Led distance from water.

[Mmsetta]

Building a canopy to use with a newly acquired led. I was considering dropping the light down more so the top is flat with the canopy. As it is now it is about 7" from the water. Dropping it down would put it about 4-5" from the water line. Would that be too close? Hope to grow some corals and getting a sunburst anemone.

The light has 55 LEDs (bright white and blue). Not sure the watt of each - but it is very bright. I also have a led bar behind this light which has 12 3 watt LEDs. So, seems like a lot. Worried too close would be too much

Would the extra 2-3 inches make a huge difference?

 

[JDMREEF]

Mine is set about 7 inchs from my water in my biocube 29. I would say you are fine considering your size of tank. My buddy hangs his led 14" from the water in his tank because its a 75g and hell get more coverage but less intensity

 

[Mmsetta]

But do you think if I drop it to 4 or 5" it will be too intense?

 

[JDMREEF]

Closer you are to the waterline, less coverage youll get. Your leds dont look like they have 90 degrees or 120 degrees optics either means less light closer you are to the water. Are your leds dimmable?

 

[Mmsetta]

No, not dim able

 

[Vucious]

My LEDs are about 8 inches from the water, but I have a combination of 60 and 12 optics so the par is still pretty good.

 

[reggaedrummin]

I think you're going to burn out your corals. I have a 55 diode fixture too on a 30g. I have mine about 8 inches from the surface with 120° optics and run it at only about 45% and its still bordering on too much light. My reef is all sps and 3 clam. You should probably be looking at either a dimmable fixture or hanging that more like 12" to 18" above the surface. Even still, 100% is going to be a lot of light. No matter what height, you'll need to run it for VERY Short periods daily to acclimate your corals to it

 

[miamiangler]

I
have mine 16 Inches from the water line In my canopy . I actually cut out the top and have the light on top off the canopy . also If you put the light that close to the water line you will have a hard time doing work on your aquarium

 

[Mmsetta]

Thanks for the advise. Ugh- not enough light before, now too much. What about a combination of whites at portion of the day and then blues. I always heard at least 4x watts per gallon.

 

[Mmsetta]

I guess most of this is trial a error huh. My zoa is responding pretty well so far and the colors look awesome under the blues

 

[reggaedrummin]

The watts per gallon rule applies more to halides than LED's. LED's produce only the spectrum of light they are tuned to produce whereas incandescent bulbs produce a broad spectrum of light with simply a focus towards a specific spectrum so 150w of LED's will produce considerably more tuned light than a 150w halide. The argument between halides vs LED's is specially that, efficiency vs overall spectrum production though as LED's continue to advance, their ability to produce more pieces of the spectrum increases and so does our understanding of what is truly beneficial. That said, I think you have the right idea of running a mix of blue and white light but if either channel is on long at 100%, you're likely to bleach out your corals. Start slow, just a couple of hours/day, and monitor your coral. Consider the advice to mount your light higher, and look into a dimmable controller.

 

[Mmsetta]

Can anyone suggest a good dimmable controller