How high are your LEDs off the water?

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 14, 2016

squareriggersailor said:
The tank is 13" deep with a one inch sandbed. There's some TBS live rock, an ORA red goniopora, and an ORA neon green finger leather. It's been set up for about six months but I haven't really stocked it yet because it's getting moved soon. I may change directions and do an SPS biotope instead.

Based on your last post I think I should cut the output in half.

and if its fine its fine too. look at the corals...
I would go lower too as an experiment slowly but mainly on the white. from what i know of those corals. Again my experiment.

Midrats · Sep 14, 2016

OK I have it set to 15k lux during midday and a little less mornings and evenings. Stuff has looked a little shriveled and I suspect too much light may be the culprit.

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 14, 2016

Glad I could help.
That's pretty low. See how it goes.

ReefLEDLights · Sep 14, 2016

Back in the day when we used 400 Watt MH any new coral was shielded by numerous layers of bug screen...After a few days one layer was removed until total acclimation was achieved.

Now its a tad more complicated as everyone is talking about the wattage of their LEDs and their settings...I gotta raise the what the heck flag as the PAR of a 150 watt Import can vary by almost 300%. Generally depending if the LEDs are not knockoffs the PAR can still vary by 100%...

This is why a before and after light reading is so important when changing lights.

I hope this puts thing into a little more perspective. Also for my personal tanks I prefer to purchase from a vendor that uses a similar grow intensity I do...Some LFS put their corals under weak lights to both save energy and force the LPS to expand trying to gather as much light as possible...I always avoid any retailer that only displays and does not offer a grow environment.

Bill

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 14, 2016

ReefLEDLights said:
Back in the day when we used 400 Watt MH any new coral was shielded by numerous layers of bug screen...After a few days one layer was removed until total acclimation was achieved.

Now its a tad more complicated as everyone is talking about the wattage of their LEDs and their settings...I gotta raise the *** flag as the PAR of a 150 watt Import can vary by almost 300%. Generally depending if the LEDs are not knockoffs the PAR can still vary by 100%...

This is why a before and after light reading is so important when changing lights.

I hope this puts thing into a little more perspective. Also for my personal tanks I prefer to purchase from a vendor that uses a similar grow intensity I do...Some LFS put their corals under weak lights to both save energy and force the LPS to expand trying to gather as much light as possible...I always avoid any retailer that only displays and does not offer a grow environment.

Bill

Yup. These are the lessons I've learned from the old schoolers.
Fwiw I went w some t4 non dims and did the screen trick last year.

The closest I've been able to get folks esp today's reefers and young hobbiests is lux intensity. Is a pretty safe bet IMO.
It's math. Its a defined number.
If I had more lux par data I could be more accurate. But manufactures are reluctant to give that data in most cases. Any data in most cases. The Mars Aqua figures I have were long research with many many folks across the globe at this point.
It's also quite complicated data in a way with the sliders and adjustments in some led. A bly white combo is easy lux par. See Danas riddles article for charts on that. But I think his numbers may be old as I'm pretty sure led are better since then
Sadly I do not know nor do I still belive there is an led with the par output of an Ati coral plus. I look at folks and company par graphs a lot. And I'm not seeing it.

For the uninitiated that means that t5 has less lux intensity but more par. So it's easy to under estimate.

But for acclimation I do belive it's a very good way to go. It gives you a defined number. The amount of light falling on a subject. In lux. Not percent of something on a dial. not watts per gallon that means nothing if the reflector is bad or the ballast is cheap.

You can use math to go 30% of 30000 lux to acclimate. And bring it back up slowly 2500 lux a week. 5000 if ya got the balls.

And even par as I mentioned earlierin the thread too has little to do with pur.
And no two corals are alke and are from different depths. They don't come with manuals. Light levels are anecdotal at best And Par is much more easily scewed by white sand and black background than lux.

Sorry for the ramble. I don't like that it's a Wild West with little info. And the info is out there.
Edit. It's what I had to struggle with the entire time I've been Reefing. Only 7+ btw late bloomer And it seems since I cracked it I've had a lot more success. Make me passionate about it.

