Kessil LED -> Kessil LED + 4 T5 bulbs

[Falcar]

Good morning all:

I'm adding some t5 lights to my tank and i'm wondering how you guys would do it. I was thinking either all 4 bulbs for part of the day and building up to the full day, or phase them in bulb by bulb.

Any thoughts?

 

[reefwiser]

You want the Kessils on only during the middle of your light cycle for four hours.

 

[dwest]

Good morning all:

I'm adding some t5 lights to my tank and i'm wondering how you guys would do it. I was thinking either all 4 bulbs for part of the day and building up to the full day, or phase them in bulb by bulb.

Any thoughts?

I run my kessils 12 hours every day. 2 hours ramp up and ramp down. Then I run kessils and t5’s together for 8 hours in the middle.

 

[dwest]

Good morning all:

I'm adding some t5 lights to my tank and i'm wondering how you guys would do it. I was thinking either all 4 bulbs for part of the day and building up to the full day, or phase them in bulb by bulb.

Any thoughts?

When I added my t5’s I slowly ramped the photoperiod to 8hrs. Go slow.

 

[Adventures In Reefing]

So the corals are already used to the led. you will be adding the T5. my suggestion would be to do what I did and slowly introduce the T5. I started with 2 hours at maximum photo period and worked my way up to 6 hours which for my tank seems to be the money spot. for your tank you are going to have to pay attention to your animals and see how they are reacting. Every tank is slightly different. The other thing that I found was the T5,s eliminate the shadowed spots of my tank so I had to adjust the positions on some of my corals to make them happy again. I run my LED's for 12 hours T5 for 6 Ramp is and hour and a half on either side and have the moon cycle feature as well. I can honestly say my best 2 investments for my tanks happiness has been the addition of the T5's and my algae scrubber. The colors I am getting out of my acros and digi are day and night better.

 

[madweazl]

You want the Kessils on only during the middle of your light cycle for four hours.

Why is that?

I run my kessils 12 hours every day. 2 hours ramp up and ramp down. Then I run kessils and t5’s together for 8 hours in the middle.

This is the same photo-period I run and it has worked very well for me.

@Falcar, I have some PAR data for a Kessil/T5 hybrid you can check out here.

 

[Falcar]

Thanks guys! this is the kind of information I was hoping to see. I just wasn't sure about what would be the most effective way to do this.

 

[reefwiser]

Why is that?



This is the same photo-period I run and it has worked very well for me.

@Falcar, I have some PAR data for a Kessil/T5 hybrid you can check out here.

This is mimicking the day light period on a reef. It is never high Par for 8 hours a day.
Now if you want to run it "your" way you go right ahead. But it is not needed to blast corals for a long period.

 

[madweazl]

This is mimicking the day light period on a reef. It is never high Par for 8 hours a day.
Now if you want to run it "your" way you go right ahead. But it is not needed to blast corals for a long period.

Define "high PAR." It's almost always higher PAR than we're providing a tank for eight hours a day on the reef. If you look at the data I linked too, it's far from what is typically considered "high" PAR.

Edit: I do ramp intensity from 0-70% over the first six hours and then back down from 70-0% the following six hours. Color ramps from 0-50% the first two hours of the photo-period and from 50-0% the last two hours.

 

[MTBake]

I ran this same setup on my 40 breeder. 2 360we and 4 t5s. The t5s were on for 11 hours a day and the Kessils for 9 hours a day. No ramping on the Kessils. 100% intensity on the whitest setting. It worked pretty good. I have since switched my light setup.

 

[reefwiser]

"high Par"= 300 and 500 for an extended period of time. In nature there is this thing called High Noon which doesn't last for 8 hours a day. You can get photoinhibition that can cause corals to not grow at the proper rate. You also can cause an imbalance with too much light that can lead to issues with algae. Aquarium is about balance of input light and nutrients to the export of the waste from fish and corals. Alage take advantage of any imbalance.