Ideal Settings for ViparSpectra 165w?

[JIsBusyReefing]

It's my understanding that blue light is every bit as capable of burning or bleaching coral as white light. It just doesn't look as bright to our eyes.

Think about it, what spectrum gives you sunburn... UV. And blue spectrum at 420-440nm is just a small step from 370-400nm UV compared to the rest of spectrum in white light.

I once thought like you, that white was just for our eyes... and that's still kind of true. Although corals do use spectrum other than blue. Blue is used by the zooxanthellae (not the coral) to do photosynthesis. But the coral does use light for other processes including pigment production.

Given your 4' tank and 31" depth, I think 3 Viparspectras are more than enough to provide all the light you need. Especially at only 8" off the water. I would recommend you run blue to white at a 3:1 ratio. I think 60:20 would be a good starting point.

Just a bit of background so you know where I'm coming from. I have used leds since the early black box fixtures came out. I've used quite a few different brands, I even worked for Ocean Revive for a couple of years. I was involved in the layout of their T247 led array and worked some with EverGrow (the Chinese manufacturer of several aquarium led fixture brands).

Sounds good! I'll give it a try. Thanks. How much PAR would I be pumping out roughly at those settings?

 

[LeftyReefer]

Believe this is pretty much the same as any Chinese black box fixture, it may just have a few different leds in it. And it may have a digital timer as opposed to knows.

Actually, based on BRS's recent black box reviews, the Viparspectra's were clearly the BEST chinese black box fixture based on light spectrum provided. Some of the chinese black boxes tested provided very poor spectrums, while the Viparspectra's had very good spectrum, so not all black boxes are the same. The BRS guys genuinely seemed surprised how good of wavelength/spectrum the Vipars provided.

 

[JIsBusyReefing]

Actually, based on BRS's recent black box reviews, the Viparspectra's were clearly the BEST chinese black box fixture based on light spectrum provided. Some of the chinese black boxes tested provided very poor spectrums, while the Viparspectra's had very good spectrum, so not all black boxes are the same. The BRS guys genuinely seemed surprised how good of wavelength/spectrum the Vipars provided.

Correct. They found it comparable with other higher end options out there in the spectrum it provides. It was the only black box with some UV in it.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Sounds good! I'll give it a try. Thanks. How much PAR would I be pumping out roughly at those settings?

Don't take my word for it, but with 3 fixtures at 8" running 60:20, I think your PAR at the sand would be 100+ and at mid-tank, 15" deep, 225 to 250. But that's just my best guess.

 

[JIsBusyReefing]

Don't take my word for it, but with 3 fixtures at 8" running 60:20, I think your PAR at the sand would be 100+ and at mid-tank, 15" deep, 225 to 250. But that's just my best guess.

I'm at 60% blues and 20% whites right now. Almost two hours and things look fine so far.

 

[JIsBusyReefing]

Don't take my word for it, but with 3 fixtures at 8" running 60:20, I think your PAR at the sand would be 100+ and at mid-tank, 15" deep, 225 to 250. But that's just my best guess.

oh I forgot to ask, this is taking into account the lenses being removed, right?

 

[Ron Reefman]

Yes. It changes the spread from 90 degrees with the lenses to 120 degrees without them. With 3 fixture mounted like you have them, no lenses is the way to go IMHO.

 

[JIsBusyReefing]

Yes. It changes the spread from 90 degrees with the lenses to 120 degrees without them. With 3 fixture mounted like you have them, no lenses is the way to go IMHO.

Awesome! I'll give these settings a go for a week and see how it goes. Thanks

 

[George81]

So I checked my middle light above my glass braces. It’s 100 blue 22 white I’ll get you some par measurements hopefully this weekend if I can find the seneye

 

[JIsBusyReefing]

So I checked my middle light above my glass braces. It’s 100 blue 22 white I’ll get you some par measurements hopefully this weekend if I can find the seneye

Thanks, fam! Much appreciated.

 

[George81]

So I got some par measurements my lights are 9” above water the measurements were taken 9.5” below water where most of my sps are and anemone. The anemone is basically centre of the one light at the back wall of the tank. 9.5” below water level. The par there was 198-208 it fluctuates I’m guessing because of surface agitation.
directly Underneath the lights the average par 370, I found one spot where my pink Cadillac was that was getting blasted with 425 for some reason and about3 inches away the par dropped to 360. I moved it to a place that’s 360.
the hot spot wasn’t where two intersecting lights were. I still don’t know why that one particular area had such high par. The tyree lemonade which was a few inches from it was 368.

 

[JIsBusyReefing]

So I got some par measurements my lights are 9” above water the measurements were taken 9.5” below water where most of my sps are and anemone. The anemone is basically centre of the one light at the back wall of the tank. 9.5” below water level. The par there was 198-208 it fluctuates I’m guessing because of surface agitation.
directly Underneath the lights the average par 370, I found one spot where my pink Cadillac was that was getting blasted with 425 for some reason and about3 inches away the par dropped to 360. I moved it to a place that’s 360.
the hot spot wasn’t where two intersecting lights were. I still don’t know why that one particular area had such high par. The tyree lemonade which was a few inches from it was 368.

Nice! Very good PAR levels. This is valuable info. Thanks for doing this.

 

[Lightspeed]

IMHO with 3 x 165w over your size system i concur with @Dana Riddle you are over illuminating.
I have 2 x 165w over a 260g mounted in opposite configuration to yours. I run channel 2 at 1% as it is unbalanced on the Vipars as do many other users and IMHO needs to be modified by diode changes. Channel 1 is at 45%. My units are at 15" mounting height with lenses on and no disco here.

