Hey y’all, I have a small 7 gallon tideline nano tank. I’m running a Kessil A160WE Tuna Blue. This is the first time I’m running this light with this tank and was just curious as to what the intensity should be set to for a tank this small. The intensity is currently set to 15%. If anyone else is running a similar setup I would love to see your settings!
Hey there! I actually have been running a Kessil A160WE on my 24 gallon for a few years now. The light is mounted about 6-7 inches above the water. My schedule turns on at 7, ramps from 0 to 100% intensity over 3 hours, maintains full 100% intensity for 8 hours, and then ramps down to 0 over another 3. It is a very long lighting cycle and really isn't necessary, but I like to be able to view the tank in the morning and at night. I also ramp color on the same schedule from 0% to 45% and back down again.
I have an acro that has grown up to an inch under the water's surface directly under the light, a hammer off in the back corner, an RFA near the sand, a MiniMaxi halfway up the rock, zoas from sand to surface (back of the tank), a candy cane on the far right side along with an orange digitata, and a lepto in the shade on the left side of the tank.
I have never tested the par... but I can say that my acro that is up near the surface grew very well halfway down the tank (6" deep) as well as near the top. The big difference was the color... in high light, it turned blue, and at lower light, it was green with blue tips.
My recommendation for your tank... is to slowly increase your maximum intensity up to 50%, give your coral several weeks to adjust (8-12) and then SLOWLY move it up from there if you think you could get the better color out of them. This also really depends on what type of coral you are going to keep. Don't put a hammer on the tippy top of the rock and turn the light to 100% (as an example).
I plan on buying a par meter in the not too distant future and will be testing my tank out to see what power it outputs where.
