Lighting Advice Please! Red Sea Reef LED 50

[PTXReef]

Hello reef squad!

Any suggestions on lighting upgrades or schedule for the Red Sea LED 50s? I’ve been running two of them for over a year now and feel like they are too dim for my 95g Wave mixed reef. Some corals (a hammer) seem to have extended it’s tentacles further as if it was reaching for light. Are these lights sufficient for my tank? The schedule right now is an hour ramp up, 8 hours at 100% blues 60% whites, one hour ramp down. I originally had it at the same length but at 100% blues 20% whites but that was too blue for my liking. Thanks in advance!

Tank dimensions:
48” x 24” x 25”

Lights are sitting ~9” from the water surface and deepest depth is 20” from the water surface.

FTS:

 

[xxkenny90xx]

I'm not too familiar with that fixture but on a tank that size I would probably be using 3 or even 4 puck style leds. But the real answer here is you need to rent a par meter

 

[Juniorh2r]

If you want them to be whiter which will have everything at 100% select the 15k I have mines on 20k but the ones I have are the 90s

 

[Wtyson254]

You need two 90s on your tank.

 

[ScottB]

Hello reef squad!

Any suggestions on lighting upgrades or schedule for the Red Sea LED 50s? I’ve been running two of them for over a year now and feel like they are too dim for my 95g Wave mixed reef. Some corals (a hammer) seem to have extended it’s tentacles further as if it was reaching for light. Are these lights sufficient for my tank? The schedule right now is an hour ramp up, 8 hours at 100% blues 60% whites, one hour ramp down. I originally had it at the same length but at 100% blues 20% whites but that was too blue for my liking. Thanks in advance!

Tank dimensions:
48” x 24” x 25”

Lights are sitting ~9” from the water surface and deepest depth is 20” from the water surface.

FTS:

I believe your intuition is correct; that is not enough light for some corals. For others it is fine. A couple of the LED 90s would've been a better fit.

The "look" of a fixture and the "look" of the tank are very personal and subjective, but for growing coral I would suggest a 48" 8 bulb ATI fixture. It provides a consistent blanket of light that is tough to beat. Get 2X of blue+, coral+, purple, and actinic and you are good.

But the tank "look" is not for everyone as you will lose some shimmer and pop that the LEDs provide. If you feel like you would miss that look, you could drop down to a 6 bulb and add a reefbrite blue strip LED.

The most cost effective thing you could do is an Aquatic Life T5 hybrid fixture and pop your two 50s into that. You would need to check if AL has the brackets for those RS lights though. Back when I bought, they only had brackets for Radions, Hydras, and Kessils.

 

[YurgiReef]

I'm in the middle of my light mounting project and found this thread.
As @ScottB stated before, you could do an ALife t5 hybrid and drop the Reef LEDs into it.
I'm using 4 ATI T5 bulbs in that fixture with 2x Red Sea LED 50Ws integrated.
This is for my 50 gallon cube (24"x24"x20"deep)

They DO sell brackets that hold the ReefLED50W - I just got a pair from BRS for about $12 or so...
If you search their lighting page, hybrid T5/LED section, and sort by price (low to high) the brackets are one of the first items to pop up.

 

[PTXReef]

I'm in the middle of my light mounting project and found this thread.
As @ScottB stated before, you could do an ALife t5 hybrid and drop the Reef LEDs into it.
I'm using 4 ATI T5 bulbs in that fixture with 2x Red Sea LED 50Ws integrated.
This is for my 50 gallon cube (24"x24"x20"deep)

They DO sell brackets that hold the ReefLED50W - I just got a pair from BRS for about $12 or so...
If you search their lighting page, hybrid T5/LED section, and sort by price (low to high) the brackets are one of the first items to pop up.

Thanks for the suggestions, appreciate it!