 and 4 t5s. I had 500+ par near the top with the t5s and if I crank the leds to 100% it's similar. I've started the ap700 on a 2 week acclimation cycle to get them up to 80% which should give me around 400 near the surface. I get around 200 at the bottom middle and 100 on the sides I have the leds and t5s 10 inches off the surface, so it's fairly dispersed. Sorry I don't have an answer yet, but I'm only 3 days in from switching and no changes yet. I'll give feedback if it's too much too fast in a few weeks. The picture is too blue but I'm also trying for more color as my old setup grew corals fast, but I was less pleased with the coloring.

IMG_20210613_101116.jpg
 

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