Enough lighting

tyleraoc · Oct 8, 2018

Hi Im new to keeping acros and wanted to see if i have enough light on my tank. I have a kessil a80 and a Macegrow Led (Amazon black box) over my 7.5 gallon. I keep them both at max.

https://www.amazon.com/Macegrow-Aqu...024866&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=reef+light&psc=1

James M · Oct 8, 2018

IMO that is overkill for both to be on a 7 gallon

Flippers4pups · Oct 8, 2018

Welcome to reef2reef! It may work, but on a small tank, keeping water pramameters inline may be your biggest challenge.

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 8, 2018

Yea it’s probaly fine. Don’t run them too long.

Impossible to say how much you have with that set yup.
The a80 is pretty low output by itself and not enough for most acro.
I have not seen any specs on the other light yet.

Chooose easy easy easy acros.
And keep in mind your ato is going to be the most important piece of gear you own if you attempt it in that set up.

tyleraoc · Oct 8, 2018

My tank is plumbed and had a ten gallon sump with 2 5 gallon water barrels so system is total of about 20 ish gallons including rock. I currently have them running for 10 hours. Is that too much?

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 8, 2018

Not a bad place to start.

It hard to guess on how bright (how much par ) that it.

For many sps tanks , the common reccomend is 200 par on the sand.
For a common mixed reef , 100 on the sand.

You can use a lux meter and test the bright ness at the top of the water (or put it in a bag and put it in )
Then Devide lux by 60 to get par.

Ie , 6000 lux is 100 par for most led

Silentreefer · Oct 15, 2018

saltyfilmfolks said:
Not a bad place to start.

It hard to guess on how bright (how much par ) that it.

For many sps tanks , the common reccomend is 200 par on the sand.
For a common mixed reef , 100 on the sand.

You can use a lux meter and test the bright ness at the top of the water (or put it in a bag and put it in )
Then Devide lux by 60 to get par.

Ie , 6000 lux is 100 par for most led

I'm pretty sure par and lux are not able to be converted as lux can over or underestimate certain color spectrums. Usually light for growing things is measured in par or pur from my understanding. I could be wrong though

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 15, 2018

Silentreefer said:
I'm pretty sure par and lux are not able to be converted as lux can over or underestimate certain color spectrums. Usually light for growing things is measured in par or pur from my understanding. I could be wrong though

https://www.apogeeinstruments.com/conversion-ppfd-to-lux/

oreo54 · Oct 15, 2018

Silentreefer said:
I'm pretty sure par and lux are not able to be converted as lux can over or underestimate certain color spectrums. Usually light for growing things is measured in par or pur from my understanding. I could be wrong though

you can easily ballpark the PAR from LUX (actually can use lumens as well but a longer story).
depending on the "quality" of the meter will depend on the error in the blue/red side.

most lights w/ a "K" measurement will be fairly accurate..
those w/ heavy "blue" below 450-ish nm or heavy UV (anything below 400nm is NOT part of the usual PAR measurement either) or violet will have larger errors..

Theory usually implies poor accuracy, reality is another story..
Keep in mind it's still a "ballpark" figure which is mostly all most need..
http://www.otc.co.uk/megatron/gp-instruments/index.html

Silentreefer · Oct 15, 2018

I stand corrected

but wouldn't using lux for LEDs be harder if there are multiple spectrums? I searched this topic a few years ago (dont remember too well and dont need to search again ) before I bought my par meter and after I bought my radions lol

saltyfilmfolks · Oct 15, 2018

Silentreefer said:
I stand corrected but wouldn't using lux for LEDs be harder if there are multiple spectrums? I searched this topic a few years ago (dont remember too well and dont need to search again ) before I bought my par meter and after I bought my radions lol

Not really.
Most led at 1:1 ratio between 16-20kish , seem to come out at a conversion constant of 60.

If you do the math at 65 70 75 , you’ll see it stays pretty close , or in the ball park.

oreo54 · Oct 15, 2018

Silentreefer said:
I stand corrected but wouldn't using lux for LEDs be harder if there are multiple spectrums? I searched this topic a few years ago (dont remember too well and dont need to search again ) before I bought my par meter and after I bought my radions lol

it's 'harder" w/ specific wavelengths and their % of all light..
If one had all cyan/green/amber/yellow diodes it would be pretty accurate..
If one had all 410nm violets it would be pretty inaccurate...

for an example 50% royal blue 50% "daylight (8000k-ish)
conversion factor is 39

* MIXING LIST
----------------------------------------
Cree XT-E RoyalBlue (450-465nm) [120°] x2
Cree XP-E CoolWhite (5000-10000K) [120°] x2
----------------------------------------

* SIMULATION DATA
* PERFORMANCE @ 30cm
----------------------------------------
Irradiance : 2 W/m²/s
Illuminance : 326 lx
PPFD : 8.3 umol/m²/s

Say anywhere from 35 to 60
10,000 Lux is either.. 285 to 166par..but when you are running, say a radium xr15 full it gets "closer"...

anyways another example..

* MIXING LIST
----------------------------------------
Maxspect Mazarra X [90°] x1
----------------------------------------

* SIMULATION DATA
* PERFORMANCE @ 30cm
----------------------------------------
Irradiance : 49.8 W/m²/s
Illuminance : 7,395 lx
PPFD : 201 umol/m²/s
----------------------------------------

by SPECTRA 1.0β @ 1.023world
http://spectra.1023world.net/

factor 36.8

Point is to know your light.. any conversion factor can be estimated from using the correct diodes..
http://spectra.1023world.net/

67-ish is an approx for "warm white" CREE diodes per the other "reefers"..

* MIXING LIST----------------------------------------
Cree XP-E WarmWhite (2600-3700K) [120°] x2
* SIMULATION DATA
----------------------------------------

* PERFORMANCE @ 30cm
----------------------------------------
Irradiance : 0.7 W/m²/s
Illuminance : 235 lx
PPFD : 3.5 umol/m²/s

235/3.5 =67.1

chart of some crazy low conversion factors (not LED)
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/2/review
NOTE: it's not exactly "easy" w/ other lights either.. see the 2 10000 MH 's as an example.
30 or 54??

Also note even "great" PAR meters suffer below 400nm or above 700nm..

Personally dividing lux by 40-50 for high blue lights is probably a wee bit closer than 60.. but as usual "it depends"...

* MIXING LIST
EcotechMarine Radion XR30w G2 [80°] x1
Irradiance : 137 W/m²/s
Illuminance : 23,609 lx
PPFD : 574 umol/m²/s

41.13...........

Silentreefer · Oct 17, 2018

Yeah that's too much math for me lol I have radion xr30 g3 pros so having to do that much division is just added work and like they say time is money

all in all a par meter is a good investment if your keeping coral takes most of the guess work (and math) out of the equation. Thanks for the info though you learn something new every day