Increasing PAR.

[eric33014]

Currently a 90 gal 48 inch tank. 2 AI hydra 32. Bought a par meter cause these are new lights and wanted to map out my tank. I'm getting crap numbers. Meaning 4 inches below water lever im.only getting 150 par and drops obviously deeper i go. My question is add a third hydra or attach some other lights to increase. If so what lights? I have attached my lighting setting and schedule. On from 11a to 6p. Ramp up time starting at 8a.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Joe31415]

Do you have space to bring the lights closer to the water? That would give you a higher par, but it'll fall off faster as you move away from directly under the lights (which can be good)?
Have you tried making the lights brighter?
Is your tank clean? If there's a lot of crud or some kind of bloom going on, that's going to block some of it.

I don't know how big your tank is (48" x ? x ?), but another light certainly isn't going to hurt, you can always dim them or move them up if you need to, but if you don't want to spend the money on something you might not need, I'd experiment with what you have first.

As for what lights, personally, I'd stick with the same brand so they all emit (more or less) similar light, all work with the same app and can all by synced with each other. If space/money is an issue, I *think* the Hydra 32 is just 2 Prime 16HDs in one box. If that's correct, you could probably add a Prime 16HD, tell it to follow the same schedule as the other two and make whatever adjustments you need to make from there.

 

[Spare time]

How far away is it from the water? Sounds like it's mounted too high.



You also are not running it at full intensity so that's an obvious reason that I probably don't need to state.

 

[HudsonReefer2.0]

Those lights at 4” below the surface should not produce those numbers. U can chk the BRS lighting videos and chk their test results using the AI Hydras.