I want to learn how to dial in my lights

[reef’r]

lighting is one topic in the hobby that intrigues me a lot and I want to “dial in” my set up. First off don’t own a par meter. Currently I’m running a t5/led hybrid it’s a 4 bulb with an xr15 in the middle xr15 is running AB+ 12 hours and t5 is running the peak of the radion which is around 6 hours im running 2 blue plus and two coral plus bulbs the fixture is dimmable however I’m running it wide open. I just want to maximize this setup if possible and want to understand how to best do that if changing spectrums with the radion is the answer I will or changing bulbs in the t5 are changing run times of either. Let me know what the lighting gurus think and thank you.

Also tank is mixed now, but felt the SPS bug bite me a couple weeks back

 

[Formulator]

You can’t really do anything until you get your hands on a PAR meter. Most LFS have rentals you can use. I can’t comment on spectrum except that more blues tend to be the latest craze. Whether that is backed by science or not - I don’t know. I do know excessive whites can encourage algae growth, but I don’t buy into the hype around better coral growth with higher blues. I think it is more the visual fluorescent effect that people are after. I run metal halides so won’t be much help with LED tuning in general.