Hydra 26 HD for a 60 liter nano reef ...

[Cenglezopoulos]

Good morning/good evening everyone

I ve been running a nano reef tank 60 liters, for approximately 3 months now. Since I plan on moving to a bigger tank in 1-2 years from now, i decided to buy a good light for it and since I am a LED fan, I purchased the Hydra 26 HD.
My corals at the moment are a mix of LPS (ricordea and zoanthids), one clam and 4 frags of SPS on the top of my rocks

My light is set up like shown in the picture attached but to be honest, the tank looks a little bit dark to me. On the other hand, I am afraid of raising up the intensity because the HYDRA might become kind of overkill for my small tank ...

What would you recommend me to do ?

Thanks a lot !

Costas, Greece.

 

[Cenglezopoulos]

The above picture is not the correct one .... my settings are those in the picture below:

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

this is my schedule that I currently run, over a 14 gallon biocube. Its a nano if your unfamiliar. Get yourself a lux meter if you can't afford a par meter, they are like 15 bucs on amazon, study lux and par and try and get yourself a range of what spectrum you should run for your corals and how high your light should be off the water. That's what I did, then I just played around with it until I found something I liked and my corals liked also! If you're lucky maybe @saltyfilmfolks or @mcarroll will chime in!

Btw: this is for a Prime HD

 

[Cenglezopoulos]

Thanks a lot for your answer .... I did not know there are lux meters

 

[Cenglezopoulos]

Could I see a picture of your nano ?

 

[mcarroll]

+1 to the lux meter.

In general, set the colors to what looks good to you. (Something around 14,000K to 20,000K ideally) Then use the light meter to set the intensity where you'd like it.

Around 25,000 lux or higher would be a nice range.

Lower can be done too, but depends what you expect and how your tank goes – corals in the wild can often survive down to 1,000-5,000 lux.

 

[Cenglezopoulos]

Thanks a lot for your answer.

So it seems that my colors are in the correct range .... u said 14k to 20k

The only way to set the intensity now is using a lux meter ?

 

[Cenglezopoulos]

So this 19500 K is depending on the colour combination I ve chosen and is not influenced by the intensity ?

 

[mcarroll]

You can guess using only your eyeballs, but it's much better to use a meter of some kind.

 

[mcarroll]

Something like the "LX-1010B" lux meter that I use is all it takes at a basic level. $12 including delivery.

 

[Cenglezopoulos]

Using an app for my android phone ( I know it cant be as accurate as a Lux meter), the light intensity 20 cm below my LEDS is 55.000 Lux ............. !!!

 

[Cenglezopoulos]

This LX - 1010B ... is it submersible ??? Or you just use it to measure intensity above water level

 

[jsker]

I have my light 12 inches 30cm off the water. I run my lights for a 72 48x 18W x 21 depth for 12 hours, and the 1%blud at night on the lunar setting

 

[Cenglezopoulos]

Those spikes .... what do u gain from them ??

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

Those spikes .... what do u gain from them ??

I can't speak for jsker but I run spikes bc I don't want to blast my corals with hours of intense light. In the wild I suppose you can have clear days but often there is clouds that roll by and may block the sun for a bit. That's just my opinion

 

[jsker]

Those spikes .... what do u gain from them ??

Give you more of a natural light effect, clouds passing over instead blasting straight intestacy all day.

 

[jsker]

I can't speak for jsker but I run spikes bc I don't want to blast my corals with hours of intense light. In the wild I suppose you can have clear days but often there is clouds that roll by and may block the sun for a bit. That's just my opinion

Thinking the same

 

[Cenglezopoulos]

Guys ... can you share your preset with me please ?

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

Thinking the same

Jsker,I actually have one of your old presets!

There's definitely a lot of tweaking that goes on, just find something you like and build off it, watch your corals and note their behavior.

 

[ReeferMadness80G]

Guys ... can you share your preset with me please ?

I can if you PM me your email