ReefBreeders Photon V2 Lights

ReefinND · Sep 21, 2018

Hey all!

Somehow my lights settings got reset and now I'm not confident I have it set at the right level and was wondering if anyone could help me with it.

It's a 90 gal tank, 24"H, 18" W. Right now the lights are about 5" from the surface. After doing some reading I'm starting to wonder if the lights are too low? Height-wise?

It's been so long since I've really done much with the lights, but I think they were around 40 intensity at the highest. Plus I'm not really sure that they were correct to begin with? Lighting is not my strong suit at all.

Thanks!

Skedaddle · Sep 21, 2018

So what length Photon do you have? And what do you have in your tank? My Photon v2's are 12" above the water and are set close to 60% at their peak. My tank is 21" deep and it is a mixed reef, no Acropora.
There is a suggested lighting setup on the Reef Breeders site. If I remember right you can change the values in their spreadsheet and it builds the corresponding suggested settings. Also, you can contact them, their support is extraordinary.

My personal feeling, not knowing everything about your tank, is that 5" off the water is very low. They higher you move the lights the better the different spectrums blend, therefore the less disco effect.

If you can not come up with a set of settings, let me know and I will go thru mine and post them for you. Just do not have time to do it tonight.

Ron Reefman · Sep 22, 2018

I assume with an 18" wide tank you have the 16" Photon V2?

As Skedaddle said, the reasons for setting your height above the water has nothing to do with PAR, brightness, intensity, whatever. That was a serious consideration back in the days when led fixtures didn't even have basic dimmers! Your Photon V2 has a highly controllable power settings, so height isn't an issue as it relates to PAR or intensity. It has a lot more to do with how well the spread covers the bottom of the tank or how much light is 'spilling' out of the tank and lighting up the floor nearby (wasted light). And being higher will allow for better mixing/blending of the different colors (especially the red and green as there are so few (I don't even run the red or green except during the 5 hour full midday segment). It is also worth considering how much easier it is to get in and out of the tank if you are doing anything where the light fixture might be in the way.

You stated,"I think they were around 40 intensity at the highest." Well, you have 6 channels of control, are they all at 40% or is that some kind of average? And do you use the sunrise/sunset custom program or are you using one of the other modes (full sun, cloudy, manual)?

I have a 50g cube (24"x24"x20" deep) and I run the 16" Photon V2. I use the custom mode and do a 5 hour slow sunrise, a 5 hour midday and a 6 hour slow sunset. My midday is running 80% on both the blue channels and 30% on the white channel. The violet, red and green channels have so few leds that they don't have much effect on the overall intensity and are more for adjusting color to your liking and so it can be sold as a 'Full Spectrum" fixture. BTW, you also want to pay attention to the fact that channel 2 and 3 (royal blue and white) are 5w leds where all the others are only 3 watt leds. So they are brighter and do make more PAR.

This is the Photon V2 schedule I used on my 120g reef with mostly sps sticks and plates, so it's a bit more intense and I didn't use any red or green. Just bump down the high end settings and you'll have a target to work up to. Don't just switch to these settings if you are at 40% now. Work your way up to these by about 10% every week or two.

ReefinND · Sep 22, 2018

I forgot to mention that I also have one of their LumenBar's the Royal Ice colored one. The light fixture itself is a 48"

Skedaddle said:
So what length Photon do you have? And what do you have in your tank? My Photon v2's are 12" above the water and are set close to 60% at their peak. My tank is 21" deep and it is a mixed reef, no Acropora.
There is a suggested lighting setup on the Reef Breeders site. If I remember right you can change the values in their spreadsheet and it builds the corresponding suggested settings. Also, you can contact them, their support is extraordinary.

My personal feeling, not knowing everything about your tank, is that 5" off the water is very low. They higher you move the lights the better the different spectrums blend, therefore the less disco effect.

If you can not come up with a set of settings, let me know and I will go thru mine and post them for you. Just do not have time to do it tonight.

That's good to know. I bumped them up to 9" above the surface, my canopy wont allow for more than that. Right now it is a mixed reef but I've been having pretty stable parameters for awhile now and would like to venture into getting an acropora or two. The tank is almost 2 years old.

Ron Reefman said:
I assume with an 18" wide tank you have the 16" Photon V2?

As Skedaddle said, the reasons for setting your height above the water has nothing to do with PAR, brightness, intensity, whatever. That was a serious consideration back in the days when led fixtures didn't even have basic dimmers! Your Photon V2 has a highly controllable power settings, so height isn't an issue as it relates to PAR or intensity. It has a lot more to do with how well the spread covers the bottom of the tank or how much light is 'spilling' out of the tank and lighting up the floor nearby (wasted light). And being higher will allow for better mixing/blending of the different colors (especially the red and green as there are so few (I don't even run the red or green except during the 5 hour full midday segment). It is also worth considering how much easier it is to get in and out of the tank if you are doing anything where the light fixture might be in the way.

You stated,"I think they were around 40 intensity at the highest." Well, you have 6 channels of control, are they all at 40% or is that some kind of average? And do you use the sunrise/sunset custom program or are you using one of the other modes (full sun, cloudy, manual)?

I have a 50g cube (24"x24"x20" deep) and I run the 16" Photon V2. I use the custom mode and do a 5 hour slow sunrise, a 5 hour midday and a 6 hour slow sunset. My midday is running 80% on both the blue channels and 30% on the white channel. The violet, red and green channels have so few leds that they don't have much effect on the overall intensity and are more for adjusting color to your liking and so it can be sold as a 'Full Spectrum" fixture. BTW, you also want to pay attention to the fact that channel 2 and 3 (royal blue and white) are 5w leds where all the others are only 3 watt leds. So they are brighter and do make more PAR.

