Viparspectra 165watt, Anyone using these?

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Have you noticed any improvements since you lowered your blue? I’ve recently had my coral start bleaching. I was at 100 blue and 25 white. Everything was good then everything randomly started bleaching out. I’m now at 60 and 10 but thinking I still should go lower yet.

They look a little better, but the hammer at top still looks like it's being hit by a high par beam due to the lenses and the coral being so high up directly below the light. A couple of the ends look a little see through so I would say a little bleached. This morning I removed all the lenses and turned the blue up to 50 and white to 5, hopefully to work up to around 60 blue and 5 white as the par loss due to not having the 90⁰ lenses on it. The spread is better though and the hammer at the top doesn't look like its getting blasted by light now. I have read that removing the lenses reduces par by 20-30%, also only running the light at 30% this leave more power to use. I'll post a photo later of the tank.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Ok this is a sort of comparison with lenses on and off, the lenses on are set at:
30% blue and 1% white.
Lenses off set at:
50% blue and 5% white.

The photos don't show the difference amazingly well but I can tell the lps at the top doesn't have the hot spot on it.

Lenes on

Lenses off

Lenses on

Lenses off

Also the corals on the sand were knocked off by a hermit crab last night. Plus the glass is dirty.

 

[Vakko]

‍;Pompus

 

[Brent Harpe]

@Nicholas Dushynsky
I know this may be a goofy question but my coral mainly my lps seem fuller at different times of the day. Were the photos taken at a similar time of day? In your photos It appears to have a little more spread and less disco ball effect without the lens? Also when your referring to lens your talking about the clear acrylic that separates the leds from being exposed to the outside elements?

Also how long would it take for coral to recover from being bleached out?

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

The photos were taken at similar times around 9PM which is an hour before my lights go to just blues for the last hour, my torches start closing up around 9.30pm for the night. The lenses are the individual ones over each led. They come off really easily it took me about 15mins to remove the light take it apart, remove the lenses and put it all back together. Regarding the bleached coral, it depends on how bleached it is, if not too bad it could be a month if it has gone really clear could be upto a year. Also yes there is more spread and the disco is less as there isn't the lens to direct it at 90⁰ I believe the leds on their own is around 120⁰ but you obviously lose power to reach the bottom, thos isn't an issue if you have a shallow tank my water depth is only about 15" of water to penetrate.

 

[Vakko]

@Nicholas Dushynsky
I know this may be a goofy question but my coral mainly my lps seem fuller at different times of the day. Were the photos taken at a similar time of day? In your photos It appears to have a little more spread and less disco ball effect without the lens? Also when your referring to lens your talking about the clear acrylic that separates the leds from being exposed to the outside elements?

Also how long would it take for coral to recover from being bleached out?

Are you using an auto doser?

 

[Brent Harpe]

Are you using an auto doser?

I am not however I have considered getting one I’m just too cheap. Lol

 

[Vakko]

I am not however I have considered getting one I’m just too cheap. Lol

I'm just trying to wrangle your concern.

It's possible that your coral are reacting to a decrease in DKH throughout the day.

 

[Hellybell80]

If you have 100% blues and 25% white that's going to be alot of par if your corals are not used to it. These lights are very strong. I would start at around 30% blues and about 5% or less for white. Just at 1% of white it can add anything from 50 par to over 100 extra par on top of the blues. Its safer for corals to start lower.

 

[Brent Harpe]

If you have 100% blues and 25% white that's going to be alot of par if your corals are not used to it. These lights are very strong. I would start at around 30% blues and about 5% or less for white. Just at 1% of white it can add anything from 50 par to over 100 extra par on top of the blues. Its safer for corals to start lower.

I’ve been running the lights for over a year I started low and ramped up too 100 blue and 25 white slowly. Things were there for a couple months before things just started bleaching out.

I'm just trying to wrangle your concern.

It's possible that your coral are reacting to a decrease in DKH throughout the day.

I have a 180 that I need to add 20 ml to of alk each day. I was do 10 in the morning before lights came on and then 10 at night after lights went off. I use csv 2 part as that’s what’s easily accessible. It’s what my lfs sells.

My alk rides about 8.4, 420 for calcium and, 1500 for mag. I don’t have to daily dose calcium or mag as they stay pretty consistent which is weird. My lfs said it happens sometimes that you need to dose one of them more than the other.

I guess I just assumed it was bleaching due to lighting intensity.

