Light acclimation question LED

happyhourhero

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i just picked up 2 small frags from lfs. One monti digi and a sour apple birds nest. The lfs had them on a frag rack about 8 inches under water that had a led running blues only at 80% and the fixture was around 14" off the water.

I have the same LED fixture and mine is at 80% blue 55% white. My tank is 24" deep. How low should I start the frags? I have them towards the bottom but don't want them to brown out and I would like to get the birds nest up into flow.
 
PAR Meters really help for this.

Our LFS is running black box LEDs with only the Blue on. Its rather obvious the corals are starved for light and at best they might be receiving only 50 to 100 PAR.

If your running the same LED Fixture, placing the frags on the bottom and slowly moving them up has always worked well

Bill
 
...or even a lux meter.

What's for sure is that eyeball measurements are unlikely to tell the true story at home or in the store. ;)

Take a $15 lux meter with you. Measure their blues. Then take it home and measure your blues and set them to generate an equivalent lux number. You then know your blues are matched to theirs and have an excellent baseline to start your corals from at home.

Try not to think of lux as being "inaccurate" because it will be equally inaccurate in the shop and at home so will work out just fine for you. You will never have to use that lux number for anything but comparison.
 
I've done numerous measurements using a PAR Meter and Lux Meter. MH, T5 & LED.

I cannot say the comparison is linear buts its awfully close.

A Lux meter comparison should work fine.

Bill
 

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