Light adjustment just a wild guess?

[smcquary]

What is the best way to adjust your lighting? Using a par meter? If so what levels am I looking for to maintain a mixed reef? I have a reefbreeders Photon v1 and recently added a rainbow wellso and a couple favia frags to get started with coral. After a couple of weeks the wellso was burned and had to be moved to the shade to try and save it. Turned down intensity and shortened length of time lights are on. Now after a month the Christmas favia is starting to bleach. My question is how do I know how much to turn down the intensity? Is it just a guess? How long should the lighting window be? How do I know the intensity levels to set blue vs white to get the correct spectrum? Should I buy a seneye to properly adjust the lighting? Thanks for you suggestions.

 

[smcquary]

Anyone? Thanks

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Only a bit complicated prob why it's quite.

Yup. You need a par meter or a lux meter. And a small knowledge of how much light the corals need.
A lot of corals will take a wide range. If intensity if slowly acclimated to it.

For low light on the bottom about 50par. For med 100 for high light 150 200.
Naturally the higher up in the tank the higher the par. So acclimation and knowin what truly is low light is an issue.

I generally reccomend is a par meter is a not too much, a Lux meter and estimate your par at the top of the tank.

For most led decide lux by 60. Ie 6000 lux is close to 100 par. (Usually less).

So a med light tank can have about 400 500 par at the top (25000 lux) at the hot spots and then you can adjust from there depending on how the coals do.

Just checking the top is just a short cut. And makes it an easier concept than 30 par spots in the tank.

I.e. 300 par at the top 20 on the bottom and the zoas are reaching for light or turning brown
So bring up the top 50 -75 par once a week.



https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lighting-upgrade-with-a-lux-meter-saltyfilmfolks.248417/


Time. You can run Lower par if you run a longer time. So 300 par for 8 hours and the zoas reach. So make it 12 hrs.

Myself, I set the start time ramp up and a peak intensity time and a ramp down time

Decide on when you want to see the tank.
Then set a six or eight hour peak time. Set the par for the peak.

I'd the corals bleach , lower the intensity of the peak or shorten the peak time. And vice Versa if it's browning.
That way your only adjusting one parameter rather than the whole day if there's problems.

Questions?

 

[jda]

Program borrowing is a good idea if you are lacking equipment to do this yourself. It will be somewhat harder to find V1 users, but put out a post asking for V1 programs.

If it is really the light, and it may not be... then you probably have the whites up too much. A lot of the white diodes are harmful to some corals.

Reefbreeders is still in business, you could ask them what they recommend for a tank like yours.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Or he could use a meter and set the light correcty.

 

[Oldsalt01]

Check with ur local reef society. They may have a par meter to borrow but u usually have to be a member.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

For got this.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LSFR0F...t=&hvlocphy=9061183&hvtargid=pla-505585159192

 

[smcquary]

Thanks for all of the helpful responses. I am a member of the middle tn reef club and have requested to use the group par meter but an not getting any reply for a couple of weeks. I will try the lux meter since it is inexpensive.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Having some LUX reading is better than none. Download a light meter apps for your hand phone (if equipped with light sensor), under a midday sun, get a reading outside as baseline reading. When your lights is on highest peak, get some reading just above the water line. Compare with the sun reading and adjust according to coral's requirement. I am not sure how much PAR is mine, but at midday settings, the phone apps register 115K...