AI Prime HD vs Current USA IC Loop PRO

[Susan Edwards]

thanks @ReeferCraze If I start to see cyano will lower them. Upped them a bit and lowered white a bit from other advice and will watch things.

 

[Who me?]

thanks @ReeferCraze If I start to see cyano will lower them. Upped them a bit and lowered white a bit from other advice and will watch things.

Chlorophyll definitely benefits from the red light. It also helps the coral fluoresce. Unfortunately, phycocyanin loves 600-640nm which is exactly where the red is at on these orbit LEDs.
The green does very little other than making the light appear brighter to us. No growth benefit.

 

[Susan Edwards]

ah, thanks for that info!

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello all,

I have extensive knowledge and use with the current products. In the research I have done even the lower powered ic lights will be much better than the ai primes. Your corals are adjusting right now, I would actually set the lights to cloud coverage instead. I would use the cloud coverage maybe for a week. If you look at their presents, they should have one or two designed just for coral and fish acclimatation.

I would also mount these lights right on top of the tank. Since your not running sps, these lights are way more than you will ever need. They also will give you better coverage, (more consistent) yet will give you a much better spectrum. Becareful not to use too much green, and red, since it will enhance the growth of algae.

Both of the lights you mentioned are good lights, but from the research I have done with both of them, (at different aquariums, the current lights are better for what your using them for). I know everyone has their opinions, and nobody is wrong, but I have compared both lights on almost identical systems, with the same corals. (This is at local aquariums I did some of my research at). In analyzing both tanks, the coral with the ic lights grew much faster, had better color, and were less prone to bleaching.

I wouldn’t give up hope yet, and I would set your lights to cloudy, or set to acclimatation.

Sarah

 

[Shabalaba]

I have the current ic marine pro, 72 inchs and love the programing and the loop system. My wallet was my deciding factor. Right now they are on brackets 7 inches above and I'll be dropping them down to either the 5 or the 3 inch levels.

I've got them set at
blue 100
white 40
green and red 50-55

Question: is it better for corals to have more white or less? Is it mainly just what you like the looks of? That they'll get what they need from the other colors?

So there's a few things I think are important here.

Be careful when lowering you're lights. Leds are particularly prone to shading and 3-5 inches seems pretty close to the surface in my opinion. I would turn the lights up more if you are concerned about light intensity. I'm sure you'll be able to play around with it and see for yourself though.

Also, white light provides far higher par numbers than any other. It will enhance the growth of your coral more than any other spectrum. The blue and uv spectrum enhance the color of your corals more than growth. Green and red have little to no effect on coral growth and only provide a more pleasing look to the eye. With all of this being said, when all setting are at 100%, the light emitted will be what the manufacturer considers to be the "optimum" spectrum. You can tell what colors are more important by looking at the number of LEDs of that color. There are far less green and red leds as there are blue and white.

The current system is a pretty sweet package for the price. Especially when you are lighting a 6 foot tank. What I did and always recommend to people, is try acclimating your tank to full 100% for 6-8 hours a day for best results. Bluer light can be used before and after to simulate your dawn/dusk.

I should also note that it's equally important for you to enjoy the look of the tank, so make sure it's pleasing to your eye as well.

 

[Who me?]

So there's a few things I think are important here.

Be careful when lowering you're lights. Leds are particularly prone to shading and 3-5 inches seems pretty close to the surface in my opinion. I would turn the lights up more if you are concerned about light intensity. I'm sure you'll be able to play around with it and see for yourself though.

Also, white light provides far higher par numbers than any other. It will enhance the growth of your coral more than any other spectrum. The blue and uv spectrum enhance the color of your corals more than growth. Green and red have little to no effect on coral growth and only provide a more pleasing look to the eye. With all of this being said, when all setting are at 100%, the light emitted will be what the manufacturer considers to be the "optimum" spectrum. You can tell what colors are more important by looking at the number of LEDs of that color. There are far less green and red leds as there are blue and white.

The current system is a pretty sweet package for the price. Especially when you are lighting a 6 foot tank. What I did and always recommend to people, is try acclimating your tank to full 100% for 6-8 hours a day for best results. Bluer light can be used before and after to simulate your dawn/dusk.

I should also note that it's equally important for you to enjoy the look of the tank, so make sure it's pleasing to your eye as well.

I have to disagree. Coral growth is dependant on the stimulation of specific chlorophyll within the corals zooxanthellae. When is comes to photosynthesis of these algaes, red from 600-660 is most efficient. Peaking at 631, 657 and 640 respectively.
Blues/violets from 400-470 are next peaking at 400nm, 420nm, 433nm, 445nm, 453nm and 467nm.
Whites have peaks in these ranges so they definitely contribute to growth but they also contain yellow, green, orange, etc in their ranges and cannot complete with dedicated blue and red LEDs.

