Par reading with seneye and Red Sea 50 led

[Peter luu]

Hi I was wondering if this seems right..

My blues on at 100% and I took a reading next to my forest fire digi in middle and I’m getting 150 par reading but lower part where zoa is, getting 180 max par

What can or should I do?.. first time using par meter

 

[blaxsun]

Tank seems cloudy; maybe that's throwing the readings off?

 

[Peter luu]

Tank seems cloudy; maybe that's throwing the readings off?

Oh okay I think it got cloudy cause I moved the frag racks on bottom aroundz

I’ll try retesting again now and update as the water is more clear now

 

[Gtinnel]

I can't tell from the pics where the first reading was done from, but if the second reading was closer to the edge of the tank from what I understand it's not uncommon for the reading to be higher at the edge. I believe the theory is that some of the light reflects back off of the glass, this is just what I remember readng. I have little first hand experience with a par meters.

 

[mdb_talon]

Tank should definetely be clear to do your readings. If comparing spots of the tanks i like to start with all the flow off because waves and movement on the surface can definetely make the reading go up and down and makes comparison between spots hard to do.

 

[Peter luu]

Tank should definetely be clear to do your readings. If comparing spots of the tanks i like to start with all the flow off because waves and movement on the surface can definetely make the reading go up and down and makes comparison between spots hard to do.

Ah smart. Sorry I’m learning to do things properly so doing par test is very new and strange to me.
Was wondering how come the par kept jumping

 

[Peter luu]

I can't tell from the pics where the first reading was done from, but if the second reading was closer to the edge of the tank from what I understand it's not uncommon for the reading to be higher at the edge. I believe the theory is that some of the light reflects back off of the glass, this is just what I remember readng. I have little first hand experience with a par meters.

Make sense, I was actually in middle of tank but what you said make sense because when I put the par meter next to glass to measure the bottom for zoa, it was saying 180 if I kinda tilt the par meter towards glsss but says 100-120 when just straight up towards light fixture

 

[cww81]

Ideally, you'll want your tank to be running at "normal" when you test. What I mean by this is your water shouldn't be any dirtier than how you usually have it and the return and powerheads should all be on. This will give you as accurate of a reading as you can get for your tank. Also an increase in par is normal when near the glass due to reflection, as stated above.

 

[Peter luu]

Ideally, you'll want your tank to be running at "normal" when you test. What I mean by this is your water shouldn't be any dirtier than how you usually have it and the return and powerheads should all be on. This will give you as accurate of a reading as you can get for your tank. Also an increase in par is normal when near the glass due to reflection, as stated above.

Power heads and return off or on while doing par testing?

 

[mdb_talon]

Power heads and return off or on while doing par testing?

Depends who you ask lol but i always do both. I start with all off because that makes it easy to identify hotspots and get comparisons between areas because numbers not constantly jumping up and down. If you dont have a lot of surface agitation it wont make a huge difference. In my tanks i have a ton of flow and i can sometimes see numbers bouncing up and down 200 to 350 for example...that makes finding the highest par areas and lowest par areas more difficult.

Then i turn all back on to try to get an idea of the effective par in those areas.

In my opinion it is useful to know both ways, but par relative to other areas is what helps me the most in determining where i put various corals.

 

[Peter luu]

Depends who you ask lol but i always do both. I start with all off because that makes it easy to identify hotspots and get comparisons between areas because numbers not constantly jumping up and down. If you dont have a lot of surface agitation it wont make a huge difference. In my tanks i have a ton of flow and i can sometimes see numbers bouncing up and down 200 to 350 for example...that makes finding the highest par areas and lowest par areas more difficult.

Then i turn all back on to try to get an idea of the effective par in those areas.

In my opinion it is useful to know both ways, but par relative to other areas is what helps me the most in determining where i put various corals.

Thanks! That’s extremely helpful. Will definitely try again tomorrow and update with results if it seem more accurate