LED lighting spectrum and settings Fluval Nano 3.0

[TwiTch18]

Hello,
I'm looking for some advice for my new Nano tank lighting settings. The light is a Fluval Nano Marine 3.0 LED over a 13 Gal nano reef tank.
Keeping mostly soft corals and one brain coral.
Any advice is appreciated
Thanks!

 

[blaxsun]

Myself, I prefer more blues and less whites - but that's just me.

 

[TwiTch18]

Myself, I prefer more blues and less whites - but that's just me.

So are the whites and pinks mostly just preference?

 

[blaxsun]

So are the whites and pinks mostly just preference?

It's all very much personal preference.

 

[umutcancamci]

Hello,
I'm looking for some advice for my new Nano tank lighting settings. The light is a Fluval Nano Marine 3.0 LED over a 13 Gal nano reef tank.
Keeping mostly soft corals and one brain coral.
Any advice is appreciated
Thanks!

Hey! I just bought this light, but it seems slightly weak to me. Do you have any issues so far with your softies? If not, could you share your current schedule, please?

 

[Lita]

It's all very much personal preference.

No it isn’t just preference. It depends on the light fixture. The Fluval’s par is coming mainly from the whites so if you knock off too much white you may not get enough light for the corals depending on what you have in the tank. These lights are not like Hydras that you can push certain colours over 100% and have a mainly blue spectrum and still have adequate lighting. To a degree you can adjust to your preference but these lights in particular need pushed quite high on the white’s depending on depth of the tank and stocking .

 

[blaxsun]

No it isn’t just preference. It depends on the light fixture. The Fluval’s par is coming mainly from the whites so if you knock off too much white you may not get enough light for the corals depending on what you have in the tank. These lights are not like Hydras that you can push certain colours over 100% and have a mainly blue spectrum and still have adequate lighting. To a degree you can adjust to your preference but these lights in particular need pushed quite high on the white’s depending on depth of the tank and stocking .

It very much is. While I agree that a portion of white is going to be needed - it's also very much what people like from an aesthetic standpoint (otherwise we'd all still be running T5s).

"Pink" is going to comprise mostly reds. The same for purple, etc. To ensure you have adequate light levels you really need a PAR meter.

 

[Hooz]

I ran one of those lights on a 9g softie tank for a year. It worked well enough. The Fluval "Pink" channel is more purple than pink, so I ran all colors at max and then just added enough white to meet the PAR requirements. Previous commentors were right, though. a LOT of the total PAR output on the Fluval lights comes from the white channel, so you'll probably need to use t least some of it.

I'll have to see if I can dig up a screenshot of my old schedule to share.

 

[Lita]

It very much is. While I agree that a portion of white is going to be needed - it's also very much what people like from an aesthetic standpoint (otherwise we'd all still be running T5s).

"Pink" is going to comprise mostly reds. The same for purple, etc. To ensure you have adequate light levels you really need a PAR meter.

Just because you like a certain colour rendition and you have your preference of what you like to look at it doesn’t mean that is adequate for your corals. Ideally yes you’d have a par meter but most people do not. I have a lot of experience with these lights having had them on multiple tanks since they were launched and telling someone to go by their visual preference with this specific light is bad advice and factually incorrect as the determining factor is what the corals need not your preference. Most people would prefer to be heavy on the blue spectrum due to the fluorescence but this light is not powerful enough in that spectrum for most situations and for most tanks it will need to run more white than many would prefer for at least part of the photo period. If you were talking about radions or hydras or a light with higher output you may well be able to run mostly on the blues or even exclusively on blues and still have adequate PAR but that is not feasible with these.