And boy I'd like to go to your Lfs.

danielb333 · Sep 15, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
hahahaha. thanks for the vote of confidence, but wait for the meter.
but yea it seems a little high to me. but if its fine its fine.
mine is 9.5(bottom of fixture) inches over the tank more than half the lenses are out and im at 80% max at 40k lux. but its a 20 in tank w high light stuff.
different fixture in my 55 w 24 deep higher rock work, still at 40k lux
my shrooms dont seem to like it on the sand so i shade them, if that helps.

It does thanks Salty.

Tooch · Sep 15, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
hahahaha. thanks for the vote of confidence, but wait for the meter.
but yea it seems a little high to me. but if its fine its fine.
mine is 9.5(bottom of fixture) inches over the tank more than half the lenses are out and im at 80% max at 40k lux. but its a 20 in tank w high light stuff.
different fixture in my 55 w 24 deep higher rock work, still at 40k lux
my shrooms dont seem to like it on the sand so i shade them, if that helps.

Salty, can you let me know how you take the lenses out of the sb lights? Thanks

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 15, 2016

Tooch said:
Salty, can you let me know how you take the lenses out of the sb lights? Thanks

yea, but Ill do one better. Ill have the SB owner tell you. A lot of great how to on his site and you tube, and facebook.

You tube..https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-YE4za01wentcDvQewIm2w

Follow the how to take apart stuff on the upgrade vids, and TAKE PICTURES ALONG THE WAY. the lenses just pull off.

Im a good take aparter

, but the trick is putting back together. It was pretty easy to do both.

for all reading......
If your not a diy er or take aparter, be careful or reconsider the project. and UNPLUG THE THING!

MrD · Sep 16, 2016

I would suggest running the LED's at a lower percentage to fine tune them vs. raising them off the surface of the water.

ReeferMadness80G · Sep 22, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
...............ahem,,,, cough cough, lux ,cough ....meter.... cough..... ahahemm sorry.

how deep is the tank. what are you growing? im sps and high light stuff

I did buy one and love it

ill look at mine and make a calculated est

well look what finally came in the mail!

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 22, 2016

LOL
Amazon should start sending me a commission

ReeferMadness80G · Sep 22, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
LOL
Amazon should start sending me a commission

They really should, Salty! So this is my reading I just took, whites are at about 62% of what they peak out at during the day. Blues are maxed out.

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 22, 2016

Go out side.

ReeferMadness80G · Sep 22, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
Go out side.

I read a few old threads and I found one from December last year that you were involved in and I believe the consensus that you came to was 40k lux at Peak? I made some height adjustments and at the surface I should read approx 40k at peak, and maintain that for 2 hours. I have a four hour ramp up starting at 11am and ending at 8pm. My blues are a little different. What do you think?

ReeferMadness80G · Sep 22, 2016

At 6pm I was reading around 27.5k lux

Scotch57 · Sep 22, 2016

Waterproof how do you get the reading at the bottom

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 23, 2016

ReeferMadness80G said:
I read a few old threads and I found one from December last year that you were involved in and I believe the consensus that you came to was 40k lux at Peak? I made some height adjustments and at the surface I should read approx 40k at peak, and maintain that for 2 hours. I have a four hour ramp up starting at 11am and ending at 8pm. My blues are a little different. What do you think?

The 40k is for the animals in MY tank. depending on your livestock and the distance to them you may want lower.
My tank my animals are different from yours.

Scotch57 said:
Waterproof how do you get the reading at the bottom

This one is not, the more expensive ones do. I dont pers care whats a t the bottom, If I really want to know I test it dry. Imo folks do look a little too hard at whats everywhere. I suppose its good to know if your curious. or you suspect the fixture has a lot of fall off because of a poor reflector or lack of lenses etc.
Corals ere very adaptable so if you know how much you have at the top and its good spectrum, then you can move the coral around.

RMS18 · Sep 25, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
I use a lux meter to set intensity of the light. Every 5000 lux is roughly 100 par.
The lux at the top of my tank is 40,000 lux to grow highlight coral.
For low light coral id start at 20,000 lux.
Direct summer daylight is 2000 par.
That's 100,000 lux.
Amazon has lux meters today for $13. It's the red one.

Oh yea one of my lights is 16 in off the water in the cube. The 55g the lights are 8in off the water.
Both are set at 40,000 lux.

How do you use it in the water?