Placement and par readings?

[tinkerman]

How do my par and placements look is there stuf you would more? Raise or lower lights? Tank is 125 gal, 3x250 radium, lumenbright reflecters, reeflex cubes. Flow is karalia magnum 6 on each end of tank on wavemaker. Thanks for any input.

 

[JackoChang]

Can you get a bigger pic?

 

[bluwinghawk]

looks like you got a 300 par drop from top to bott. with the sand keeping it in 200 range
like the aquascrape also like how you spread # out on photo how did you get them readings? what inst. did you use

 

[tinkerman]

JackoChang if you click on it you can get it to go full size its a thumbnail.
Bluwinghawk I used a apogee mq 200. Been wanting one for about 5 yrs and got one for christmas present. Thanks I am pretty happy how the scape turned out.

 

[bluwinghawk]

how you get all the reading does that unit come with an come with a probe?

 

[tinkerman]

The mq 200 comes with a single probe on a 5' line atached to the meter. The mq100 and 300 model are for greenhouse applacations and are not waterproof sensers. So just place it where ever and take a reading.

 

[bluwinghawk]

thanks thats what i thought but wanted to be sure browsing though sponsor sites for monitors and other nice toys lol

 

[Alex T.]

To answer the OP's original question....it depends. If you want to keep SPS almost anywhere in the tank, then you're fine where you are. Registering 300 par on your sandbed can keep most SPS corals thriving, and if shaded properly can help acclimate new sps frags on the sandbed in choice places. . If your intent is a mixed reef of some acans and other LPS corals then you may be best raising the lights until you achieve a little closer to 200 across the sand bed. Sanjay Joshi (aka lighting guru) has claimed that registering 100 par on the sandbed of a tank will provide enough gradient of light throughout the tank to keep even the most light demanding of corals happy. So, mixed reef, raise them a little. All SPS and clams, right where they are or a shade lower.

My SPS tank was 27 inches high with three 400 watt Radiums on Galaxy ballasts. This was unbelievably bright. 20k my butt! Nothing other than clams was thriving on the sandbed unless I tucked it under a ledge. Even without a par meter I understood full well that SPS frags had to be tucked under ledges and slowly acclimated from the sandbed to final location over the course of a month or more. I'm having a 72x26x24 custom starphire being built right now and plan on running 250 watt Radiums on Sunlight Supply HQI ballasts with Lumenmax Elite reflectors placed 12 inches over the water. Unless someone shows me long lasting LED results with beautiful colors, I'm sticking with Radiums. . Your Lumenbrites are also very good at penetrating to the bottom of your tank with ease. I was running Lumenmax Elites which punch light down deep much like your Lumenbrites. Hope this helps.

 

[tinkerman]

Alex T thanks for the response. I have always wondered why I had so many problems acclimating stuff, most of the spots I used for getting stuff used to tank have pretty good par. I have a few lps and may pick a few more up but want to keep it mainly sps dominated. The end lights are 21" from bottom of reflecter to water and center is 19" and have a beam in the way to go higher. I could go 2" higher on the ends.

 

[Alex T.]

Alex T thanks for the response. I have always wondered why I had so many problems acclimating stuff, most of the spots I used for getting stuff used to tank have pretty good par. I have a few lps and may pick a few more up but want to keep it mainly sps dominated. The end lights are 21" from bottom of reflecter to water and center is 19" and have a beam in the way to go higher. I could go 2" higher on the ends.

I also noticed a trend happening in my tank regarding where the frags were coming from. If I bought or traded them from another hobbyist they seemed to acclimate much better to my lighting. I was able to put them in their desired location much sooner than from an online vendor. When they came from an online vendor they needed more acclimation to the light. I'm just spit balling here but I chalk it up to how they were lit in their former tank. Hobbyists have light pounding a coral for what I'm assuming is much more duration and intensity. Once a frag farmer makes frags from a mother colony they usually stick it in a large frag tank with a 20k XM bulb (weak par) and sit the frag under a light rail where the reflector covers a large distance on an automated track. That way they save on electricity, color up the frag for photos and are able to light a very large area efficiently with less bulbs. In theory though, a 6 foot frag tank that has one 400 watt XM20k in a Lumenarc reflector passing over it for 8 hours a day is only lighting each 2 foot area for 1/3 that time (which is roughly a little more than 2 two and a half hours) with a bulb that is more or less for bringing out colors than growth. We ooh and ahhh over the online pictures then stick it on our sandbed and wonder why it starts to fade under 250 watt Radiums on HQI ballasts for a lighting period of 7 or 8 hours. This is much more par than they were previously exposed to before they made it to our tanks. We lower our photoperiod by an hour or so and it still fades them a bit. I had a Hawkins Blue from an online vendor that fell off its' perch and sat almost under a ledge 27" deep for 2 weeks (I was too lazy to move it). When I put it back on its' perch 4 inches higher it colored up beautifully. I left it there and it tripled in size in one year. Now that I'm in the midst of a new build I'm just going to make a low aquascape and if they're happy where they are low in the tank, I'll just leave them there. Why mess with it if it works right? Just my .02

 

[tinkerman]

Thanks for that input Alex T. I have noticed my lfs seems to get in a lot of maricultured stuff, some from local hobbists. I have always wondered if I was the only one having problems like this or something I was doing wrong. I may have to try some other places till I find some place that stuff does better or pick the stuff he gets from in town.