 

[Vakko]

My alk rides about 8.4, 420 for calcium and, 1500 for mag. I don’t have to daily dose calcium or mag as they stay pretty consistent which is weird. My lfs said it happens sometimes that you need to dose one of them more than the other.

I guess I just assumed it was bleaching due to lighting intensity.

I would use this chart from Red Sea to adjust your parameters.
https://www.redseafish.com/reef-care-recipes/
While 8.4 DKH is acceptable, its seems fairly low to me. Also the lower your alk, the lower your pH.

 

[Acskippy]

I’ve been running the lights for over a year I started low and ramped up too 100 blue and 25 white slowly. Things were there for a couple months before things just started bleaching out.




I have a 180 that I need to add 20 ml to of alk each day. I was do 10 in the morning before lights came on and then 10 at night after lights went off. I use csv 2 part as that’s what’s easily accessible. It’s what my lfs sells.

My alk rides about 8.4, 420 for calcium and, 1500 for mag. I don’t have to daily dose calcium or mag as they stay pretty consistent which is weird. My lfs said it happens sometimes that you need to dose one of them more than the other.

I guess I just assumed it was bleaching due to lighting intensity.

What testing equip or kit do you use? Also how often do you test and are they at diff times?

 

[Brent Harpe]

What testing equip or kit do you use? Also how often do you test and are they at diff times?

I use Red Sea to test alk, cal, and mag. For the rest I use api which I’ve been meaning to switch from just haven’t yet.

I would use this chart from Red Sea to adjust your parameters.
https://www.redseafish.com/reef-care-recipes/
While 8.4 DKH is acceptable, its seems fairly low to me. Also the lower your alk, the lower your pH.

I’ll raise my dkh my lfs suggested running around 8.4 which is what he runs his frag tanks at. He’s got some pretty nice frag tanks so I followed what he suggested. That’s why I’ve ran it there.

 

[Vakko]

BRS has a lot of testing done if you're interested in the scientific method and what the numbers mean. They say that replication of results is one the harder things to do in this hobby.

Good luck.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Just a quick update to my lighting, I would love to be able to afford a new one, but for the price of 13.99 I purchased 20 new leds to install in the light. I got 10 x royal blue 450k , 6 x violet 420k and 4 x superbright white 20000k.
I thought I'd make more use of the white channel by moving some of the original 450 and 470k blues that came with the light and put them on the white channel and I added 2 violets too. I swapped the yellower whites for the 20000k im running it with lenses now and settings are 40 blue and 8 white.
The first 3 photos are the day after, I left the lenses off for the first day to keep an eye on my soldering.
This is blues only

Whites only

Both

Both again but with lenses back on and just after a 30% water change as I haven't don't one for a long time (more than 3 months) that's why the corals aren't as open.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Just a quick update to my lighting, I would love to be able to afford a new one, but for the price of 13.99 I purchased 20 new leds to install in the light. I got 10 x royal blue 450k , 6 x violet 420k and 4 x superbright white 20000k.
I thought I'd make more use of the white channel by moving some of the original 450 and 470k blues that came with the light and put them on the white channel and I added 2 violets too. I swapped the yellower whites for the 20000k im running it with lenses now and settings are 40 blue and 8 white.
The first 3 photos are the day after, I left the lenses off for the first day to keep an eye on my soldering.
This is blues only

Whites only

Both

Both again but with lenses back on and just after a 30% water change as I haven't don't one for a long time (more than 3 months) that's why the corals aren't as open.

Let us know how they respond.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

This was what I was doing on sunday night 3.5 hours a soldering iron, some new LEDs and a few cups of tea. I had a print out of the original layout so I can mark up which ones I moved and where I installed new ones.

Some of them removed and luckily they only had thermal paste under them not adhesive, as i wanted to reuse the leds on the other channel and I used new paste upon install. This is the most soldering I have ever done.

This is the white channel now and it only has 8 whites being the 4 original in the corners and 4 new 20000k.

Blues only

Then both

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Let us know how they respond.

I will do.
I hope they do ok and react in a good way, I know it won't be an over night thing.
Also the water change will help as I think it might be even closer to a 6 months ago proper water change maybe longer than that!
I had the issue with zero phosphates and left the tank to get dirtier and was only filtering the water through a sock and putting it back in, so I didn't count as one. Oops
Also the addition of new water brings new trace elements I can't myself test for.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

I tried to get a top down shot, but you and ul seeing the light too much, I need a little clear tub to get rid of the reflection.

 

[fishguy242]

@alimac122 ,this thread may interest you