How to successfully keep SPS Corals!

ReefJeeper · Feb 4, 2014

Looking forward to your numbers matt.. 65,000 lux is over twice what im getting! (10" under light)

With lux surface value and depth of tank or depth of x coral sp. we can compare relatively well i think.
Would be great to see some more succesful acro keepers post their values.

Ritter, i hear you 100% light meters can prove very valuable. It would be great to hear your surface values and tank depth or avg. acro depth!

ReefJeeper · Feb 4, 2014

Greenstreet.1 said:
These where at the surface

How deep is your tank and about how deep are your acros? Growing well? (Sorry if you posted in this thread i dont remember seeing it)

mcarroll · Feb 5, 2014

ReefJeeper said:
Looking forward to your numbers matt.. 65,000 lux is over twice what im getting! (10" under light)[...]

Will try to be a little comprehensive and at least find my current peak, minimum at the borders, and how much space I have from the peak before levels dip below "full daylight".

FWIW, my main lights (Razor 160w) cast light sorta like a single-bulb halide system would - very, very bright in the center with almost shadows around the edges and the most useful light in-between.

If your system casts light more like a T5 system (my GU10 setup is more like this) then you generally wouldn't expect to have as high of a peak. (Nor as much fall-off in intensity at the edges.) Will get some measurements posted on my GU10 system as well.

-Matt

Velodog2 · Feb 5, 2014

Greenstreet.1 said:
Well don't know if this will help but took these today. These are my t5 readings LEDs where off already will do one with the LEDs tomorrow. These readings where taken from three different spots over some of my best growers with iPhone free lux app.
Position 1: lux 15951
Position 2: lux 14776
Position 3: lux 13111

These are similar to my lux meter readings at the surface with all LED light with about 2:1 blue:white ratio. I get mostly in the 14000-15000 range. My tank is only 18 inches deep and most sps are within 9 inches of the surface though. All acros are growing well with reasonably good color. I am a proponent of using corals with variable coloration to measure effective lighting level. "Biometrics" as it were. So to that end ... My Red Planet has turned mostly red but still has some green. My "bonsai" type tricolor has faded somewhat as I hear they do with higher light levels. Pink lemonade base color is more yellow than green. Shawn Bennett yellow tort is solid bright green. My conclusion is that I have nice mid-range levels of light.

mcarroll · Feb 5, 2014

My Razor still hasn't ramped up to max. daily output yet, so more to come on that.

STATS FOR MY GU10 SYSTEM
The GU10 system is a single row of eleven 3-watt bulbs - three emitters, 2:1 blue:cool, 30Âº lenses, about 40 watts in total - down the center of a 36" x 12" tank that is 19" deep.

The lights should be at 12" off the water by design (30Âº lenses give near-perfect spread and penetration for a 12" wide tank at this height) but in my case due to the installation they are 16" off the water - or 30% higher.

In a spec. installation these bulbs are pretty well rated for tanks 30" deep, so I still have no problem with SPS on the bottom - birdsnests and Monti's again...one Pavona as well. I'm guessing the Monti's might be a little brighter if they were getting more light, but that's being pretty critical. (None of these corals are extremely light demanding.) That said, I do have plans to move the lights down to 12" height as soon as I can. I'd like to be a (30%) tick higher on the lux range.

My peak readings down the center of the bulb-row varied between 12000-13000 lux.
At the dim edges of the front and back I get readings between 2500-3000 lux.

-Matt

mcarroll · Feb 6, 2014

Missed the window again for my peak output so just said bump it and went manual.

100%/100% on each channel and I get about 72,000 lux at peak on the 160w Razor.

More to come!

-Matt

ReefJeeper · Feb 7, 2014

mcarroll said:
Missed the window again for my peak output so just said bump it and went manual.

100%/100% on each channel and I get about 72,000 lux at peak on the 160w Razor.

More to come!

-Matt

Wow thats cooking.. I assume that intensity is only for a short period of time though? And how does your montipora like all that light?

mcarroll · Feb 8, 2014

My regular cycle only goes to 90%/90%, BTW....just still haven't been there with the light meter at the right time.

An Orange M. digitata is right under the hot spot, and maybe 10-12" beneath the surface, and he's always been happy and good-looking.

And you're right - I think that's probably a lot of light - maybe more than I need, but not too much for the corals to adapt to and it's not that big of a hot-spot. Will get the rest of the measurements I wanted ASAP and post them too.

-Matt

ritter6788 · Feb 12, 2014

What iphone app are you all using? I'll download it and compare it to my lux meter.

Greenstreet.1 · Feb 13, 2014

I'm using LuxMeter hope that helps.

ritter6788 · Feb 13, 2014

Greenstreet.1 said:
I'm using LuxMeter hope that helps.

That app atches my Milwaukee lux meter almost exactly. I'm using iphone 5 with a lifeproof case.

