help with led's please

drewstaxplaya · Sep 17, 2016

so i just picked up a full spectrum led fixture. it has no company on it so idk what it is, as i just bought it second-hand. so the thing is that i have a 29bc which i think is 22" accross and my light is 20" accross, with 1" of space on each side, so im not sure how far i can hang it above my tank, so what do u guys think about the height situation? also, i had the worst led's before which put out mibimum light before. it is the pic of the 3 led strips. so my new lifht has 3 channels: 1 white, 1 blue, and 1 for uv, red and green. so what percentages do u guys recommend i run my new leds at so i dont either shock kill or bleach the corals i have? please help.

Breadman03 · Sep 18, 2016

I'm not much help, but the bottom pic looks similar to an AI Hydra LED. It might be a good spot to start your research.

Start low and work the power up slowly.

Good luck!

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 18, 2016

Get good coverage. Hold the light over the tank and look to see it hits the edges an a bit of the glass too.
IMO that's the wrong light for the tank. But I've been there too. Man I got stories.
If it's still too spot lighting the tank. See is you can pull the lenses. It's gonna be so close to the tank it won't matter.
That looks like it's supposed to be high up over a larger tank. So it probably has narrow lenses for more penetration. Pulling lenses makes it wider to cover more and cuts the intensity.

If it helps draw a tank shape on the floor and look for even coverage on the shape. Like I did here
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lighting-upgrade-with-a-lux-meter-saltyfilmfolks.248417/
Don't go by eye. Don't go by percent. You don't have to guess. But you can guess if you want.

See that fancy red meter in that post I linked It's $14. Turn on. Hold under light at top of water. Read number. Easier than an api.
Set color to eye. Not too blue.

Try for 15000 lux to start. 10,000 might be better but I don't know how high your corals are.

15000 lux is near 200 par. A good place to start acclimation.

What led is it btw.

I have the ai sol's. They get to 125,000 lux or more at 8 in.

Fwiw a Mars Aqua can give 2500 par at 6 in at full.

An ai has better spectrum so more par.

Tag me @saltyfilmfolks if you need help.