Hydra26 HD - Simulating real life as best as possible?

[Schteeve]

Hey all

Im using the Hydra26 HD LED's and want to try and get the lighting colours and intensity as realistic as possible.
For those of you who have same or similar product you will know that when you connect to the Hydra's web interface you can control the % intensity of all the colours of the rainbow as well as UV intensity.

The main part of this day/night cycle im struggling with is just HOW dark does a reef get at night time? trying to simulate the moon as best as i can but I have no idea just how much moonlight makes its way onto the reef. I assume most pictures from doco's are brightened to give the audience a good view.

And also the colour of moonlight? I'm tempted to with with a deep dark blue because it looks nice, but a spectrometer would show you that moonlight is just very dim white light.

 

[TheGreatWave]

I will leave your color settings as it's own thing, maybe see if there are some AB+ type settings for it to use as a starting point. Not really natural looking but should grow well.

As far as the moon, as you say it's closer to the temperature of the sun, not the typical blue LED we see in the hobby. Some lights have a moon phase setting, so that is part of the battle. Intensity would have to be measured and set similar to the real moon. A PAR meter in a 5 gallon pail of old tank water on a full moon would answer this.

A reef probably gets pretty dark for the most part at night. (Minus the moon)

If you can get your light to do a 4000K to 6100K color it might work OK for a moonlight. Assuming your controller can do all that. I never could figure out the moonlight on the Radion. lol

 

[Schteeve]

I will leave your color settings as it's own thing, maybe see if there are some AB+ type settings for it to use as a starting point. Not really natural looking but should grow well.

As far as the moon, as you say it's closer to the temperature of the sun, not the typical blue LED we see in the hobby. Some lights have a moon phase setting, so that is part of the battle. Intensity would have to be measured and set similar to the real moon. A PAR meter in a 5 gallon pail of old tank water on a full moon would answer this.

A reef probably gets pretty dark for the most part at night. (Minus the moon)

If you can get your light to do a 4000K to 6100K color it might work OK for a moonlight. Assuming your controller can do all that. I never could figure out the moonlight on the Radion. lol

a PAR meter? oh boy... haha thats getting pretty serious. It's becoming an obsession of mine, trying to get this lighting to look amazing. I really want the day time to look pure and crystal clear, without obviously tilting towards blue lighting, i also oversized my sump and filtration because i want to try and get my sand to be beautiful white