 

[Gernader]

Here’s my 75g with 3 viparspectras (I have 3 instead of 2 because I want to grow SPS in the middle and get more par):

Daylight

Blues

The lights are mounted 12” above water and I’m getting around 600 par at water surface. At the sandbed, it’s around 250 par. My corals are very happy, especially acros.

*Never took off the lenses btw*

 

[LeftyReefer]

How long of photoperiods are you guys running for each channel?

With the Viparspectras, there isn't any ramping up/down other than running only 1 channel at a time. So I run only blues at the beginning and end of each day.

Right now I'm running my blues 12 hours a day, with whites on only 4 hours in the middle.
my lights currently run from noon till midnight.

noon
4 hours CH1 (blues only)
4 hours CH1 and CH2 (4PM - 8PM)
4 hours CH1 only (blues only)
midnight

My plan was to gradually add more CH2 to where its ON for 8 hours or so instead of the 4 its on now, but I was going to gradually ramp up. Eventually it will be 2 hours blues, 8 hours blues and whites, then 2 hours blues.

 

[JIsBusyReefing]

How long of photoperiods are you guys running for each channel?

With the Viparspectras, there isn't any ramping up/down other than running only 1 channel at a time. So I run only blues at the beginning and end of each day.

Right now I'm running my blues 12 hours a day, with whites on only 4 hours in the middle.
my lights currently run from noon till midnight.

noon
4 hours CH1 (blues only)
4 hours CH1 and CH2 (4PM - 8PM)
4 hours CH1 only (blues only)
midnight

My plan was to gradually add more CH2 to where its ON for 8 hours or so instead of the 4 its on now, but I was going to gradually ramp up. Eventually it will be 2 hours blues, 8 hours blues and whites, then 2 hours blues.

I, too, am running blues for ~12 hours from 8am to 8pm. Whites run for ~10 hours from 9am to 7pm. From 8am to 9am, I have a ramp up period where the middle unit turns blues on at 8am, the side units turn blues on 8:20am, the side whites turn on 8:40am, and then middle whites turn on at 9am. Then the reverse happens starting at 7pm.

 

[Gernader]

How long of photoperiods are you guys running for each channel?

With the Viparspectras, there isn't any ramping up/down other than running only 1 channel at a time. So I run only blues at the beginning and end of each day.

Right now I'm running my blues 12 hours a day, with whites on only 4 hours in the middle.
my lights currently run from noon till midnight.

noon
4 hours CH1 (blues only)
4 hours CH1 and CH2 (4PM - 8PM)
4 hours CH1 only (blues only)
midnight

My plan was to gradually add more CH2 to where its ON for 8 hours or so instead of the 4 its on now, but I was going to gradually ramp up. Eventually it will be 2 hours blues, 8 hours blues and whites, then 2 hours blues.

I run my lights for 10 hours a day. I run my blues first for 1 hour, whites and blues for 8 hours during the day, then end with blues for 1 hour.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Good thread so far! Hopefully I can contribute.

I just added a 3rd viparspectra to my 120g 4x2x2 in perpendicular orientation 16inch approx above water line. With lenses still on, 55/1 B/W I get 120 par at the sand. I also pulled half the whites and replaced with a mix of 450, 420/430, and couple 490s...imho still looks too white so I'll be replacing half of the remaining whites with more 450s and 420/430.

I'm thinking about pulling lenses and dropping them down to 8" for better sprrad/coverage and will re-measure par. Mine run off of Reef Pi and ramp from 0 at 8am to 55 at noon, then back down to 0 by 7pm. White cuts on at 830am and runs to 5pm.

Colors with numbers are what was changed and number indicates wavelength of the light.

I'll be pulling the 395s as most have burned out the lense in a couple months.

 

[JIsBusyReefing]

Good thread so far! Hopefully I can contribute.

I just added a 3rd viparspectra to my 120g 4x2x2 in perpendicular orientation 16inch approx above water line. With lenses still on, 55/1 B/W I get 120 par at the sand. I also pulled half the whites and replaced with a mix of 450, 420/430, and couple 490s...imho still looks too white so I'll be replacing half of the remaining whites with more 450s and 420/430.

I'm thinking about pulling lenses and dropping them down to 8" for better sprrad/coverage and will re-measure par. Mine run off of Reef Pi and ramp from 0 at 8am to 55 at noon, then back down to 0 by 7pm. White cuts on at 830am and runs to 5pm.

Colors with numbers are what was changed and number indicates wavelength of the light.

I'll be pulling the 395s as most have burned out the lense in a couple months.

Nice info! Thanks. Very nice setup too. If you do pull the lenses, definitely be sure to drop those numbers. I'm very interested to see what those come to.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

So, got my spare Viparspectra in today and did couple quick readings.

1: 24" above flat surface (floor) with my apogee 420 directly under the fixture, lenses ON, 100 Blue 30 White (which is what the BRS recommended settings were) = 388 PAR.

2: 24" above flat surface (floor) with my apogee 420 directly under the fixture, lenses OFF, 100 Blue 30 White (which is what the BRS recommended settings were) = 90 PAR. I had to double check several times because it surprised the crap out of me. I moved the sensor around under the light and 90 was the highest reading I got. But, on the upside, the par drop-off was significantly better than with the lenses.

My plan was to take lenses off and drop 3 of my lights from where they are now to about 8", which would put mu lights at 32" from the sandbed. I will measure at 32" tomorrow. I will be doing same thing as I've done with the other 3 and remove all but 6-8 (probably?) of the 24 white LEDs and replace them with combination of cyan, violet, and royal blue, which should allow me to utilize more than 30% of the white channel.

I'll get started on it this weekend by plucking off white LED's and replacing them.