Smat farm g5 led help?

dcreasy9880 · Jan 8, 2023

I just ordered a Smat farm g5 led light today. I have seen amazing reviews and wanting to use it as an upgrade from my current marine ic led light. The tank I’m putting the light on is a 36 gallon bow front 30x15.5x22. I’m curious if anyone else has used these lights and If they have found a good setting to adjust the lights to thanks! I’m doing a mixed reef tank with mostly easy beginner softie and lps corals and I have a rainbow bubble tip anemone, may get a few sps down the road if I find this new light is really good.

SPR1968 · Jan 19, 2023

I can’t help with the specific question but I can bump the thread to see if we can get you some attention

dcreasy9880 · Jan 19, 2023

So I received the light and it’s on my tank and a guy on fb told me he had 2 over his 40 gallon breeder mixed reef and tank and was running channels A:0% B:100% C100% D:100% E0% F0% and I copied that same setting and my corals look good granted it’s only been on the tank 2 full days and I have the light adjusted to its tallest setting over the tank it gives a very blue look

dcreasy9880 · Jan 19, 2023

TheNemDude · Jan 23, 2023

When I used them I had 4 over a 40 gallon breeder for spread so I had to have the intensity lower on all channels. When I was just using one my settings were 10,90,90,90,5,5. Overall worked well and really colored up my corals.

dcreasy9880 · Jan 23, 2023

I was always told to try and never use any white green or red lights cause they will cause algae growth but I just made a new thread asking about diatom algae cause I’ve had the light running for a week and I’m having a huge diatom algae bloom on my glass and sand running the lights on all blue and purple on 100% and turned them down to 75% Saturday and today I turned them down ton65% cause early morning when the lights off the bloom don’t look as bad but in the evening after the lights been on a few hours it’s really bad looking

TheNemDude · Jan 24, 2023

dcreasy9880 said:
I was always told to try and never use any white green or red lights cause they will cause algae growth but I just made a new thread asking about diatom algae cause I’ve had the light running for a week and I’m having a huge diatom algae bloom on my glass and sand running the lights on all blue and purple on 100% and turned them down to 75% Saturday and today I turned them down ton65% cause early morning when the lights off the bloom don’t look as bad but in the evening after the lights been on a few hours it’s really bad looking

Any light will cause algae growth if conditions are right with excessive nutrients. Having those channels set to a lower percentage won't do that if nutrients are in check and your have a good balance in the aquarium. Corals don't use just a single spectrum of light.

I would then it way down and start with 50% for the blue channels then slowly increase them over a span of a month. They use powerful LEDs in that unit and you can definitely cook corals.

How long has the tank been setup for again?

dcreasy9880 · Jan 24, 2023

I turned the lights down to 45% and ima leave them at that for awhile, the tank has been set up for right at 7 months I feel I shoulda passed my ugly stage by now though most the rock is almsot a year old I had it in a previous 20 gallon saltwater tank for about 6 months, in about a month I’m breaking thsi tank down and moving everything into a 40 breeder simply because the bowfront with using hob equipment is a pain to maintain flow and get it dialed in jsut right because it bounces off the curved glass and goes all through the tank randomly if that makes since

Blake509 · Feb 10, 2023

dcreasy9880 said:
I turned the lights down to 45% and ima leave them at that for awhile, the tank has been set up for right at 7 months I feel I shoulda passed my ugly stage by now though most the rock is almsot a year old I had it in a previous 20 gallon saltwater tank for about 6 months, in about a month I’m breaking thsi tank down and moving everything into a 40 breeder simply because the bowfront with using hob equipment is a pain to maintain flow and get it dialed in jsut right because it bounces off the curved glass and goes all through the tank randomly if that makes since

I've got them over to nano tanks and like them I do run the white and ramp them up during the day and down in evening while blues stay the same all day and any change can have effects on the tank and you just put a lot more power over ur tank from previous current just keep doing what u can to give beneficial bacteria a chance to take territory back over. And for the random flow thing that's a good thing for corals

Athamm91 · May 23, 2023

Any update?? Running same light over a 30 that's been going for about 2 years.. completely established. Fragged many corals from it. But just recently had a light go out, so I bought the smat farm... and bam! Diatoms all over my sand and rock. Curious as to what your settings are?