Also, these strips have lenses and are designed to sit 3-6 inches above the water surface with minimal shadowing. Rather than raising the lights, slightly angling the lights front to back and back to front will eliminate any shadowing and retain the highest PAR output the strips are capable of producing.

I would avoid the pre programmed acclimation settings as they contain too much red. I would also not set whites or reds above 50% unless you are fond of algae blooms. Using the weather patterns as Sarah suggested could assist in acclimation as they reduce the time of white exposure and allow the corals to adjust to the leds specific spectrums.

 

[Gareth elliott]

The pur also depends on natural coral depth. If a coral you purchase is a deeper water coral they will receive more benefit from 400-470 which penetrate further into the water column.
At 25 meters half of the red light has been filtered out but most of the blue/violet remains.

This propensity for using blue light is related to the type of chlorophyll present. Zooxanthellae have both chlorophyll a and chlorophyll c.
Chlorophyll c2 has peaks at 447, 580, 627 nm and 450, 581, 629 nm wavelengths.

The form of chlorophyll is why horticulture lights are used on green macro algae, that use chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b like terrestrial flora.

 

[Who me?]

Simply put:
Blue is best bet for growth as it has the correct spectrum for photosynthesis with little concern for nuisance algae.

Red can be used sparingly to greatly increase growth and fluoresce.

Whites should be used sparingly to complete the missing spectrums for healthier better looking corals and aesthetics.

Green can be used to help balance the color to the viewers eye.

My IC is set as follows for daylight.
Blue 70% (reduced from 100, see below)
Red 35%
White 35%
Green 5%

I also have the older orbit Marine pro which has higher PAR output and different blue spectrum plus UV. I run these at 40% blue/uv and 10% white/magenta. I don't need this but like the additional color spectrum and the UV it provides. Everything grew just fine before I added this with the IC blue set at 100%.

I keep a mixed reef with lots of LPS, shrooms, zoa's and SPS.

 

[AshwinRavi]

Hello all,

I have extensive knowledge and use with the current products. In the research I have done even the lower powered ic lights will be much better than the ai primes. Your corals are adjusting right now, I would actually set the lights to cloud coverage instead. I would use the cloud coverage maybe for a week. If you look at their presents, they should have one or two designed just for coral and fish acclimatation.

I would also mount these lights right on top of the tank. Since your not running sps, these lights are way more than you will ever need. They also will give you better coverage, (more consistent) yet will give you a much better spectrum. Becareful not to use too much green, and red, since it will enhance the growth of algae.

Both of the lights you mentioned are good lights, but from the research I have done with both of them, (at different aquariums, the current lights are better for what your using them for). I know everyone has their opinions, and nobody is wrong, but I have compared both lights on almost identical systems, with the same corals. (This is at local aquariums I did some of my research at). In analyzing both tanks, the coral with the ic lights grew much faster, had better color, and were less prone to bleaching.

I wouldn’t give up hope yet, and I would set your lights to cloudy, or set to acclimatation.

Sarah

Thank you so much, yea I have decided to give it a try and be patient. After all, patience is the most important aspect of reefing.

I am currently working on getting my parameters stable.

 

[ChristianSaban]

Simply put:
Blue is best bet for growth as it has the correct spectrum for photosynthesis with little concern for nuisance algae.

Red can be used sparingly to greatly increase growth and fluoresce.

Whites should be used sparingly to complete the missing spectrums for healthier better looking corals and aesthetics.

Green can be used to help balance the color to the viewers eye.

My IC is set as follows for daylight.
Blue 70% (reduced from 100, see below)
Red 35%
White 35%
Green 5%

I also have the older orbit Marine pro which has higher PAR output and different blue spectrum plus UV. I run these at 40% blue/uv and 10% white/magenta. I don't need this but like the additional color spectrum and the UV it provides. Everything grew just fine before I added this with the IC blue set at 100%.

I keep a mixed reef with lots of LPS, shrooms, zoa's and SPS.

I was just reading this old forum and wanted to ask a few questions if your still active.
I have the Current IC Dual Pro. Would you recommend using both lights on a 40g? I’ve been using one but think I may get better response from both.
I currently have it set at

sunrise - about 2 hours
54-blue
48-white
15-red
5-green

daylight - 6 hours
100-blue
15-white
15-green
15-red

sunset- 2 hours
100-blue
0-white
45-red
25-green.
What would you change after adding the second light?

 

[Sarah24!]