This is the Photon V2 schedule I used on my 120g reef with mostly sps sticks and plates, so it's a bit more intense and I didn't use any red or green. Just bump down the high end settings and you'll have a target to work up to. Don't just switch to these settings if you are at 40% now. Work your way up to these by about 10% every week or two.

Hey Ron, I think you originally helped me program these when I first got them via another forum.

I'll try out their spreadsheet once and see if I can come up with something. I wasn't able to get it to work yesterday but that was also at work, something might have been blocked.

Maybe I'll try and work my way towards Ron's schedule?

Thank you both for you're help so far, these lights are just something I can't seem to get a handle on.

Skedaddle · Sep 22, 2018

Just remember, too much light too quickly will kill coral fast, like one or two days can do it. Not enough light and they can survive for months (acropora may be an exception). So go slow increasing the intensity. I think Ron's 10% increase is the absolute max you would want to go at a time. And even that increase needs spread out over many days.

Ron Reefman · Sep 22, 2018

And after you've done all the settings in the custom mode you need to save the program!

jtl · Sep 23, 2018

I have a 4' x 2' x 20" deep. I have the Photon V2 with the newer controller. For 4 hours my lights are 50% blues and violet with 20% white, for another 4 hours they only have 5% white. I also do a 2 hour ramp up and a 2 hour ramp down. Several months ago I had my settings at 70% and my corals bleached. These are powerful lights and the brightness of the blues is deceiving so go slowly.

Dburr1014 · Dec 1, 2018

https://www.dropbox.com/s/80it5d2vwha5bk9/My Photon V2 Chart.xlsx?dl=0

You need to check out this excel spread sheet.
I have the v2 over my 75 with no lenses 5" above the water. I do have a plexi top. I run blue channel at 95% and have a par at 240 about 4 or 5" deep.

dputt88 · Dec 1, 2018

here I try to give a better understanding how how to manage a better spectrum using excel and reefbreeders LEDs

Reef Breeders · Dec 3, 2018

dputt88 said:
here I try to give a better understanding how how to manage a better spectrum using excel and reefbreeders LEDs

Very good idea! We actually took each channel as a percentage of PAR rather than wattage and made a PAR estimator: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0aihu161k5cew61/2018 Photon V2 PAR Estimator.xlsx?dl=0

That will give you a more accurate percentage to apply to each channel.

Porpoise Hork · Dec 12, 2018

dputt88 said:
here I try to give a better understanding how how to manage a better spectrum using excel and reefbreeders LEDs

This is a much better spreadsheet than what I am using. Any possibility you could link it? I have spent several hours watching this video and still cannot figure out how you linked the fields together to get them to play nice like this.

dputt88 · Dec 12, 2018

I have improved it since shooting the video. making a more even sunrise and sunset.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15CtzlR0EEVkX42anFclS8yXkDLs1zAC2MWnb9_v6XTw/edit?usp=sharing

Porpoise Hork · Dec 12, 2018

dputt88 said:
I have improved it since shooting the video. making a more even sunrise and sunset.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15CtzlR0EEVkX42anFclS8yXkDLs1zAC2MWnb9_v6XTw/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you sir!

dputt88 · Dec 12, 2018

No problem. to adjust it, change the percentage of the channel in the first table. then view spectrum in the second graph.

Porpoise Hork · Dec 12, 2018

Sweet, thanks for the tip.

fogcutter · Jan 28, 2019

Hi all,
Getting ready to add livestock to my tank and I have the Photo V2+ I'm going to be using this data to customize my lighting schedule but I have a question. For these values shown in the spreadsheet; do the evening/night hours have the moonlight values i.e. does it look like the Lunar mode on the remote or just lower shades of RGB? I really love the moonlight look at night.

Porpoise Hork · Jan 28, 2019

For evening viewing to get the most pop I have mine set to run channel 3 by itself on 5% then drop to 1% over a 2 hour period. This gives time to view the coral color at their best and also tells the fish it's bed time and to settle down for the night.

Ron Reefman · Jan 29, 2019

I'm down to all blue for several hours toward the end of sunset. I love the crazy fluorescence all my zoas and RFAs give off. I do an hour of just violet before I go lights out for the overnight time.

BTW, rather than the blue lumen bar, I bought a fixture that is roughly the same size as my 24" V2 and has only blue and white and no sunrise/sunset control. I run only the blue channel at 100% from 2 hours after sunrise until an hour before lights out. It sits behind the V2 and it makes everything in the tank pop just that little bit more. It also makes the back of the tank a bit more blue during midday and that makes the tank look like it's more than just 2 feet from front to back when you look in the tank from the front.

fogcutter · Jan 29, 2019

Ron Reefman said:
I'm down to all blue for several hours toward the end of sunset. I love the crazy fluorescence all my zoas and RFAs give off. I do an hour of just violet before I go lights out for the overnight time.

BTW, rather than the blue lumen bar, I bought a fixture that is roughly the same size as my 24" V2 and has only blue and white and no sunrise/sunset control. I run only the blue channel at 100% from 2 hours after sunrise until an hour before lights out. It sits behind the V2 and it makes everything in the tank pop just that little bit more. It also makes the back of the tank a bit more blue during midday and that makes the tank look like it's more than just 2 feet from front to back when you look in the tank from the front.

That sounds pretty good. I'm not looking to buy any supplemental lighting...I really like the way the lunar cycle looks on the Photon....I just want to plug in the values to make that happen after my sunset cycle.