Right above the water line I got 15,000 lux under the center of my maxspect razor. 55% whites 100% blues.

ritter6788 · Feb 13, 2014

ritter6788 said:
That app atches my Milwaukee lux meter almost exactly. I'm using iphone 5 with a lifeproof case.

Right above the water line I got 15,000 lux under the center of my maxspect razor. 55% whites 100% blues.

Forgot to add, that is with the optics removed. I took the 90 degree optics off and have a set of the new reflectors coming soon. I'll post all that in another thread though when I get more measurements.

P3FE · Mar 5, 2014

Hello R2R, Im new to the forum, found this thread and wanted to put my 2cents on SPS. I've been in the hobby for about 15 years now and this is my first attempt at a SPS dominant tank. The tank has been up for four months now and everything is going very well. Before I started this tank I spent about two years resaerching everything I could about SPS, reading countless books and forums and talking to people that have been suscesfull at keeping SPS. Everyone has different ways to do things but theres also a lot of constants that can be follow to achieved a succesfull SPS tank, that is Light, Flow, Nutrients, and Parameters. I read on a thread before that SPS=Stability Promotes Success, that really hit home and it has become my number one priority when it comes to this new tank and so far so good. I dont have any good pictures to show you guys but as soon as I get a good camera I will post my progress. My tank is a 60g cube 24x24x24, light is provide by a Radion G2 hanging 8" above the water runing on a 12 hour schedule at a maximum intensity of 70%, this setting gives 800 par at the surface of the water with about 370 par at the top of the aquascape and about 180 par on the sand bed. Water movement is taking care of by a single MP-40 running at a maximum speed of 70% on the Tidal Swell Mode. In my sump I have a Vertex-150 protein skimmer. Dosing is taking care by a Vertex Libra, and I run carbon and GFO thru the a BRS dual media reactor. Top off water is done by a Tunze Omolator. Everything in the tank is controlled by an APEX. My parameters are as follow, PH-7.9-8.2, Nitrate-0, Phosphate-0, Calcium-450, ALK-9dkh, Mag-1320, Temp-78.4-79.8, Salinity 1.026. I perform a 5 gallon water change every week, i use Red Sea Coral Pro salt. I clean my glass twice a week and change my media every 4 weeks. I dose BRS two part, 18ml ALK and 20ml Cal a day in a 12 hour period. I feed my fish twice a day, feed the corals once a week with DR.G's SPS Max and dose SPS Power once a week by hand. So far i have not have to dose Mag, it seems that the water changes are taking care of that, but everything is in place for when the time comes. I test my water twice a week and let my corals let me know if something is wrong, so far so good. Like I said before i will post some pictures soon so you guys can see the progress. Thank you for reading and lets keep this thread alive, there is a ton of good info here and I love learning from the SPS experts!

Grant W · Mar 6, 2014

Hey guys! Was pinged by a few friends and thought I would drop in and say hi. Looking good all and nice to see this thread still going

Grant

revhtree · Mar 6, 2014

Keep posting tips and tricks!

KritikaL · Mar 6, 2014

i have the wide angled lenses under my radion pros and was reaching anywhere between 25-32k at the water level, my tank is 2.5 foot deep have a lot of sps frags growing in my tank, but im pretty sure i'm overkilling the lighting

TheClark · Mar 6, 2014

This is a good discussion, so I want to share results.

Using the waterproof iphone case and luxmeter app, here are some underwater readings.

40B - 4600 lux - 5000 lux
=========================
- TaoTronics LED fixture
- Blues 100% Whites 50%
- reading about 16" under water center of tank

Frag Sump (55 gallon sump under DT) - 4500 lux
=========================
- AJM 55 LED Multi Spectrum with 60 degree lenses
- Blues 100% Whites 50%
- reading about 11" under water center of tank

240 DT - 2600 lux
=========================
- Custom Full Spectrum LED build
- Lights 28" over water with 30 degree optics
- 144 total leds, but only one half of tank finished (72 leds in play)
- reading about 16" under water center of tank

Out of the water, readings go much higher but the underwater readings were interesting to document.

I am an SPS dabbler, so this is a bit of a thread hijack. However, the SPS in the 240 DT seem to be thriving and growing from a dabblers perspective.

ritter6788 said:
That app atches my Milwaukee lux meter almost exactly. I'm using iphone 5 with a lifeproof case.

Right above the water line I got 15,000 lux under the center of my maxspect razor. 55% whites 100% blues.

ReefJeeper · Apr 2, 2014

In eric bornemans book aquarium corals he says the irradiance on the reef at the waters surface averages over 75k lux and at 5m-10m of depth it averages 20k lux and 10 k lux respectively. He goes on to say that light intensity is usually substantially above the saturation rate for photosynthesis. Ie, acropora acuminata considered a very high light coral has a photosynthesis saturation point of 23k lux. He says most shallow water stony corals saturate somewhere in the 20k - 30k lux range.