I was just reading this old forum and wanted to ask a few questions if your still active.
I have the Current IC Dual Pro. Would you recommend using both lights on a 40g? I’ve been using one but think I may get better response from both.
I currently have it set at

sunrise - about 2 hours
54-blue
48-white
15-red
5-green

daylight - 6 hours
100-blue
15-white
15-green
15-red

sunset- 2 hours
100-blue
0-white
45-red
25-green.
What would you change after adding the second light?

Hello,

When you add a second one, it will increase the par because of more lights. I would keep blues the same, maybe increase them on sunrise. Day time I would (15 isn’t high), but adjust to where you find the color you like. I wouldn’t go much lower than 15 but not over 30. I definitely would suggest cutting red and green down a lot to none. If you use them I’d stay in the five range, they will grow algae much faster.

 

[Dj Emcee]

lol, that's exactly what my wife thinks. the only problem I had with black boxes were the light spill on to the entire living room.

I just bought the current system... i noticed this was posted in 2018... how are they doing for you? I have LPS and a couple sps under black boxes. I have two 72” IC pros ... would love the feedback... if they didn’t do well i may just get the AI hydra 32s... thanks in advance

 

[AshwinRavi]

if you can get the AI's please do. I still have the current IC loops, but growth is really really slow. takes forever for my corals to grow, and there is growth, but it's just really really slow.

 

[jeffchapok]

 

[AshwinRavi]

how is your growth after supplementing the lights?

 

[jeffchapok]

I actually had the T5 before the Currents, so I've never run the Currents by themselves. But I'd say my growth has been good, especially softies.

This tank was just set up in Jan 2019. This cabbage and toadstool are both 5-6x bigger than when I got them.

So is this toad

This was 4 small polyps, now 11

This was a single mushroom

This Kenya tree was one small branch

This was one single paly polyp, and I've pruned it back several times. The purple zoas behind it were originally about the size of the radioactive dragon eyes above it. All the other frags are fairly new.

My BTA seems happy

My success with SPS hasn't been good, but I don't know if that's a lighting or water quality issue. My SPS tend to get overgrown with algae.

 

[jeffchapok]

Here's how some of that stuff above started. Remember, nothing here is more than a year old.

For an LPS example, here's a before and after of my acan

 

[old salt reefer]

I want to add in my 2 cents. I have a IM nuvo 20 peninsula that has the the Current USA IC Pro(22inch light fixtures) on it Lights are sitting right on top tank(about 1.5 inches above surface of water).
I also have a IM nuvo 10 that has the AI Prime 16HD on it. Light is mounted 8 inches above top of tank(9 inches above surface of water).
Both tanks are 13 inches deep.
I have SPS and LPS in both tanks.
The IC Pro is is set at 100% blue all the time, White(IC Pro is a warm white) is set at 20% at ramp up and down and 37% the rest of the time(12 hour cycle), red and green are set at 0%. So if each fixture is rated at 27 watts I'm probably using 40-50% of that. I get good growth out of my corals although no matter where I put a Acan in that tank it turns orange and Acropora turn brown and take forever to color back up if at all(but live and grow). The thing I like most about the IC pro is that a coral(birdsnest, Stylo,Anacropora) gets light from many different LEDs from all sides, so a frag gets light evenly from all sides when placed in the center of the tank(think a 6"wide by 20" long rectangle) with less shadowing. I have no intention of replacing this light. I moved the Acans into the Nuvo 10 with the AI prime and they colored back up( some into nice rainbow colors).
Which brings me to the Nuvo 10 with the AI prime. My present setting are 20% White(prime is a cool white), 65% royal blue(RY), 85% dark blue, 90% for both violet and UV, 5% red and no green(30 watts).I have 2 hour ramp up and down to these settings from 0 set. Corals grow about 30% faster under this light, Acans and Acropora keep their colors. But the LED lights are all in the center and the light radiates out in a cone shape pattern, so a coral frag place towards the edge of the tank gets more light on the side facing the light and less on the side facing away from the light. Of coarse this is if your tank only has one prime. Lets say you have a 6 foot long tank with 4 Primes mount evenly above it, get what I'm getting at, the light from them would overlap the same as the IC Pro
So after all that is said I like the prime much better than the IC Pro, it just gives off more light in a better spectrum.

 

[Reef Life!!]

Just curious if this thread is still open. I got the 48 marine loop bundle on my 55 gal the ic pro. Wondering what light settings were the best been running them for a few months and got good growth on everything just my color during daylight hours on zoe just don’t look as good during night lights. Was running the preset setting for daylight. Think some of my zoe are losing color may be bleaching cause of to much light not sure any advice.

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

I would try preset 3 or 4, and once it’s on that use the white up and down arrows and turn the whites down where there is a tint of blue.