How to acclimate from not enough light to Radions

[Bubblebass]

Finally ordered two XR30 pro's for my 120g (48x24x24). I'm trying to find where to perfect mounting location is. I know they will be 9" over the tank mounted on the canopy, but not sure how far apart. I think just toward the center of the tank with even spacing for each one.

The lights I have now are 36" Wavepoint LED's. One all blue and one half blue half white. The blue is 2/3 toward the back of the tank and the half/half is in the middle. When I take a lux, it all depends where I hold the phone. I can get 15K just under the light on the top of the water or 1800 toward the front. This is a huge reason I need the new lights! Terrible spread and not enough.

So how do I go about acclimating the tank with new Radions to this? I want to start with the LPS program and I don't mind taking the time to ramp up so as not to hurt the coral.

 

[deerhunter06]

id suggest buying another I had 2 over a 120 and it wasn't enough. I did have all sps though Lps would probably be ok. I also had them in a canopy about 9 inches off water just evenly spaced like u said. To answer your question I started them off at 30% and just bumped them up 5% every week.

 

[mcarroll]

15K wasn't too bad, actually...just on the low side of normal is all, really. One of my two stony coral tanks runs at 14,000 lux. the other at around 40-50,000 lux. All seems well in both.

I would simply tune the Radeon's to the color you like and use the lux meter to match the intensity. See how things go from there.

If all goes well for several months, you can start ticking up the intenstity....no more than a percent at a time, IMO, for maximum safety.

 

[Bubblebass]

15k along the strip in the center. So about 1/2" x 36" is 15k

 

[mcarroll]

Well, that does matter. Even the new lights won't have perfect spread.

Maybe even less perfect - hence @deerhunter06's advice. Which I agree with, BTW. I might even consider an even-higher number of the smaller XR15's.

 

[mfinn]

Use the acclimation program. That's what it's for. It will increase the intensity gradually each day.
Set the starting point intensity to what the lux meter said you had before and go to 65% - 70% over a 5-6 week period.

IMO 2 of the XR30 pros will be plenty for a 48" x 24" foot print.

There are several preset programs available. The Radiant is fairly blue and uses a big curve during the day. The high growth is a little whiter and goes to the max intensity that you have set fairly fast.
I haven't looked much at the others, but they are there.