Light upgrade PAR numbers and schedule

[b4tn]

Long story short, I had been saving up for a pair of XR30 Pro lights and diffusers. The day I had them in my cart ready to buy I was turned on to the ReeFi extreme with $100 sale and ended up getting a pair of extremes instead. I used the money saved to also get a USB SQ-520 PAR sensor and a bigger diamond ring for my wife . So that being said I am overwhelmed right now with colors, schedules, and PAR numbers. While these lights are clearly far superior to my blackboxes I am unsure what direction I need to go. Right now my tank is only 2 months old with some leptos, a duncan colony, hammer, zoas, and a brain coral transplanted from my old reef. I am a little confused on photo period and acceptable par numbers. I tried the default LPS schedule and it was too blue for my liking so I built my own schedule based on the AB+ where it has full spectrum for 7 hours with one hour up and down ramp.

My two questions are first, I see many run 12 hour photo periods that ramp to a peak them immediately back down. I understand that WWC had best color and growth using the AB+ schedule so why do so many not use it? Is the ramp to peak mainly so you get a full day of viewing? .

Second, I did not like the schedule I built. The attached pic is from my blacbox lights with the par numbers in red. The green numbers are my custom built AB+clone on the extremes but ramped down. So I switched to the recommended ramp to peak SPS schedule and par numbers are closer to 300-350 on top of the rocks and I really like the look so its its currently acclimating at 60%. I remember reading that LED PAR numbers vs T5 and halide numbers are different due o the pin point nature of LED's. With reflectors on the extremes though the light coverage is so smooth, is this still the case?. For SPS on the rocks and LPS on the bottom and in corners is 300 on the top rock and 100-150 on the bottom a good number to shoot for?

 

[Bpb]

People do those long ramps because they can. There is little benefit to it. You can absolutely just set your lights to what you want and have them come on and turn off.

 

[jda]

WWC is a vendor, not a hobbyist. Find a hobbyist that you can mimic, not a store... they have different goals than you. They do things with their lights when the store is closed that not as many people know about... and they also HAVE to keep them on for longer hours for retail. In any case, what they do it not likely going to work for you.

MH and T5 are different because they have light that a PAR meter cannot read...so they have more output than a LED with the same PAR reading. This won't matter to you since your new lights will just emit in the visible range and the PAR meter will get most of it. 300 up to and 100-150 at the bottom is a good place to start... for sure.

Ramping is just for you... the corals will not care. I run my MH for 9 or 10 hours, on/off with massive amounts of PAR for the whole time. Nothing minds and nothing "needs" a ramp. If you like it, then cool, but I would get the corals at least 8 hours of solid lighting.

Some of the best LED only tanks use a massive amount of daylight for their light. Daylight for most of the day and then "blue it up" for viewing when you get home.