Is my aquarium lighting decent

larrysaltisfun

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I just bought a 210 gallon reef tank . I put all my trust in the LFS Guy.and I have three KESELL 500 tuna blues in sequence. The tank is 72 inches long and 30 inches deep 24 inches wide. In anybody’s humble opinion (lol) should lighting be sufficient KESSEL says theyre great lol Thanks for opinions
 

rtparty

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Should be plenty for just about anything. You will have shading issues down the road with Kessils but an LED bar can help with that if needed. Something like the AI Blade or similar
 
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larrysaltisfun

larrysaltisfun

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Thank you very much. The tank is only about six weeks old and I put in one trumpet LPS in there just to see what would happen. I know I’ve gotta take it slow but so far this thing is looking pretty contracted just about to start testing the water and making adjustments, but my fish guy said don’t do anything for a while at thetank and let it mature
 

rtparty

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Thank you very much. The tank is only about six weeks old and I put in one trumpet LPS in there just to see what would happen. I know I’ve gotta take it slow but so far this thing is looking pretty contracted just about to start testing the water and making adjustments, but my fish guy said don’t do anything for a while at thetank and let it mature

Look up PAR readings for the Kessil A500 and make sure you have them setup properly
 
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larrysaltisfun

larrysaltisfun

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Will do

The guy at the LFS who knows what he’s doing has them set on 30% color which makes it 70% blue and an intensity of 70%. I realize it needs to get more technical than that but off the top of your head does that seem like decent settings that’s what he has on all of his corals at the saltwater shop. Of course his frag tanks aren’t quite as deep.
 
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larrysaltisfun

larrysaltisfun

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Interestingly, on Kessils website, they do not measure PAR They state PAR does not adequately capture all wavelength of light. needed for coral growth, coloration . Oh boy. They go on to indicate that different wavelengths are far more important than others e.g. blue over green and PAR does not measure efficiency of a particular light….. Guess we’ll be seeing my name here in the future seeking Help getting my dang corals to thrive.
Everything I’ve heard thus far, and I’m just getting into, this is how critically important is to know the PAR at various levels in your tank
 

oreo54

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Interestingly, on Kessils website, they do not measure PAR They state PAR does not adequately capture all wavelength of light. needed for coral growth, coloration . Oh boy. They go on to indicate that different wavelengths are far more important than others e.g. blue over green and PAR does not measure efficiency of a particular light….. Guess we’ll be seeing my name here in the future seeking Help getting my dang corals to thrive.
Everything I’ve heard thus far, and I’m just getting into, this is how critically important is to know the PAR at various levels in your tank
Yea they have been selling that line for a long time.
Probably about 1/2 right.
First a "perfect " par meter will measure all photons between 400-700nm.
No preference for "color". A green light could be 100par same as a pure blue light.
Kessils dip a bit past 400nm into the uv range
eg:

Many older or inexpensive par meters are a bit weak in measuring in the blue range.
See response curve.
Current " expensive" vs "older"
apogee:

Par meter is just a tool that one needs to know how it works and what its working with.

Screenshot 2025-10-10 094828.png
 
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larrysaltisfun

larrysaltisfun

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So it’s not like you measure a part of various levels in your tank and put certain corals at those level levels because they will do better?

Also, since I am a Fowlr convert I have glass hoods will they need to come off?
The tank is 30 inches deep , how high above the water should the lights be would you estimate? Or does it not matter? I could put them anywhere between 5 inches and probably 15 inches above the water. Am I over thinking? 500X tuna blue three lights covering 72 inches not using the reflector as of now. Color at 30 intensity at 70
 

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