Reefer 250 lighting

[jp250reefer]

Hello fellow reefers,

My name is john,
I have been on the forum for a good few months now, though i have not posted as yet.

Im looking for advice with my lighting, i have a redsea reefer 250 with 1 ecotech g4 pro xr15 light mounted on the middle of the tank.
I have poor coral growth although corals appear to be healthy and colourful.
My question is is my light not enough for corals to grow.
Light is set at 65% intensity on at 0700 and off at 2100. Using ab+ schedule. So mostly appears blue.

Any help would be greatly helped.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Hi John, I don't run Radions so I can't help with the settings, but they would be more than enough to grow corals. I think your red Sea is about 38" long and I believe the Radion xr15 has a 24" spread. It seems like your unit would probably need another light.
Let's see if we have any Radions users on the reefsquad that can help. #reefsquad

 

[Crabs McJones]

Hi JohnJ I don't run Radions so I can't help with the settings, but they would be more than enough to grow corals. I think your red Sea is about 38" long and I believe the Radion xr15 has a 24" spread. It seems liked your unit would probably need another light.
Let's see if we have any Radions users on the reefsquad that can help. #reefsquad

I agree with this, it's likely a spread issue of having a single light over a 35" tank. I would add another xr15

 

[DSC reef]

Agree with the above. Add another radion or maybe look at the aquatic life T5 hybrid kit.

 

[rkpetersen]

Hi, welcome to R2R!

What they said. Also, if you can get your hands on a PAR meter (loan, rent, or buy) and take some readings, that would give you a sense of what percentage you want to use on your Radions to hit the illumination sweet spot.

Also don't forget that there are other factors that could result in poor coral growth. As a common example, alkalinity swings, even if short-lived, might do it.

 

[Scurvy]

How long has the tank been running? Tank maturity may also be a factor.

 

[Jlyons]

Hey John. I had an XR15 on my Reefer 170 and had lots of shading towards the back of the tank. Some parts were just dark so I just upgraded to an XR30 and it’s amazing. Everything grew fine with the 15 as long as it was in the middle and front side of the tank. I also have a Reefer 250 and run a kessil ap 700 on that and it’s beyond amazing. I would suggest adding another light on that tank as it’s just not sized properly for spread. Depending what you keep in terms of coral I would suggest searching out other issues in terms of growth just because the coral under the 15 both directly under and within the 18-24 inches of spread should be doing ok. Hope this helps a bit.

 

[Big G]

PAR meter would be great to examine, improve your setup. They are a bit pricy. @saltyfilmfolks turned me on to this LUX meter from Amazon. Pretty cheap and nice to have around to do exactly what you are experiencing. You can use it to "pattern" your light distribution. It's interesting to see where lights dim, overlap, etc. Best of luck. Hope this helps a bit. https://amazon.com/gp/product/B00LSFR0FO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[ndrwater]

Hello fellow reefers,

My name is john,
I have been on the forum for a good few months now, though i have not posted as yet.

Im looking for advice with my lighting, i have a redsea reefer 250 with 1 ecotech g4 pro xr15 light mounted on the middle of the tank.
I have poor coral growth although corals appear to be healthy and colourful.
My question is is my light not enough for corals to grow.
Light is set at 65% intensity on at 0700 and off at 2100. Using ab+ schedule. So mostly appears blue.

Any help would be greatly helped.

Welcome to R2R!!
I am a long time Radion user also running the AB+ program. I definitely agree with all the others in saying you'd definitely need at least one more XR15.
Also, depending on where you started with your lights intensity wise, 65% MAY be a tad high. It also might not be. Personally I run mine at 85% intensity, but took quite a while to get there. In my SPS dominant system I really need to be careful to acclimate any new corals to such a high intensity.
Radions, and all LED's for that matter, really have a lot of "punch" when it comes to PAR even deeper into our tanks.
If your tank is new, or at least the corals are new to the tank, it is very possible to stunt, harm or even burn corals that haven't been properly acclimated to a high intensity setting on a LED fixture.

 

[Jlyons]

Couldn’t agree more. Even when I was running the 15 on the 170 I was running the same schedule but at 50% on an lps dominant tank. Very well could be burning your corals as well.

 

[Matt Jackson]

Welcome to R2R!!
I am a long time Radion user also running the AB+ program. I definitely agree with all the others in saying you'd definitely need at least one more XR15.
Also, depending on where you started with your lights intensity wise, 65% MAY be a tad high. It also might not be. Personally I run mine at 85% intensity, but took quite a while to get there. In my SPS dominant system I really need to be careful to acclimate any new corals to such a high intensity.
Radions, and all LED's for that matter, really have a lot of "punch" when it comes to PAR even deeper into our tanks.
If your tank is new, or at least the corals are new to the tank, it is very possible to stunt, harm or even burn corals that haven't been properly acclimated to a high intensity setting on a LED fixture.

Hi,
I’m in the process of putting together a reefer 250, I opted for 2x Gen4 15 pros with the RMS’s. What’s a good par level to start the tank off with? I plan on starting with a few fish first and then getting some SPS. Do you recommend the diffuser’s?